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Installing Ubuntu on Retina Macbook Pro


There is an update to this post that shows a simpler and more maintainable approach to the installation.

Installing Ubuntu on a Mac tends to be a little trickier than installing on a PC as Macs use EFI instead of BIOS. Now, with the introduction of Apple's Retina Macbook Pro screens we have an additional complication. However, Canonical and the Ubuntu community have been investing some time in getting the Retina Macbooks to play nice with Ubuntu 13.04, so I decided to get the latest, bleeding edge version. The great thing is that there has been an effort to keep the trunk version stable, so I've that getting the pre-release version of Ubuntu 13.04 to be a great solution.

If you search the Internet for information about running Ubuntu on the Retina Macbook Pro, you'll find tales of issues with the screen resolution (running at 2880x1880 with tiny icons and text), and driver issues with WiFi and sound. Well, I'm pleased to say, that Ubuntu 13.04 (with the 3.8.0-6 kernel) resolves these issues. There are some extra steps to take during the installation process, but these are related to EFI rather than Ubuntu itself. This guide is a walkthrough of the steps that I took to partition Macbook Pro hard drive and to install a dual-boot system: Mac OS X 10.8 and Ubuntu 13.04 (pre-release).

Partition the Hard Drive

This step is nice and easy on the Mac. Just launch Disk Utility, click on the laptop's hard drive and click on the Partition tab. From there the Mac OS X partition can be resized. Disk Utility allows you to create a new partition with the extra space, but I just left it as Free Space, so that it would be created by the Ubuntu installer.

Create the Ubuntu USB Installer

The latest stable release of Ubuntu is available at http://www.ubuntu.com/download, but I wanted pre-release version, which is at http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/. You'll need the 64-bit Mac (AMD64) desktop image.

Instructions for creating a bootable USB stick are provided http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/create-a-usb-stick-on-mac-osx, you'll just need to remember to use the latest ISO that was downloaded above.

Install an EFI Boot Manager: Refind

Previously, I've used Refit as a boot manager and boot loader for Ubuntu on a Mac, but that doesn't seem to be maintained any more. So, for the Retina Macbook Pro I've switched to Refind, which is just a Boot Manager. We'll then be loading Ubuntu using EFI instead of Grub, which means we can leave the old world of BIOS behind. See the Refind website for more information about boot managers and loaders, EFI and Grub.

Download the binary Refind zip file from http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/getting.html and unzip it by double-clicking the file in the Mac OS X Finder. You'll want to check out the Refind installation instructions, but I chose the simplest option of installing Refind in the Mac OS X partition. There are other possibilities, but this seemed the easiest for me to manage - especially if something went wrong.

The installation needs to be done in the Terminal, by running the install.sh script:
 cd ~/Downloads/refind-bin-0.6.7  
 ./install.sh  

The script will prompt for your password so it can run with administrator privileges using sudo. Once the script has run, Refind is installed and you can see the configuration files at /EFI/refind.

You'll need to reboot a couple of times before you can see the Refind menu appearing. We'll need to configure Refind later.

Installing Ubuntu

The main challenge I hit during the installation process is that we need to copy the Ubuntu kernel file and RAM disk image over to the Mac OS X partition. However, though you can see the Mac OS X partition from Ubuntu, it is read-only. So, we'll need a method of copying the files over once Ubuntu has been installed.

One method is to upload the files to another server when you are booted into Ubuntu - which means that you need a network connection running. On the Retina Macbook Pro, there is no built-in Ethernet, so you're only option is to use WiFi. However, when booted off the USB stick the Macbook's WiFi does not work without extra drivers. So the option is to use an external WiFi card that does work from the installer (I used an Edimax EW-7811UN Nano Adapter), use an external USB drive, or an Apple Thunderbolt Ethernet Adapter (untested). However, given that Ubuntu 13.04 is still in development, you may find that WiFi works for you when you boot from the USB stick.

Connect your bootable USB drive into the Macbook Pro and reboot - you should see the USB stick as an option in the Refind boot menu, so boot from that. In the Ubuntu installer, select the Try Ubuntu option and it will take you to the Ubuntu desktop at a resolution of 2880x1800 - you may need a magnifying glass handy to read the text. That said, it does look beautiful!

By default, Ubuntu has 'touch to click' enabled for the trackpad by default, which I found difficult work with. So the first thing I did was to turn that off in the Mouse and Trackpad area of System Settings. Next, it's work changing the screen resolution to something more usable - I selected 1680x1050 (16:10). After that, if you are using WiFi, then you'll need to connect to the network.

Install Ubuntu

You're now ready to install Ubuntu. We want to do this without installing the Grub boot-loader, which would put us back into the old-world BIOS mode. To install without Grub, run the following in a terminal:
 ubiquity -b  
This will launch the installer and you can follow the instructions to install Ubuntu on the free space that we created earlier, alongside Mac OS X. At the end of the installation, make sure that you choose the option to Continue to try Ubuntu, as there is some more work to do here.

Copy the Kernel and RAM Disk Image Files

The next step is to copy the kernel file and the RAM disk image to your external server or flash drive. The files that you need are in /boot and will be called something like vmlinuz-3.8.0-6-generic and initrd.img-3.8.0-6-generic. If you have your Internet connection working, the simplest option is to upload the files to Ubuntu One, DropBox or Google Drive.

Make a Note of the UUID

You'll need to know the UUID of the partition that you have just installed Ubuntu on. You can see this in the Nautilus File Manager window when you select the Ubuntu partition (in the title bar). Or, you can see it by running:
 sudo blkid /dev/sda5  

You'll need to replace sda5 with the partition that you used. The UUID will be a long list of characters like 27c9a93d-6cc8-2395-9a97-d105353e5c07 - we'll need this for the Refind configuration file.

Once you are done, you can reboot into Mac OS X. You'll notice that the Ubuntu partition is not showing up in Refind as yet - that's what we need to fix next.

Configure Refind

We need to configure Refind so that it sees that Ubuntu partition and has all the correct details so it can boot from it. The Refind configuration is in /EFI, which will need root access to be able to update the details. I found that TextWrangler is a great option for editing config file as it allows you to authenticate to update the files. Make sure that you download TextWrangler from the Barebones site as the version in the Apple App Store does not have this facility.

Copy the Kernel and RAM Disk Image Files

The first step is to create a new folder in the EFI config area that will hold the Ubuntu kernel and disk image: /EFI/ubuntu. You'll need to copy the Ubuntu kernel and RAM disk image files into the new folder from the server or flash drive that you used earlier.

