dual boot MBP with ubuntu

[arash15]

Hello everybody

I am an ubuntu user and at the moment i have a win7 and ubuntu dual boot on my laptop. I am thinking to buy a macbook pro but i am not sure if i can easily dual boot mac OS and ubuntu on MBP. I am a programmer and need to install compilers.
anybody can help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

 

[r.j.s]

Yes. Using bootcamp you can install ubuntu.

 

[kny3twalker]

are there any programs/compilers that are linux specific only and there does not exist a Mac substitute?

Otherwise, I would not dual boot with ubuntu, since Mac OS/X is already built on top of FreeBSD.

It should be fairly easy to dual boot nonetheless if you want to. I have not booted my desktop into Ubuntu since getting my MacBook Pro, but I believe the file system is the same.
Therefore you would most probably only need to partition your harddrive, install Ubuntu on the new partition, and then configure your boot loader, but I have not done it on my MacBook Pro.

 

[arash15]

tnx for the reply. but there are a lot of free software and simulators which only runs on linux.
and maybe u can answer this question of mine too. With the money i am paying for a i5 2.4 mac pro i can get a dell i7 1gb graphic and .... . Y should i pay this money to buy a mac???
sorry i am contemplating on buying a mac or not

 

[kny3twalker]

tnx for the reply. but there are a lot of free software and simulators which only runs on linux.
and maybe u can answer this question of mine too. With the money i am paying for a i5 2.4 mac pro i can get a dell i7 1gb graphic and .... . Y should i pay this money to buy a mac???
sorry i am contemplating on buying a mac or not

the main reasons are

Mac OS X
which is built on top of UNIX if you did not catch this from my other reply.
Build Quality
no other laptop manufacturer precision machines billet aluminum, any other premium laptop like a Dell XPS or Lenovo (IBM) Thinkpad use a combination of plastic, stamped aluminum/carbon fiber (carbon fiber is rare), and many times magnesium chassis (on the better business class notebooks). The fact that these other laptops' case and chassis are built from several parts means, there is more tolerance in the build, the notebook will not be as rigid, and to be equal in strength, these windows laptops will have to weigh more.
So while aluminum is a softer metal, it is also light and incredible strong especially when forged from a solid billet. (If you cannot guess, I am very impressed by the build quality of Apple notebooks.)
Trackpad
Apple's trackpad is far and away better than anything from any other laptop manufacturer. Windows laptops are just beginning to receive multi touch support, and it is not good so far.
Usable Software Included (OR No Bloatware)
iLife (Garage Band, iPhoto, iDVD, etc...), XCode (Software Development Tools), plus the normal OS X software, iTunes, Mail, iCal, etc....
Apple does not install a bunch of trialware unlike most windows laptop manufacturers. These trialware whether you uninstall them or not have already started the process of junking up the windows registry.
Battery Life
MacBook Pro's battery life pretty much exceeded any other full fledged notebook. At the same time, the battery does not hang off the back of the notebook, nor add an extra 2 lbs to an already 5 or 6 lb notebook.
Better Support
U.S. phone support and being able to take it to an Apple Store when problems occur.

Then there is the issue that the Dell with the i7 and 1 GB Video Card, probably uses the quad core i7 versus the dual core i7 which means extremely short battery life and a notebook hot enough to burn you. Then not much software can take advantage of a quad core, by the time most software has caught up, that Dell will be old and slow.

With Apple, you are paying for a premium experience and premium hardware and that's what you get (Although some disagree about the hardware because its not bleeding edge). You have to just decide of its worth it to you.

 

[arash15]

Thank u for ur comprehensive reply.
And about the unix structure i must say although UNIX , MAC and Linux are from the same platform but even different distro of linux might not support some drivers or softwares.

