Linux (Ubuntu) on a Mac

MacBook Air hardware running Ubuntu

I’ve been an Apple user since 2009, and my “main” computer is currently a 24 inch iMac, although I spend most of my time on an iPad Air. My first Apple computer was a mid 2009 13 inch MacBook Pro (which I still have, and still works well although it’s 10 versions behind the current Mac OS). I also have my daughter’s old MacBook Air from around 2014. As it too can’t be upgraded to the current Mac OS and is several iterations behind, I decided to install a Linux distribution on it just for fun and curiosity. 

Although I’m reasonably computer literate, I’m not a complete nerd (some might disagree) so this was a slightly nervous undertaking - Linux has a reputation for being a bit geeky, and even with today’s more user friendly interfaces can often require digging into the terminal and command line instructions. 

First though, you have to install it. 

Having chosen to go with Ubuntu as my chosen distribution, I found via its website a very helpful walkthrough on how to set up and install it on a Mac. I’m not going to repeat that in any depth here as the instructions are clear enough on the website, but essentially the steps are:

• Download your chosen distribution as an ISO file
• Flash that ISO to a bootable USB drive
• Boot the usb on your Mac and follow the instructions/prompts

It’s a little more detailed than that, and I had an issue creating the bootable USB drive on the MacBook Air, and ended up doing it on my iMac. Broadly speaking, the process went well and I had Ubuntu up and running reasonably quickly.

However….

One of the known issues with this is that the install process often fails to install WiFi drivers , and this happened to me. I spent some time faffing about how I could connect to the internet to download the correct drivers without being connected to the internet! In the end I connected my phone and used that as a WiFi hotspot.  A few command line instructions and hey presto, I had WiFi up and running. 

I’ll see how it goes, but first impressions of Ubuntu are positive, and seeing open source, there’s loads of good free software out there. 

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Keeping it all together

Regular readers will know that I've got a pretty eclectic approach to computing. I have no real affinity for any one OS, and have desktop devices running Windows 7, a Macbook Pro on Mac OSX and a netbook running Ubuntu netbook edition. Chuck in my ever to hand iPhone, and the challenge for me is keeping everything together and in sync.

In all honesty, it's made a bit simpler in that the Ubuntu netbook rarely sees the light of day. It's an old Asus Eee with virtually no memory or storage, and I put Ubuntu netbook on it more as an experiment than anything else (it works fine though).

What is happening therefore, is a slow and gradual transition to cloud computing. Applications I tend to prefer are cross platform, and with an ability to sync seamlessly with whichever device I'm using . I'm not a complicated, or power user, which makes life simpler still, and what follows is a brief description of my key picks.


Dropbox
If you work in different locations on different computers and haven't used or come across Dropbox yet, you're missing out. You install the Dropbox client on all the devices you use and it creates a Dropbox folder - so it's installed on all my PC's, laptop, netbook and I have the iPhone app. Whenever you are connected to the Internet, whatever you have saved to this folder is synced to Dropbox. Then, whenever you connect using one of your other devices, all the changes are automatically synced back to that device. Simple. Add in versioning, so you know which is the latest version, and the fact that it's free for up to 2GB storage, and you not only have a way of keeping everything in sync across multiple computers, but some free online storage too.

If you are going to check it out - drop me a line first. I can refer you, and that helps me boost my storage space!
Highly recommended.


Evernote
One of the things that many people require from their computing devices is a good way of collating all those snippet of information, notes, screenshots etc. There are literally hundreds of thousands of solutions out there, but one of the best is Evernote.
Evernote, like Dropbox is cross platform, and you can sync to all your platforms. Like Dropbox it's also accessible online, and like Dropbox free at the basic level.It also has browser extensions so you can clip all, or bits of web pages directly to your Evernote account.
You can record text notes, voice notes, photo notes, documents - pretty much anything. It's fully searchable, you can have multiple "notebooks" within your account, and use tags on notes. A Premium version (which I use) brings added benefits, but for most people, the free version is just fine. If you need to store "stuff", then this is the way to do it.
Brilliant!


Email/Contacts/Calendar
Gmail is my preferred email route, because everything is available on any Internet connected device. It's got a a lot of functionality too - more than most people realise, you've just got to dig a bit to find some of the optionsd and settings.


My calendar and contacts are all handled by Apple's "MobileMe" service. You have to pay for it, but it keeps my calendar and contacts beautifully in sync on my Macbook and iPhone (I tend not to do anything that needs calendar and contact access on the PC, although I could always access Mobile Me through the browser if I wanted to.

I've tried a few times to manage contacts via Google Contacts, but I find there's always some corruption/duplication though the sync process back to the iPhone/Macbook. I know some manage this perfectly fine, but I've never managed to do so to my satisfaction.

So there you have it. Core functions of email, contacts, calendar, notes and document sync/storage handled through some first class online/cross platform applications, that are free.

It's a no brainer.

Ubuntu Linux

I'm feeling pretty chuffed with myself.

I've got an old Asus Eee 701 netbook, which has been gathering dust for a while. Originally it had Xandros Linux as an operating system (OS), which was OK, but not great. I eventually took the plunge and after much tweaking managed to install a very cut down version of Windows XP on it. That gave me the comfortable Windows interface, but to be honest it wasn't much fun on a 7" screen. Additionally the arrival of a 13" Macbook Pro consigned the Eee to the furthest corners of the study.

Recently, I got it out and was fiddling around, and decided to have a crack at installing Ubuntu's netbook Linux edition on it. Ubuntu is now one of, if not the Linux distro of choice for many, and has come a long way from the old command line only interfaces of Linux variations of yore.