Configuration File Changes

It's worth checking the Refind site for more details about the configuration file changes, as there are a lot more options than I will cover. The main configuration file is /EFI/refind/refind.conf. We need to set up a configuration section for Ubuntu, so edit the file and add the following section:
1:  menuentry Linux {  
2:       icon EFI/refind/icons/os_ubuntu.icns  
3:       volume 5:  
4:       loader EFI/ubuntu/vmlinuz-3.8.0-6-generic  
5:       initrd EFI/ubuntu/initrd.img-3.8.0-6-generic  
6:       options "ro root=UUID=27c9a93d-6cc8-2395-9a97-d105353e5c07"  
7:       #disabled  
8:  }  
Note that there is a menuentry Linux section already in the file, and I have just edited that section. Some of the key points to note:

  • Line 2: the icon that will be displayed on the boot manager screen. In this case, I'm using the Ubuntu logo instead of Tux.
  • Line 3: you can find the volume by running diskutil list.
  • Lines 4-5: the paths to the kernel and RAM disk image.
  • Line 6: the UUID of the Ubuntu partition that you made a note of earlier.
  • Line 7: make sure that you comment out or remove the disabled line, otherwise it will not show up in the boot menu.
That's it. If you want to make the boot screen a it prettier, you can copy a PNG or BMP image file to /EFI and add an extra line to the configuration file:
banner /EFI/MilkyWay.png 

Reboot Into Ubuntu

Once you reboot you should see the Ubuntu icon in the Refind boot menu, and it should start up. When  it does, you'll see Ubuntu in its 2880x1800 pixel glory. So once you changed the resolution to a reasonable setting, you should find Ubuntu running beautifully:

  • The WiFi adapter works out of the box.
  • The sound card works.
  • The web cam works.

In fact, I've been using Ubuntu on the Retina Macbook Pro as my main work machine for a week now and I've not found anything that does not work.

Comments

  1. Hi,
    Does intel and nVidia graphics card driver works well? How can it switch smoothly between two graphics in ubuntu?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From what I can see, the standard installation uses the Nouveau driver which uses the nVidia graphics. I don't think that the system switches between Intel and nVidia. From what I've read, and I'm no expert, is that Ubuntu will look first for the nVidia driver and if that doesn't work, it will try the Intel one.

      When I do: sudo lshw -c video
      I see that both the nouveau and i915 (Intel) drivers are available.

      The Nouveau driver on 13.04 works really well and I have no complaints or issues. I haven't even bothered trying to switch the the proprietary nVidia driver or the Intel card. This is my main work machine, so after getting it up-and-running, I haven't messed with the drivers, mainly because the current setup is working fine.

      Delete
  2. hi shiny, thanks very much for these hints. i just got a MacBookPro10,1. and despite https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro10-1/Precise, i think i'll follow you into 13.04; your instructions should work for a 10,1 too, right?

    and re: "...we need to copy the Ubuntu kernel file and RAM disk image over to the Mac OS X partition", as i don't have an external wifi, a second (non-bootable) USB drive seems even more straight-forward, since the MBP has 2 USBs?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have an MacBook Pro 15-inch retina, which I think is 10,1.

      Yes, copying the files to a second USB drive should work fine. That's what I would have done if I could have found a second one ;) It's best to format the drive as FAT/FAT32 disk as that will be readable and writeable from OS X and Ubuntu.

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  3. Hey, awesome info! Your article is the reason I'll probably end up buying the retina Macbook Pro!

    I'm really interested in finding out what is the impact on the battery life of using Ubuntu rather than OS X?

    And also, I'm guessing Ubuntu is only using the NVidia card all the time, rather than being able to switch between the NVidia and the Intel one, automatically, on the fly. Am I right?

    Cheers!
    Vlad.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I haven't done any analytics on battery life, but I haven't noticed any issues.

      The default install uses the Nouveau driver for graphics, so that will be using the nVidia card. Previous versions of Nouveau had performance issues, but I've found the 13.04 driver to be excellent. CPU usage stays pretty low on the system.

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  4. Thank you for the awesome tutorial. I was able to get ubuntu installed on my new MBP but I am running into a few snags. So far Wifi and sound isn't working. I was able to get Wifi up and running with the use of tethering my phone for internet but i can't seem to figure out how to get sound to work.

    From what I can tell, my sound card is detected and the drivers are there. I used this as a guide and everything came back good (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshooting) but I still don't have any sound. Do I need to try to reload alsa-core and pulseaudio? Why googling answers, I found that in a random post but not sure if that is necessary.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Which version of Ubuntu are you using? If you have a Retina MBP, then I recommend the latest version (13.04) as that has had some work to get the rMBP working well.

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  5. can confirm working well with kubuntu. but cannot get the apple thunderbolt-display working correctly. any suggestions?
    Thanks
    dom

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's good news on kubuntu.

      I don't have any a thunderbolt display, so can't really advise. It's best to ask on http://askubuntu.com/.

      Delete
    2. I am in the same situation, but in a Xubuntu. I fixed it, when i install a linux kernel with drm-intel-next. You can find it on :
      http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/drm-intel-next/

      DRM INTEL is the driver of the intel chipset i915 which control the thunderbolt

      Delete
  6. Hi, Shiny! Could you tell something about battery life? How many hours on web surfing, how many on moives and so on =) Thanks a lot in advance for answer

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm generally using the laptop plugged-in at work, but I'll try working off the battery next week and see how that goes.

      Delete
    2. I'm using Ubuntu for work, so I'm not really watching movies on the laptop. I tested the battery life today and it lasted around 4 hours. That is doing web browsing, IRC, Emacs, may 10 mins of video, ssh into other machines and running Postgresql locally.

      Delete
    3. Great, thanks for sharing! Are you using Bumblebee by any chance? Perhaps there's a chance the battery life improves if your Ubuntu would use the Nvidia Optimus technology.

      Delete
    4. Just realized you're the same person as Shiny :)

      Delete
    5. Thanks for the tip on Bumblebee (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bumblebee) - I've not tried it, but I'll have to try it out.

      Delete
  7. After a real struggle to get the current Ubuntu mac image on a stick.. (the hdiutil stuff is not working, the iso image cannot be mounted by my osx, the dmg cannot be mounted) I created the bootable stick in ubuntu.
    Now refind simply gives a "Boot error"... My mac is a 10.2 13 retina pro.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I found that OS X was not able to mount the Ubuntu Mac image, but it still booted from the stick without problems. Have you installed Ubuntu onto the MBP hard disk?