 

[runebinder]

I had a triple boot system on my previous MBP; OS X, Windows 7 & Ubuntu. Installed Windows 7 via Bootcamp, my memory's a little hazy on this next bit but think I used Disk Management in Windows to shrink it's partition (might not have done this step, was a while ago), booted the Ubuntu disk holding down the alt key and installed.

When I rebooted I selected the Windows drive using alt then got the Grub menu where I could select Windows or Ubuntu. If you look on the Ubuntu forums there are a few threads on installing it on a MBP, plus drivers which got everything working fine. The Trackpad worked better in Ubuntu than it did in Windows!

Agree with kny3twalker on the reasons for getting a MBP over a Dell, plus it's the only one where you can legitimately Triple boot all 3 OSs.

 

[GidbinN]

I am running Ubuntu and Windows 7 at the same time under Mac OS X with Parallel Desktop


It's quite interesting

 

[Jaxdialation]

Me too, and I'm talking about running apps, not surfing.

I am running Ubuntu and Windows 7 at the same time under Mac OS X with Parallel Desktop


It's quite interesting

 

[mark28]

the main reasons are

Mac OS X
which is built on top of UNIX if you did not catch this from my other reply.
Build Quality
no other laptop manufacturer precision machines billet aluminum, any other premium laptop like a Dell XPS or Lenovo (IBM) Thinkpad use a combination of plastic, stamped aluminum/carbon fiber (carbon fiber is rare), and many times magnesium chassis (on the better business class notebooks). The fact that these other laptops' case and chassis are built from several parts means, there is more tolerance in the build, the notebook will not be as rigid, and to be equal in strength, these windows laptops will have to weigh more.
So while aluminum is a softer metal, it is also light and incredible strong especially when forged from a solid billet. (If you cannot guess, I am very impressed by the build quality of Apple notebooks.)
Trackpad
Apple's trackpad is far and away better than anything from any other laptop manufacturer. Windows laptops are just beginning to receive multi touch support, and it is not good so far.
Usable Software Included (OR No Bloatware)
iLife (Garage Band, iPhoto, iDVD, etc...), XCode (Software Development Tools), plus the normal OS X software, iTunes, Mail, iCal, etc....
Apple does not install a bunch of trialware unlike most windows laptop manufacturers. These trialware whether you uninstall them or not have already started the process of junking up the windows registry.
Battery Life
MacBook Pro's battery life pretty much exceeded any other full fledged notebook. At the same time, the battery does not hang off the back of the notebook, nor add an extra 2 lbs to an already 5 or 6 lb notebook.
Better Support
U.S. phone support and being able to take it to an Apple Store when problems occur.

Then there is the issue that the Dell with the i7 and 1 GB Video Card, probably uses the quad core i7 versus the dual core i7 which means extremely short battery life and a notebook hot enough to burn you. Then not much software can take advantage of a quad core, by the time most software has caught up, that Dell will be old and slow.

With Apple, you are paying for a premium experience and premium hardware and that's what you get (Although some disagree about the hardware because its not bleeding edge). You have to just decide of its worth it to you.

You'd be suprised. When doing intensive work, the MBP drops alot in battery life and is comparable to the Dell i7 in battery life ( with the optional 85 kWh battery which is more than any MBP has ) doing the same task ( around 4 hours ). So it's just an OS X power saving that gets the 7 hours+ battery life, rather than having actually more battery.

And for your information, the ATI 5650 is cooler than the 330M. So that argument doesn't even make any sense that the Dell should get hotter when it has a cooler GPU.

The new Envy gets 14 hours of Battery life, with the standard battery it's close to the MBP also. And this is with Windows poor power management. The Sony Z with it's optional battery ( not the standard battery ) gets more than 10 hours also.

Asus on it's low end models has similiar multi-touch gestures as the MBP like 2-finger scroll. And it works very good in Windows believe or not ( i tested it ).

Ubuntu has similiar free apps found in iLife.

In the end, you're just paying for design, the case and the Apple logo on the back. The screen is also very good ofcourse. The resale value of the MBP is very good too