Kubuntu on Macbook Pro [mid 2007]??

[Guest]

Hey folks !!

Started with Kubuntu,then Ubuntu, moved to Scientific linux,Puppy Linux ,Crunchbang, Ubuntu and finally got an old macbook pro ..and I definitely wanna settle for Kubuntu for the next 5 years on it. Please help me with the installation procedure, as google peeking is scaring the hell out of me right now, with words like - rEFI and '32 bit boot lock' , OpenFirmware , and more specifically "mac cannot run Linux only" .

Would like to have a clean install on Macbook , no other osx to contaminate my Kubuntu. (right now it runs OSX 10.4 Tiger)

Any hardware specs required , I'll upload.

Cheers!!

[Snowhog]

The instructions here should be what you are looking for.

[Guest]

Thanks!!

[anika200]

Warning Warning >> the task the op asked for is nearly impossible in some situations. Please be aware.

The op probably has a macbook pro 1,2 , 1,1 or possibly 2,x series which came out in 2006-2007 and at this time date of 2015 are very problematic with linux. (they did work very nice back in the 2.6 kernel days)
In my case the DVD drive was gone and everything needed to be done via usb, without access to osx.

1) You should Not get rid of your osx os and do a clean install.
2) You will need refind or the original refit to get the install working and to boot from a live usb drive of any sort.
3) Depending on the graphics installed you will not be able to even get 2D hardware accelerated graphics but must run on Framebuffer only.
4) You will never be able to close the lid or sleep the laptop. It just does not work. :-(
***** Item 4 is pretty much a deal breaker for most everyone.*****
5) The things run hot as all get out no matter what the settings.
6) You will need to create or if it is there already have a special partition at least 500 mb that has "esp" flag set. and with the file system fat32 and then inside that partition you can set up refind.

Now if there are fixes to 1-5 then I have not been able to discover them in the 4 or 5 days I have been working on a macbook 1,2.

Some notes,
The 1,x and possibly the 2,x series has a 32 bit efi with a 64bit cpu which is weird and you must take this into account when you install refind and grub2 and the OS. I took the approach that everything was 32bit.
At the time of this writing no linux distro ships a 32bit efi grub2 setup that works.
If you make the mistake of wiping out the refit or refind boot system on the /boot/efi partition you will have to do jump through some hoops to get booted. These include such neat things as learning how to build 32 bit grub2.efi and building it into a thumb drive that boots and installs an OS and then booting kernels directly from grub, etc.... If you still have OSX installed or have a dvd drive and an OSX dvd this becomes much easier.
In order to get booted after the initial install you will need to add "nomodeset" to the grub2/kernel boot commands and then make it permanent.
Most of the cool Fx keys do not work unless you install "pommed" from the repos.