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    2. I got the same result. Refind gives the option to choose OSX or Linux. When I choose Linux it gives a black screen with "Boot error" in the upper left corner.

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  8. Unfortunately I could not get to boot the 13.04 image, be it created on the mac or in linux. I was able to boot the 12.10 linux which surprisingly has a working display driver. I installed regular Ubuntu 12.10, using grub, just as I would install any other linux on any other computer. On the 10.2 mac that I was using it has a working display driver but no wireless driver, sound gets recognized but nothing comes out of the speakers. Didn't have the time to fiddle with it much as I forgot my external ethernet card at the office. I will try and upgrade from 12.10 to 13.04 from within ubuntu and see how it works.

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    Replies
    1. Did you get this to work? I tried an upgrade to from 12.04 to 12.10 and ended up starting fresh because I kept being sent to a blank screen. Any suggestions?

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  9. Brilliant. Takes a bit of nerve on a new rMBP but works well. Only problem I have is I get 2 Ubuntu boxes on the menu. Maybe because I created a swap file. Not usedto having 8G of RAM

    ReplyDelete
  10. I successfully installed Ubuntu on my rMBP . Many thanks. However I cannot remove the additional 'penguin' option from the boot menu. The option is 'boot linux from HD'. I've tried most options in refind.conf without success.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think the extra boot option comes from the bootloader from scanning for Linux kernels. You can remove the duplicate by commenting out:

      scan_all_linux_kernels

      i.e. change to
      # scan_all_linux_kernels

      Delete
  11. For those having problems with sound try this:

    sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

    at the bottom add:

    options snd_hda_intel model=mbp101

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Awesome Stronghenge, saved me a lot of troubleshooting.

      Delete
  12. Thanks for the tip. Sound works well. Unfortunately I did a re-install while trying to find the problem and now my Macbook wifi is not seen. Using a usb device for the time being.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thanks, I did that but it didn´t work. I took the comment off the line ´Åšcanfor internal,external,optional,manual' That worked. I think it must find something in HD Bios.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Fixed my missing wifi. Got this from another link.
    sudo apt-get --reinstall install bcmwl-kernel-source.

    ReplyDelete
  15. My wireless isn't working. I have the ethernet adapter as well, but that doesn't work either.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Try the fix from +Thomas Mulcahy, above.

      Delete
  16. It all works great until I'm going to copy the vmlinuz* and initrd* files from /boot. They are simply not there. Did this change, or am I doing something very wrong? Grateful for any help!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't think that would have changed. What files do you have in /boot?

      Delete
    2. I'm having the same issue as Mikael: the vmlinuz* and initrd* files aren't in my /boot directory.

      What is there is the following:

      abi-3.8.0-19-generic
      config-3.8.0-19-generic
      grub/
      memtest86+_multiboot.bin
      memtest86+.bin
      System.map-3.8.0-19-generic

      Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

      Delete
    3. I'm not too sure. Did you create a separate /boot partition when you installed Ubuntu? If so, you may need to mount that partition.

      Delete
    4. Nope. I went through the installer and had Ubuntu "Install alongside OS X". I've been away from Linux for a while so I just kept everything with the default settings when installing.

      Delete
    5. I just let ubuntu do the partitioning for me, I am not sure if that created a separate /boot partition or not..

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    6. Open your installed partition with Thunar or something similar... mine wasn't mapped into /boot (I think that's where the live CD boots from). I found it after poking around directly.

      Delete
    7. Try going to /media/ubuntu
      You should see your newly created partition there (the directory name will be its UUID) as well as your USB partition. If you go into your newly created partition, you'll find the vmlinuz and initrd files.

      Delete
    8. It looks like they're in /target/boot

      At least, that's where I found them. I hope they're the right ones >.>

      Delete
    9. I couldn't find them either, was having the same problem as josh and Mikael Karlsson.

      After beating my head against a wall for a while, I find them:

      First, I stopped trying to look only using terminal.
      I opened up nautilus
      There on the lower left was the name of my partition I had just installed ubuntu to. It wasn't mounted. I double clicked on it.

      Now, back in terminal, going into /media there was a new directory that wasn't there before: ubuntu.

      So Now I just cd /media/ubuntu/[the UUID of my partition]/boot
      and there they are.

      Sigh of relief...

      Delete
  17. Thank you James for the response, but I managed to install Ubuntu using this guide instead:
    http://cberner.com/2013/03/01/installing-ubuntu-13-04-on-macbook-pro-retina/

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hi!
    I'm trying to install ubuntu with this method on an external HD. I've managed to do this, but i have some problems with the bootloader.
    I read this error

    "Not found while loading vmlinuz-3.8.0-19-generic"

    Why?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My guess is that it is looking on the internal drive instead of the external drive. Check the refind docs as you may need to prefix the path with "fs1:" to get to the external drive: http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/configfile.html

      Delete
    2. Francesco! Did you find a solution to your external HD problem.I tried t move my installation to an external drive and got the same response "Not found while loading vmlinuz-3.8.0-19-generic"

      Delete
  19. Thanks for the awesome install guide. After install & configuring the refind.cofig file. My MBPr will boot to the black screen where the lines of kernal start then it stops and the keyboard is non-responsive. I plugged in another keyaboard via USB and it sees the keyboard connected and states disconnected but wont go any further. Any ideas on what I did wrong? Should I try a re-install of Ubuntu? Any help is greatly appreciated.

    Thanks in Advance...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Could you post some of the last messages that are displayed? That may give a clue as to what is happening.

      Delete
    2. Micos ! I found this when I re-partioned my drive to reinstall ubuntu. I forgot to change the UUID in the refind.conf. I also had an error on my USB stick which caused a reboot problem. Also I would recommend a Time Machine backup before changing the refined.conf file as you can stop the boot to OS and you will have to do a complete recovery.

      Delete
  20. Thank you for your guide. I've used it as a base for installing on a Macbook Pro Retina 13" (10,2). I've documented that here: http://blog.alexvictorchan.com/installing-ubuntu-13-04-on-13-macbook-pro-retina-102/

    ReplyDelete
  21. I have been using Ubuntu 13.04 on the rMBP for a month now and everything works EXCEPT a very small and very annoying bug... The directory system is not set to "watch" for updates.

    Example: if you have a folder open in the GUI and download a file to that folder, it doesn't show until you navigate away from that folder and navigate back.

    Why is this a big issue? I am a developer, and when using a text editor with a directory tree view I constantly have to close my program and re-open it to see any changes make to the directory. (specifically sublime text 2). I tried many other programs with directory views, same issue. Any notice this and/or have an idea of a fix?