So armed with a USB flash disk to download the distribution and act as the install disk, I duly cracked on. In the end, it was pretty painless - I consider myself an experienced rather than advanced user, and I can follow instructions, and it was straightforward. The Ubuntu interface was a revelation after my previous (albeit limited) experience of Linux. It's far more "Windows" like, and the Ubuntu software centre in particular does away with all that synaptic and repository stuff for installing software. which had previously put me right off. It's there hidden away if you want it, as is the terminal console - but I don't particularly.

It hooked up to my network like a dream, and I installed OpenOffice with no hassles - all this on a netbook with only a 4GB SSD mind you.

So, I've got a working Ubuntu netbook. Next up, though I wanted to connect my printer. This works over a wireless network, and the Ubuntu software centre didn't find the relevant printer drivers (it's a multi-function Canon MP560. So I downloaded the drivers after a quick google. I hadn't a clue what I was supposed to do, so double clicked a bunch of files, seemed to extract from the archive, tried to open/run some files that looked like executables and got a few errors. Another google suggested I had to edit an install executable. So I found a text editor, edited the offending line as instructed, and via a quick trip to the terminal window (really, this is gobbledy gook to me too) and a comand line instruction - bingo! Installed. Not only working, but I can print and scan - first time. Brilliant (considering I'm flying by the seat of my pants).

I've also just installed the brilliant Dropbox that allows you to store files "in the cloud" and then sync them and make them available to any device you install Dropbox on.

That just about does it for the moment. I've now got everything I need. A small, robust device, running a tidy OS that's Internet connected, I can print from and has all my key documents available to me via Dropbox.

If you're a real tech-head, this probably doesn't sound like very much of an achievement. Believe me, installing ANY OS is often fraught, one you are unfamiliar with is often treacherous. To get everything up and working, almost first time is an achievement, especially when you have to go digging in executables and editing files.

So all in all I'm very pleased with myself. I can now truly say that I am diversity personified when it comes to computing. I've got a Windows 7 desktop PC, a Macbook Pro laptop running Snow Leopard, an Ubuntu Linux driven netbook and an iPhone running iOS4.2. A tool (and OS) for every occasion!

Neat

Data, data everywhere.....

So the good news is I've got my shiny new network hard drive set up and whirring quietly away. The next job is to consider how best to use the darn thing.

Here's the current situation.

I've got two desktop PC's running Windows 7, a Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard, a 7" Asus Eee running Ubuntu (to be fair hardly ever wheeled out) and an iPhone. Two iPhones if you count my son's 3G. Oh, and an iPod Touch belonging to my daughter.

I have a wireless network which includes a Canon multi-function printer not connected to anything except the power outlet (how clever is that - never ceases to maze me when it churns out paper without being connected to a PC).

There's also a 500GB external HDD attached to the main W7 PC, but available on the network to all other PC's and the MBP.

One of the problems I have is that I tended to keep the MBP/my iphone separate, so I have music on the MBP, and a bunch of music on the Windows network HDD> Same for photos. A bunch on the MBP and a (mostly duplicated) bunch on the Windows network HDD.

Oh, and this is discounting a bunch of "personal files" stored on Dropbox, but the beuaty of Dropbox is that it syncs to any computer it's installed on - in my case, both Windows boxes, the Eee, the MBP and my iPhone.

So what's my strategy going forward?

Well, I'm going to use my new wireless network HDD/NAS as the "master". My plan is to consolidate my music and photos and videos/movies onto this drive, back them up routinely to the standard external drive.

I can then free up space, especially on my MBP (not that it's tight for hard disk space, but I'm a bit paranoid when I get below half the drive full). My iTunes on whichever box I'm using will be accessing the network storage source, not individual local sources, and it will be the same for photos via Picasa.

Hopefully this will all work.

Of course, I've got to set up the back-up strategy too, but I use the highly effective and configurable Acronis True Image for this.

Fingers crossed!

Asus eee

I've brought my 7" Asus Eee on holiday to Florida. I really haven't used it that much of late (at all really), so this was a chance to give it a failry good road test.

It's been fine for checking my email, Twitter and blogging and checking up on eateries here in Orlando, though sometimes the small screen has been irritating when you have to scroll web sites. On the flip side, I had no qualms about chucking it into a suitcase - but it's pretty robust.

I've also been using Open Office Writer to write up my trip report - which you'll be able to check out from a post here when I get back and it's complete.

The only problem I've had is that it didn't like connecting to the wifi in the villa at first, even tough it could see it. Once it did connect though it's been fine and connects on boot now with no problem.

I'm using the default Xandros linux install but have tweaked it so I'm accessing the KDE desktop rather than the "Easy Mode" it comes set up with.

All in all, I'm reasonably happy with it, though would perhaps prefer the format of a slightly bigger 10" netbook.

Mini Mouse

Don't you just love it when something just goes according to plan?

I'm getting on great with my EEE notebook, but I have to admit that I'm not as adept with a trackpad as I am with a mouse.

So, I order up this mini sized retractable cord optical mouse (that's a mouthful) off Amazon for the princely sum of £1.55 plus a couple of quid postage. Yes that's right. The item was one pound and fifty five pence! The postage was more than the item (!) but having a mouse delivered to your door for about three quid all in is still a bargain.

It arrived inside 2 days.

I opened the package, plugged it in, fired up the EEE and off I went. Worked first time, not even a hint of a message about new hardware, drivers or anything else. Superb!

It's tiny though too - it's about a quarter the size of a bog standard mouse and it's still got room for a scroll wheel!