Dual Boot Ubuntu 20.04 on a 2017 MacBook? My Attempt.

Hiatt — Sat, 09 May 2020 19:41:43 +0000

I love my MacBook and I love trying new things. Among all the major desktop GUIs out there: Windows, macOS, and Linux, I like Linux the best. I tried to install Ubuntu before on my 2015 MacBook Pro a couple of years back. It had some issues and I ended up uninstalling it. With Ubuntu 20.04, I decided to give it another shot and tried to dual boot Ubuntu with macOS on my 2017 MacBook.

So last night, I backed up my MacBook using Time Machine. This morning, I was so excited to do the installation that I got up at 6:30 to install Ubuntu 20.04 along side macOS. I had to delete the local Time Machine snapshots before partitioning the drive using Disk Utility. After that, the installation went well mainly because I followed a YouTube tutorial.

After the install, I logged into Ubuntu. The first thing I noticed is my trackpad didn’t work. I searched online and found three command lines I needed to run then it got fixed. I struggled for a couple of hours trying to get the speakers to work. The headphone works but not the laptop speakers. In the end, I couldn’t find the solution. Around 1 pm, I called it quits and deleted the partitions I created this morning and deleted the ubuntu grub folder so everything is back to where I started.

My conclusion is that Linux and MacBooks don't play well. To me, Apple makes great looking laptops and I want a great customizable OS to go with it. In my opinion, that's Linux. I know Linux has less trouble working with Windows machines and I like the new Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition that has Ubuntu baked in. But that's another $1000+ I don't want to spend right now. I just wish Linux worked better on Macs.

Anyone with similar thoughts?

DEV Community: Hiatt

Dual Boot Ubuntu 20.04 on a 2017 MacBook? My Attempt.