    At the end of the day, its still beats working on the mac osx.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Hello, I just want to point out that I was able to install Ubuntu very very simply without having to go through all these extra steps.

    The installation worked when I was on Ubuntu 12.10 except that I had a few drivers not working out of the box (especially wifi)
    Ubuntu 13.04 (stable) was just released a couple weeks ago and I switched to that version and everything worked out of the box.

    It turns out that grub as a Efi bootloader. So this is what I did.
    1- Partition my Hard Drive using disk utility. (for example 100GB Macintosh HD, 80GB Linux HD, 4GB swap space)
    2- Created the usb bootable disk following the guide that was linked above.
    3- Installed rEFIt. (I am satisfied with rEFIt, so I didn't see a need to install rEFInd)
    4- Plug the USB disk into the computer, restart and choose grub efi option from rEFIt and it will boot into and EFI version of grub and linux.
    5- Proceed to the installation of Linux, making sure that when you are selecting the partitions, you allocate the 80GB to / and the 4GB to swap space. (Of course if you are experienced, then partition your hard drive as you wish).
    6- From there, the installation will finish and you will have Wifi, sound, keyboard, trackpad (with multitouch), video, webcam etc... working out of the box.

    You will notice that when you boot the computer, you will boot into a EFI version of grub and it's very noticeable.

    Only issue that I don't really like is that rEFIt will put Ubuntu as the first OS on the boot menu list, but I am sure that can be easily fixed with a little bit of knowledge but I haven't really bothered to do so.

    Also, the guide provided above for creating a bootable USB definitely works if you follow it correctly. It turns out that Mac OS X cannot mount the volume, but the computer Firmware will definitely notice the efi boot loader in it, so just reboot and you'll see it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for posting - I'm sure others will find this useful.

      I've used rEFIt and grub like this in the past, but wanted to avoid having two sets of bootloaders running. Using refind you can avoid grub altogether. Also, I understand that the nVidia graphics card needs the laptop loaded from EFI. I'm not sure that using rEFIt+grub will give you access to the nVidia card.

      Delete
    2. rEFIt is essentially a boot menu while grub is a boot loader. My method still works even if grub is not installed.

      Delete
  23. Thanks for the tutorial, I just finished installing Ubuntu on my rMbP, it works great (with the wifi fix).

    Just a question for longer term use, when there's a kernel update, is there another option than to recopy the two /boot files to the mac partition and update the refind config?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've documented the simplest method of getting refind set up. I just wanted to go for the quickest and safest method possible. Long-term, this is probably not the best option for the reason you stated: whenever there's a kernel update you have to copy the kernel to the EFI boot area on OS X. Since the OS X partition is not writeable from Ubuntu, you can't easily automate this.

      A better solution is to create a separate EFI boot partition that is readable and writeable from both OSes. I've not done that yet, and may look at it at some stage. There is some info on it in the refind docs. From memory, I think you have to create a separate partition for EFI and that will be formatted as a FAT (FAT16 or FAT32) partition - which is readable/writeable from Ubuntu and OS X. This approach would still need the ernel to be copied to the EFI partition, but you could automate that with a cron.

      Really, the best solution is that the EFI boot recognises the Ubuntu /boot area and loads the kernel directly. In theory refind *should* be able to do this, but I couldn't find the right setup in refind.conf to get that working. Make sure you post your solution if you find it!

      Delete
  24. Hi, I am considering doing this (buying an MBPr and running OSX and Ubuntu in dual boot), however I have 2 questions/concerns:

    1. You say "So once you changed the resolution to a reasonable setting". Does that mean that you set it to non-retina? Then why would you buy a Retina MBP instead of a normal, cheaper one?

    2. 4 hours of battery life seems a lot poorer than running OSX. Is that acceptable to you?

    I am interested in hearing your thoughts on this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think that the concept of "retina" is a bit misleading. When you run OS X on a rMBP, the OS is rendering the 2880x1800 resolution screen in a buffer and then rescaling is to 1440x900 for display. There may be some "magic" in the rescaling process to get the sharper looking display.

      On Ubuntu, by default, it displays the native resolution of 2880x1440 which is hard to read because of the text is so tiny on a laptop. So I use a resolution of 1680x1050 on Ubuntu, which is a scaled resolution.

      The retina "magic" in OS X only happens at one resolution (1440x900). So if you choose 1680x1050 it will look similar to Ubuntu - slightly fuzzier than if you use 1440x900 on OS X. However, it is still *much* better than a standard non-retina screen. The text on my Ubuntu rMBP looks better than the text on my Mac Pro that has a 20" Apple display (when running OS X).

      Battery life is relative. I am running a lot more services on Ubuntu that I do within OS X. So we are comparing 4 hours on Ubuntu (with more services) with 5 hours on OS X. Normally, I am using Ubuntu when connected to power, so the loss of an hour is not critical to me.



      Delete
    2. I run at native resolution and just scale the fonts by 1.5 and set webpage zoom by default; this makes it totally usuable (i do so all day). I also use the intel graphics and get about 7 hours out of the machine :)

      Delete
    3. Small edit here on how the retina works:

      The OS is actually rendering at 2880x1800, while "thinking" it's 1440x900 (Similar to what the retina display does on the iPhone). So when displaying on the screen, everything looks very sharp and crisp, since we have 4 times the level of detail of a regular screen (2 times in each direction). And by "thinking", I mean that the OS uses the high quality graphics and fonts whenever available. So for example if the Safari Icon is normally 64x64, it will use the 128x128 version instead. And it is the case for every icons on the screen. If you dig around the OS a little bit, you'll see things like iconname.png and iconname@2x.png

      The retina "magic" also happens at 1680x1050 and 1920x1200.
      on the 1680x1050 case, The OS is rendered at 3360x2100 in the buffer "thinking" it's 1680x1050. So it will use the same high res icons as before. Then, using fancy Math algorithms, the 3360x2100 is scaled down to 2880x1800 to fit the native resolution of the screen. That algorithm basically finds out what pixels to keep and which ones to combine.

      That is why it is less clear than the native retina, but still better than non retina screen. You will also notice that Apple gives a little warning saying that scaling resolution may affect performances. That is because the GPU is rendering at that high 3360x2100 resolution internally, which is a lot of pixels, then the scaling algorithm on every single frame also affects the performances.

      1920x1200 will be rendered in a similar fashion at 3840x2400 then scaled down to 2880x1800.

