Installing Ubuntu 12.10 on Mac Mini (End 2009)

Question

I am trying to installing Ubuntu 12.10 on my Mac Mini (End 2009). This sounds like a often asked question and I all ready read lots of stuff about it, but now I am confused.

While some people say, there are heavy problems by installing Ubuntu on a Mac Mini, such as components (like Sound card, graphic card, …) don't work very well, others say, that it should work perfectly fine.

I figured out that installing Ubuntu on a Mac isn't as easy (can't just download the .iso and use unetboot, …) as it is on a PC.

So, is it possible to install Ubuntu 12.10 on a Mac Mini 2009 (end), so everything works well?

Solution

You cannot simply create a bootable USB because Macs don't use BIOS to manage bootable drives. HOWEVER, there are ways around this. Note that it is much more straightforward to use a DVD.

As far as compatibility. My previous workplace had a cluster of mac minis running RHEL which worked flawlessly. I have installed Ubuntu and Arch Linux on macbooks and imacs in the past with complete autodetected success. You should give it a try and if something doesn't work, you can ask here; a lot of people run ubuntu on apple hardware.

Comments

[Admin]

I have just installed 12.10 on a 2009 mac mini and it had issues with wifi, firstly I had to install dpkg off of the Ubuntu install CD then the wifi driver from the install disk to get it all to work after a reboot. Once that was done it all worked perfectly.