Testing Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) beta on a Macbook (updated!)
It’s a very long time since I abandoned Ubuntu, 1 year and 9 months being precise, although I continued to use Ubuntu derived distros.
I decided today to give Ubuntu 8.10 beta a try. Obviously, every time I decide to try a Gnu/Linux distribution it happens that a new release comes out: I downloaded Alpha 6 yesterday, I fell into problems with it and a apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade brought me Ubuntu 8.10 beta, correcting some of them 
The procedures for installing Intrepid Ibex on a Macbook hard disk are the same described in my recent howto for OpenGeu and other Ubuntu distros. The only difference is that Refit is not directly installable by apt-get unless you modify /etc/apt/sources.list of the live-cd. The workaround is the following: you have to download refit from http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/i386/refit/download and install it with a
sudo dpkg -i refit_0.11-*
There are aesthetic changes between the old installer and the new one, I noticed a more elegant graphical representation for hard disk partitions:
Proposed hard disk layout with new graphical representation
I did not choose to automatically partition my hard disk, so I was delighted with another nice graphical representation of the partitions:
Hard Disk Partitions Representation for Manual Partitioning
The rest of the installation went fine, even the installation of the boot loader, thanks to refit.
Refit Command Output for Correctly Installing Grub on Macbooks
It is very important to load applesmc module for fixing a lot of Macbook thermal problems reported on some bugs on launchpad. Remember to insert applemsc in /etc/modules. This module included in linux-2.6.27 does really keep your Macbook cool and quiet.
The first boot showed the well know brown Gnome Desktop, updated to version 2.24.0, and Nautilus finally supports tabs! NetworkManager has been updated to repository version 0.7.0, which has not been officially released by Gnome yet.
Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex Default Gnome Desktop
Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop Screenshot with Nautilus tabs and NetworkManager 0.7.0
Wireless networking did not work with Alpha 6, even if ndiswrapper module was loaded, but the Beta fixed the problems. NetworkManager 0.7.0 is beautiful and easy to be used, but I encounter problems when connecting to WPA1 and WPA2 networks. Connection sometimes fails. For writing this review, I had to attach an Ethernet wire to my Macbook.
Xorg 7.4 is also shipped, which does recognize video hardware very well (the content of /etc/X11/xorg.conf is quite empty).
Input devices like mouse and keyboard are no more supported by separate drivers like it was before, all the job is handled by evdev input driver (this blog article explains in a few lines what evdev is).
Two finger scroll does not work yet, this is a bug reported in launchpad . I hope that this will get fixed before the final release, even if I’m scared as this could be not considered as a serious bug and therefore, be not fixed after a Beta release. Even right click support on Trackpad does not work, neither syndaemon.
sudo wget -O /etc/hal/fdi/policy/appletouch.fdi http://download.task3.cc/appletouch.fdi
And restart X.
Everything else does work very well, i.e. the “Stop” function (a.k.a. suspend to ram) and function-keys work out of the box. Sound does also work well, it did not need all the fixes needed for 8.04.
There are still some bugs to be fixed regarding Macbooks but I can say that Intrepid Ibex is becoming mature and includes cutting edge programs that will make Ubuntu users more satisfied than before! I really hope that developers will be able to fix those track-pad related problems, so there won’t be other hardware related reasons to keep Mac Os X users away from the Penguin, as everything would work out of the box (except some Macbook wireless adapters, that still need ndiswrapper to work)
For being a Beta release, this one is really stable and fluent, with very few crashes.
More information about this release can be found at this page
looking for it
hope the mouse problem gets fixed quickly
Yes they fixed it! I noticed it a couple of days ago! Look at the post, I’ve just updated it
Looks like wireless is now fixed at kernel level for the Atheros card in my white Macbook standard. Upgraded today to linux-image-2.6.27-7-generic and the ath9k module now works nicely. iwconfig still shows a transfer rate of 1mb though, despite my wireless-N being at 130mb. Cosmetic bug only though, the transfer speeds seem about right.
Unfortunately, I’ve got a Broadcom BCM4328 on my Macbook. There are problems with both the windows driver (using ndiswrapper) and the brand new proprietary driver released by Boradcom istelf, when connecting to some WPA2 protected wans.
I think that the problem is related to the new NetworkManager, as the card worked fine with other Ubuntu based distributions
Just got a new macbook and I’m wondering if I should install Gentoo or wait 4 more days for the new Ubuntu release….
Regarding Gentoo, It depends on the amount of your free time.
As you already know, Ubuntu is really simple and just works, but I cannot feel the same stability and reliability you get with other distros such Deabian, Slackware and Gentoo.
Why don’t you try Debian? Testing (Lenny) was frozen on 2008-09-27 so there are fresh programs and libraries ready for your Macbook.
Good luck and enjoy your studies in the U.S.A.
You will just need to compile a new kernel, better if patched with Mactel patches but since I know you, there won’t be problems with this