      However, on Linux, I don't think there is support for HiDPI (the "magic"). If there is, I haven't figured it out yet. So, the internals of the system don't have high resolution icons stored with the regular icons. so the only thing we can do is render at resolution lower or equal to the native resolution 2880x1800, using the regular icons and then scale up. That's why everything will be readable and bigger but blurrier. If you were to run at resolution higher than 2880x1800 like what OS X does, it would still not make a difference because Linux will still be using it's low res icons and scaling down will just bring you back to normal and that would also be a waste of battery and GPU. Linux will also give you a resolution out of range error because it doesn't support HiDPI yet.

      Note that system fonts are a little different since they are based on SVG (as opposed to png) and can be manipulated independently of the screen resolution. SVG stands for 'scalable vector graphics', which means you can scale fonts as you wish and they will just automatically scale up and down and look awesome!



      Delete
    4. @grubbymits Great idea on resolution and font sizing. That gives razor sharp fonts and a very readable screen.

      Also a good point on battery life: that's going to vary from user to user. I tested on a single day on a single configuration, and I haven't sought out any ways to optimise battery life as its not a priority to me.

      Delete
    5. @Franck Kamayou Great note, very informative. Just want to add that KDE, for example, (maybe other desktops as well) has support for SVG icons as well, so you could set the default icon size to something bigger and still get them to look sharp.

      Delete
    6. My setup works pretty well in KDE. I have done the following:

      - Set DPI to 160 in System Settings -> Application Appearance -> Fonts. Optionally tweak font sizes as well.
      - Make icons bigger in Dolphin's settings (if you use the default icons pack in KDE, they scale nicely since they are SVG): Dolphin -> Control -> Configure Dolphin -> View Modes.
      - Set default page zoom 125% or 150%, in Chrome: chrome://settings/search#zoom . (The only problem here is that Chrome's tabs UI still looks small, because Chrome doesn't listen to the OS's DPI apparently. You'll have to live with that.)

      And voila!

      Delete
  25. This is a great tutorial! Thank you so much! I originally wanted to try Ubuntu on my rMBP because I had a hunch that it would allow me to leverage my nVidia Geforce 650m and Intel HD 4000 GPUs for OpenGL 4.x. For some reason Mac only supports up to OpenGL 3.x but I wanted to learn how to use 4.x. Both on the Intel and nVidia sites they stated that the cards could support OpenGL 4.x.

    So I installed all the appropriate libraries to run OpenGL but got a "bad configuration error" after running sample OpenGL code (I think this is because the drivers that Ubuntu ships with don't automatically support OpenGL 4.x). So I went ahead a tried installing drivers for both the nVidia and Intel cards but once I rebooted I got a black screen with no way to access the terminal.

    Is there anything special I need to do to get the divers to work with Ubuntu 13.04 or am I out of luck or just trying to do something impossible? I've been searching around the web with little hope of figuring out how to do this, but to no avail.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It may be better to post a question on the OpenGL forum or at askubuntu.com

      Delete
    2. Hey, you might wanna try this guide
      http://cberner.com/2013/03/01/installing-ubuntu-13-04-on-macbook-pro-retina/
      he touches on installing nvidia drivers.

      note that since then, the stable release of 13.04 came out with a lot more support out of the box (wifi, generic graphics, keyboard brightness...)

      Without grub, I am not sure on how you can boot into linux recovery or console if your drivers fail. I myself tried to install the nvidia drivers, I succeeded but only the native resolution was available and I tried to scale it down and I got a blank screen so I did a fresh install and did not try again since I needed to finish the semester. I might try again soon and let you know.

      Delete
  26. Everything worked ok for me (I am running Ubuntu 13.04 on a macbook retina 15 right now) except that there is a really annoying problem occurring: when I suspend it (clicking in "suspend" option or by closing it), it continues on (I can hear the sound that it did not really suspended) and it stops working: the screen gets completely black and it does not return from this state anyway so that I need to hold the turn off button and then turns it on again. That's a main issue for me because I am used to having a lot of things opened and sometimes I do not want to turn it off and lose everything I had on the screen.
    Is there any driver to fix this?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I haven't got the 'suspend' option working, but I rarely use it myself. It would be better to post a question on askubuntu.com.

      Delete
  27. Can you help me please?

    I managed to go through Ubuntu start option, but when I try to select the "Try Ubuntu option" I have this message "initramfs) Unable to find a medium containing a live file system" I googled it and some people said it's USB 3.0 problem, but as you know, there's no USB 2.0 on rMBP and you don't have this problem.

    I downloaded Ubuntu 13.10 instead and I'm using rMBP 15'' and Thunderbolt Ethernet cable.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Thanks for the great tutorial. I'm contemplating whether or not to buy a Mac Pro with Retina to use with Ubuntu. Two things bother me:

    1. That one needs to format the drive in FAT/FAT32. I find this bad given all of the other file system options. I'm wondering what the performance, etc is?

    2. I need to use the Nvidia drivers for the graphics (with CUDA) - would everything work smoothly? I did not read everything thoroughly, but I'm left with the impression that the Nvidia stuff may be problematic?

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think you need to read more thoroughly ;)

      You don't need to format the drive as FAT/FAT32. My OSX partition is HFS+, my Ubuntu partition is EXT4.

      I'm using the Nouveau drivers for graphics and they work great. Others use the nVidia drivers and I haven't seen any issues documented. The only drivers that I couldn't get working are the Intel drivers - I get a blank screen on boot.

      Delete
  29. Hi friends i m facing same initramfs problem as above person problem ..i need ubuntu urgently i m programmer using ifort in ubuntu becose it is free in ubuntu only...i m in trouble ..i have macbookpro 9.1....i tried zillion of things..onnce i formated my hd with windows 7 disc which costs me bad....

    ReplyDelete
  30. Hey, thanks a lot for the tutorial!

    I'm very close to finishing up the installation but need a little help

    1. I forgot to use the "ubiquity -b" command so I ended up installing ubuntu with Grub. how do I disable it? or remove it?

    2. How do I get the pathnames to my kernal and ram disk image? I've been doing everything off a liveCD actually do I didn't understand the whole "upload to dropbox" step

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  31. Hey, thanks a lot for the tutorial!

    Got 2 really quick questions, and I'll be done with my installation

    1. What if I accidentally installed with GRUB (I forgot the "ubiquity -b" line?!What to do now?

    2. How can I get the kernel and ram disk image pathnames? I need to add a menuentry to my .config file

    thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  32. Hi,
    thanks very much for your article.
    I have the following problem:

    The refind menu does not show up when booting (even after restarting a couple of times). Any idea why this might be the case ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Take a look at the comment from +Tucker Lein - that might work for you.

