Ubuntu Tutorials

I’ve been working on a complete guide to installing Ubuntu on a MacBook, part of which includes a customized xorg.conf to offer right-click, double-tap, scrolling and other such functionality. In a release-early, release-often mindset I wanted to post my config now. If you run Ubuntu on a macbook this might be helpful. If you have any suggestions to add I would appreciate hearing about those as well.

Ooh, if you’re running on a MacBook Pro there is a similar config for that hardware available here.

Remember, before you update *any* of your xorg.conf it is *always* a good idea to back it up. The last thing you want is a b0rk3d graphical server with no revert options. (sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf-date).

…and if you read this far you can view / download my xorg.conf here:

macbook customized xorg.conf

The main magic is in the Section “Input Device”.

Today has been a personal bug-squashing day for little things related to my MacBook. I am teaching a class this week that calls for quite a bit of lab time from the students so I took the time to look into some of the bugs. The first on the list was activating the keyboard lighting on the macbook, which was simple enough. The second, and basis for this quick tutorial, is setting Ubuntu to be the primary boot within the rEFIt boot loader.

To update your boot loader so that Ubuntu will boot first you’ll need to boot into OS X to edit a config file. (note: I did not try any method of mounting the OS X partition to make the changes, is that possible?).

UPDATE: after typing the above I actually took the time to *try* and it’s already default mounted on my machine. Nothing special there. …what you find when you actually take the time to look huh .  It is mounted read-only however.

Once booted into OS X you’ll want to edit the file “/efi/refit/refit.conf” and update a line near the bottom of the file from:

#legacyfirst

to

legacyfirst

(yes, just uncommenting that line)

At this point the rEFIt boot loader will boot Ubuntu as your primary and OS X as your secondary. I notice the rEFIt config file is oddly similar to a grub.conf. I also update the timeout from 20 to 5. Who wants to wait 20 seconds for it to make a choice? Enjoy.

I realized the other day that the small lights on my MacBook keyboard didn’t work.  I didn’t really give much thought to it, but after booting into OS X for a few minutes I noticed it did work again.  That got me thinking and looking for a solution.

Of course, Google being our friend, I found a solution rather quickly from a launchpad submitted bug (#103375).  The fix, which is very easy and should take immediate effect, is as follows:

sudo aptitude remove mouseemu

Yeah, that’s about all it took for me.  As soon as that package was gone I could see the caps lock light up like I wanted it to.  Yay for open bug reporting and the power of Google.