      Delete
  33. I just got a Macbook pro retina early 2013, and seems like rEFInd is not working for some reason. I installed rEFInd and when I reboot I dont see any custom boot screen at all.. Any solution for that??

    thanks a lot

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I find that sometimes a Mac OSX update will remove the refind boot menu. Re-running the refind install command (sudo ./install.sh) normally fixes the issue for me.

      Delete
  34. I think I've successfully installed ubuntu using this method but I want to double check. Is it correct when the boot menu says boot linux from macintosh HD where macintosh HD is the same partition where my Mac OS X is? When I use diskutil list and look at the volumes, the space I reserved for Ubuntu in volume 5 says Microsoft User Data. Is this correct?

    Also regarding wi-fi. I used the command that was suggested by Thomas and this worked for me after I installed but after the final steps where we configure refind to show ubuntu in the boot menu the wi-fi is no longer working and the command no longer works giving the error E: Unable to fetch some archives.

    Do you know what the problem is?

    ReplyDelete
  35. anyone got the sd card working yet???

    Mine just says:

    Jun 29 12:05:01 lappy kernel: [ 5225.073689] mmc0: error -110 whilst initialising SD card
    Jun 29 12:05:06 lappy kernel: [ 5230.591121] mmc0: Switching to 1.8V signalling voltage failed, retrying with S18R set to 0

    ReplyDelete
  36. Hey guys, I've been going through this process of installing on a non-retina Macbook Pro (10.3.8) and had a few issues, one of which wasn't mentioned here. I solved them after much trial and error and obscure googling, so I'll go ahead and share them here if anyone else is struggling.

    1.
    Issue:
    After it's installed, rEFInd will either hang on the boot, or boot once/twice, and then hang after "Loading Options from..." every remaining boot.

    Fix:
    The developer himself said this is a pretty elusive bug, only happening to a few people, but a fix is to use a different rEFInd version compiled with GNU Tools. It is located on the rEFInd downloads page, just ctrl + f GNU there for the download link to the latest version. Install this one instead of the typical rEFInd and it should boot every time with no issue from the loader (worked for me anyway).

    2.
    Issue:
    Same old wifi issue many seemed to have, except I didn't have a place to plug in an ethernet and get wired internet so the "sudo apt-get --reinstall install bcmwl-kernel-source" solution didn't work for me.

    Fix:
    So, when you're going through the first few pages of the ubuntu installer, the wifi will be broken, but select the install 3rd part apps and proceed. It will then ask you to connect to a network, and after a few seconds the wifi driver seems to kick into gear and fix itself. From here, connect to your network, go back a page, and select both external installation options. After it installs the wifi should work out of the box.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for posting. I didn't encounter those errors, but I know others have.

      Delete
  37. I have followed the instructions posted here with success. Much appreciated.

    According to the requirements of rEFInd, I have gone through the process of manually copying linux kernel upgrades from /boot/ (on ubuntu) to /EFI/ubuntu/ (on Mac OS X) several times now since I first got ubuntu 13.04 running on my Macbook pro retina (with kernel version 3.8.0-19)

    The last version copied was

    initrd.img-3.8.0-23-generic
    vmlinuz-3.8.0-23-generic

    "Software Updater" now says it's at version 3.8.0-27 (and seems to think all the installed software is up to date). But, since version 3.8.0-23, the requisite initrd and vmlinuz files have not appeared in /boot (on ubuntu), nor anywhere else (as near as I can tell).

    Any idea what's going on (i.e., what may have changed)? Nothing has broken so far. But, I'm nervous about downloading updated kernel versions that disappear into bit heaven.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The files should be in /boot in Ubuntu. You can use the 'uname -a' command to see which kernel version you are running. Then try searching for the latest kernel using 'locate vmlinuz-3.8.0-27-generic'.

      I'm currently running vmlinuz-3.8.0-27-generic and that's in /boot. Just to check it isn't related to permissions, you could switch to the root user temporarily using 'sudo su -'.

      Delete
    2. Still no luck with this. I know the files should be in /boot. They're not.
      It's not a matter of permissions. They are nowhere to be found (by locate).

      uname -a confirms I'm still running 3.8.0-23-generic

      I did

      sudo apt-get --reinstall install linux-headers-3.8.0-27-generic

      which produced the following output:

      Reading package lists... Done
      Building dependency tree
      Reading state information... Done
      0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
      Need to get 0 B/1,005 kB of archives.
      After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
      (Reading database ... 389248 files and directories currently installed.)
      Preparing to replace linux-headers-3.8.0-27-generic 3.8.0-27.40 (using .../linux-headers-3.8.0-27-generic_3.8.0-27.40_amd64.deb) ...
      Unpacking replacement linux-headers-3.8.0-27-generic ...
      Setting up linux-headers-3.8.0-27-generic (3.8.0-27.40) ...
      Examining /etc/kernel/header_postinst.d.
      run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/header_postinst.d/dkms 3.8.0-27-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-27-generic

      I'm not an expert. But, there are no obvious errors messages and the last line suggests the intent to write vmlinuz-3.8.0-27-generic into /boot

      Your response is good news in that it tells me things are working for you.
      Any hints/suggestions as to what I can do to further explore/diagnose what's happening on my machine?

      Thanks.

      Delete
    3. If you look at some of the earlier comments, some people have found the files in /media/ubuntu.

      Delete
    4. Ubuntu 13.04 is now at linux kernel version 3.8.0-30

      I don't know what happened to my machine after version 3.8.0-23. apt-get reported linux-headers-3.8.0-30-generic was installed (without the requisite files appearing in /boot). After I did

      sudo apt-get --reinstall install linux-image-3.8.0-30-generic
      sudo apt-get --reinstall install linux-image-extra-3.8.0-30-generic

      the necessary initrd.img and vmlinuz files appeared in /boot. After copying them to /EFI/ubuntu/ (on Mac OS X) and restarting, I'm now indeed running ubuntu with kernel version 3.8.0-30.

      I'll see what happens when the next ubuntu 13.04 kernel upgrade comes along.

      Thanks for your suggestions (and patience).

      Bob

      Delete
  38. I don't know if this will be of use to anyone but I found another way, quite by accident. Disclaimer: I'm just a tinkering noob.

    I have a rig I built. It's a ASUS Maximus V Gene, i7 2600k, 16Gb ram, ASUS ENGTX580.

    I bought a MacBook Pro (10,8 I think) last December and having never used MacOS I ended up hating it right away. I gave it a couple months and still hated it. So I tried and failed at installing Ubuntu 12.10. Finally I gave up and figured I'd at least throw in an SSD.

    I grabbed an SSD I had kicking around. When I put in in the MBP and started it in order to install ML, low and behold my MBL booted into Ubuntu 12.10. I quickly connected the net and updated, which require very little. I found that under Ubuntu the MBL ran better and faster.

    So, after 13.04 came out, I tried the same thing. I installed 13.04 on an SSD in my DIY. BTW, I used nomodeset and after first reboot added nomodset to the grub and updated it.

    13.04 worked even better than 12.10. As I warned, I am just a noob that tinkers. I don't know if any of this info helps, but I hope it does.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. you got a Macbook Pro Retina, you fitted a SSD to it?

      Delete
  39. Why didn't you use an installation DVD? Why the USB route?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Retina Macbook Pro doesn't have a CD/DVD player and I don't have an external CD/DVD player. I used what I had available.

      Delete
  40. Thank you for your tutorial. I have a few bugs though I haven't been able to solve. When I close the lid and the computer goes into sleep mode, I lose eth0 when it comes back up. I can't connect to a wired network with a static IP address or dhcp. when I run the command 'sudo ifconfig eth0 up' I get the error 'eth0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device. When I reboot, eth0 is back. I found some threads that told me it might be having problems when suspending the machine and I should tell linux unload it before suspend and load it back after resuming by opening the file /etc/pm/config.d/unload_modules and enter the text SUSPEND_MODULES="your_module_name_here". I think the network driver is a Broadcom with the driver name of tg3. I put that in there but I haven't seen any improvements.

    My other issue is that the display settings don't detect an external display monitor. I tried messing with X11 to get that to work but I messed up the whole thing. Now I think I am back to default settings but still no external display.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not sure about the ethernet issues after sleep mode. I've noticed that even OS X has problems with that on the rMBP. In general, I've found the network connections much more stable and reliable on Ubuntu than OS X.

      External displays tend to work best if you plug in the monitor before booting. After boot, I find that I have to got to System Settings > Displays to get Ubuntu to check for external displays.

      Delete
  41. "By default, Ubuntu has 'touch to click' enabled for the trackpad by default, which I found difficult work with. So the first thing I did was to turn that off in the Mouse and Trackpad area of System Settings. "

    LOL, that's one of the first things I enable on a Mac

    ReplyDelete
  42. Hi I have one ssd and one hdd on my macbookpro9,1.
    The mac os is installed in the ssd and I would like to install ubuntu 13.04 in the hdd.
    I've followed your guide but choosing "Ubuntu" from rEFInd strartup menu, it only run the (initramfs) console.
    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Have you managed to resolve this issue? I'm running into the same problem.

      Delete
  43. Hi there, I used this tutorial to install Linux mint 15 KDE. I have a few questions though. First of all, I think I did everything correct until I started installing it. I used Ubiquity -b, then continued through install till I got to the "Free Space" selection where I have to create a root partition and a swap. Is this correct?

    from there, I went on to copy the kernel and RAM disk, however I -do not know where these are located-, so I took a guess and went for the /boot and grabbed the 4 files in there. They were named "abi-3.8.0-26-generic" and "config-3.8.0-26-generic" (without the quotes).

    As for the UUID, I grabbed it from sda 5, which was the swap...is this correct, or did I want the root partition instead? Anyway, back in OS X, I went ahead and copied the RAM disk and kernal into a new folder I called "LinuxMint" inside /efi/refind/

    Thanks for any help guys!

    -Stu

    ReplyDelete
  44. I got a really annoying problem with mine..

    If I boot up with a external monitor connected (through thunderbolt), the external monitor is ALWAYS blank. I have to unplug it and plug it in again.

    If I have the monitor set as a "mirror" I dont get the problem. Anyone got any ideas how I can fix this?

    Also anyone had any luck getting sd card working?

    ReplyDelete
  45. Great guide/thread. I have installed 13.04 on a MBP 10,2. It all works fine, except the keyboard/touchpad are incredibly laggy to the point of being unusable.
    Any ideas how to diagnose/fix?

    ReplyDelete
  46. Hi there, I tried this with Linux Mint 15 KDE, and it worked, however one really big issue; after long amounts of time of having a closed lid, my MBA (mid 2012) just hangs when I reopen the lid....apparently some places recommend using rEFIt instead of rEFInd, because apparently it doesnt have this issue and it doesnt affect battery life...has your MBP (retina) had this hanging issue? what has your been solution?

    this is the site that I found that explains this fairly well: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/91529/macbook-air-not-waking-up-from-suspend-sleep-with-refind-boot-manager-installed

    and http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/91139/why-does-my-mbp-sleep-on-mountain-lion-and-often-not-wake-up/91150#91150

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, I faced the same problem with Refind on my MBP retina, everytime the computer was going to sleep while on the battery. I have found the following solution to fix the problem by changing the hibernation mode:
      $ pmset -g | grep hibernatemode (=>by default hibernatemode = 3)
      $ sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
      $ sudo pmset -a standby 0

      By doing this, I have fixed the problem and my MBP has no more hibernation problem with Refind :)

      Check the following documents for more informations:
      doc 1: http://macs.about.com/od/usingyourmac/qt/Change-How-Your-Mac-Sleeps-Pick-The-Sleep-Setting-You-Want-Your-Mac-To-Use.htm
      doc2 : http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/60634/disable-stand-by-mode-on-retina-macbook-pro

      Delete
  47. Ive just finished installing Linux mint 15 on my Macbook pro, and it seemed to atleast boot ok, havent tried anything much beyond that. For some reason I cant open system settings(it opens but i cant see it, => cant change resolution.) Anyway, I wanted to say that I didnt have to do any of the "copy linux kernel" stuff, it appears that refind auto detects it by default, so install mint -> install refind -> reboot -> profit!!

    ReplyDelete
  48. My Ubuntu install works pretty well, but only problem I have is when I leave my MBP to idle for a long time. Last night when I went to bed i left my laptop to sync some android sources and when I woked up this morning and tried to start using the laptop again, i couldn’t get it to wake up. The screen “turned on” but it stayd blank, no mouse cursor or anything.

    Any ideas what could I do to fix this. I installed 13.10 using the normal desktop ISO file (not the mac version).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I haven't got Ubuntu to wake up from sleep successfully either. I've ended up having to reboot the machine by logging into a text console (Ctrl-Alt-F1). Just switching back to the graphical console (Ctrl-Alt-F7) may kick-start the display again.

      Not a real solution, but I've disabled the suspend option in System Settings > Power.

      Delete
  49. Hey, thanks for the tutorial! I just tried with the new MBP Retina 11,3 (2013) and basically got Ubuntu 12.04 installed... but it won't boot directly. It tells /dev/disk/by-uuid/ is missing and boots into iniramfs ... I checked and the whole folder /dev/disk/by-uuid is not there.

    When I manually generate the folder /dev/disk/by-uuid and create a symlink there with the uuid to sda4 (partition with Ubuntu), I can boot into ubuntu and it works. When booted, also the folder /dev/disk/by-uuid exists, but when I reboot it's gone again... How can I make those changes persistant so I don't have to generate the /dev/disk/by-uuid folder and the symlink each time, I reboot?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This sounds as though your config file is set up with a generic setting, not the one that is specific to your laptop. You need to find the UUID of the partition, and enter that into the refind.conf file. Check the instructions in this post again, particularly the following sections:
      * Make a Note of the UUID
      * Configuration File Changes

      That's what worked for me.

      Delete
  50. its saying

    "Not found while loading vmlinuz-3.8.0-19-generic"

    could you help me

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're probably using a newer version of Ubuntu. Check the name of the kernel file and use that in the config.

      Delete
  51. This is a great tutorial! I got everything working but after I ran apt-get upgrade, apt-get purge nvidia*, and apt-get install nvidia-current my computer just boots to a black screen that I can't get out of. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

    I have a MacBook Pro 15' with retina display with NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB
    I can't get into safe mode, holding shift does nothing neither does alt-ctrl-F1

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I haven't been able to get the Intel driver to work, so you need either the nouveau or nvidia driver installed. Ctrl-Alt-F1 should get you to the text console - hold the Fn key down as well.

      Delete
    2. I'm sorry I forgot that I posted this and since posting I have changed some things so I just posted again. My bad, please ignore this original post.

      Delete
  52. Any guidance/gotchas with respect to upgrading to Ubuntu 13.10 (now that the support period for 13.04 is drawing to its end)?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I found that 13.10 works fine - either doing a distribution upgrade or a clean install. The instructions for the clean install are the same. I've found a simpler config setting for refined and hope to blog about that soon.

      Delete
  53. Hi, Thanks for this tutorial

    I'm having trouble installing kali linux on my 13" retina 2013... after adding the menuentry in refind.conf, when I reboot, kali's boot is stuck at "sd 1:0:0:0: [sdf] Attached SCSI removable disk" ...

    I've followed you're tutorial, the only thing different is the iso I used (kali linux).

    Can someone help me with this ? I've got no ideas left.

    Thanks !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just succeded, when on refind, press twice F2 on your linux icon and add " root=/dev/sd5" !

      It boots fine !

      Delete
    2. Glad you found a workaround.

      It may be worth checking out the amended instructions for rEFInd on this post: http://randomtutor.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/installing-ubuntu-on-retina-macbook-pro_19.html

      It uses rEFInd's file system drivers to scan the internal drives for bootable partitions.

      Delete
  54. Good update ;) certainly will try it thanks.

    Now i'm struggling with the wifi. lspci shows me the broadcom 43a0 device, but I can't find a way to make it work. b43-fwcutter didn't helped... any chance you've got a solution ?

    Thanks ;)

    ReplyDelete
  55. I don't, but this might help: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx

    Looking at the upstream project doesn't look too promising right now: http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#Supported_devices. However, that will change over time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I succeded ! Thanks.

      On you're second link, the "14e4:43a0" device (wich i have) is shown as not supported, that was disapointing, but on that page I got the chipset's name : "BCM4360".

      And with google's help I found this article : http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=apple_mba2013_ubuntu&num=1

      Where I found out that it is supported on ubuntu 13.10 thanks to this package : https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bcmwl, which is not available in kali (apt-get fails) but I got this .deb file : "bcmwl-kernel-source_6.30.223.141+bdcom-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb"

      I copied it on my macbook retina :
      "apt-get install dkms"
      "dpkg -i thenameofthe.deb"
      reboot
      AND VOILA ! It works just fine !

      Thanks for the hints !

      Delete
    2. Excellent, glad you found a solution.

      Delete
  56. First of all, thanks for the great tutorial!

    I installed 13.04 and then upgraded to 13.10 and everything is working well except for one thing. The suspend/resume functionality appears to be broken. When I wake my computer up from suspend I loose the ability to type or click on anything. It's almost as if the screen just stops updating.

    I looked around and some people seem to think these issues can be caused by not using the proprietary graphics drivers. However, every time I try and update the drivers Ubuntu starts just booting to a black screen. Do I have to update the RAM disk image in the EFI folder after I update the drivers?

    Thanks again!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've never got the suspend/resume working and switching to the Intel driver just got me to a blank screen. That said, others have been more successful: http://askubuntu.com/questions/320233/suspend-not-working-properly-on-macbook-pro-retina-10-1

      Delete

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Web-based IR Remote on the Raspberry Pi

There are many devices that use infrared remote controls - TV's, DVD players, cameras, power sockets. So getting a Raspberry Pi to be able to send remote control signals opens up many possibilities for projects. Combining the GPIO pins with a web server on the Raspberry Pi means that we can create a web UI to control these devices. Installing LIRC on the Raspberry Pi One of the great things about running a Linux operating system on the Raspberry Pi is that it provides access to a wealth of software projects that can run on the device. One of these is the Linux Infrared Remote Control (LIRC) project that provides a way of receiving and transmitting IR signals from many remote controls. LIRC provides a method of recording signals from a remote control and storing them in a configuration file, so that they can be sent directly from the Raspberry Pi. Installing LIRC on the Raspberry Pi needs the latest firmware to be on the Raspberry Pi. One of the clearest guides I've fou

Installing Ubuntu on a Retina Macbook Pro - the easy way

Update : If you have Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) installed, then the rEFInd installation needs to be handled differently. Please check the rEFInd website for more details. In my previous installation guide , I outlined the first way that I found of installing Ubuntu on a Retina Macbook Pro. One of the challenges of the installation was that the boot manager, rEFInd, needed the Linux kernel to be copied from the Linux partition to the Mac OS X partition. This then becomes a painful process that needs to be repeated every time there is a kernel update on Ubuntu. Fortunately, there is a better way! Thanks to a comment on the rEFInd website, I found out that file system drivers can be installed that allow rEFInd to read the Linux partition. This post outlines the full installation instructions, but if you already followed the previous guide, you can update the rEFInd installation and configuration file. I've included some instructions on that in the post. 1. Partition the Hard