MacBook Pro 8.1 is Nice piece of Hardware by Apple Inc. I got this second hand Laptop from one of my collegue Mr. Ausep Andrew in Last week of July 2013. The piece is considered old LapTop, released first time in Early 2011. I do like Apple's Products, especially the MacBook Pro design. However OSX is only optional for my daily bullets, I did a lot of things on Linux, as long user of Linux by forking Gentoo Linux Distro and Ubuntu.I have confusion to install the MacBook Pro 8.1. Choice between Gentoo Linux and Shinning Star Ubuntu is really hard. MacBook Pro 8.1 coming in my hand without OSX Installation CD/DVD and my Collegues wants back the Hard Disk inside with his data and OSX Installed. I got New 1 TB Hard Disk and replace 2x 2GB RAM with 2 x 4 GB Ram, I wish to replace with 2x 8 GB RAM one day.
It have been a habbit for most linuxer to surf along with help of Google , before installing an OS into a device. Well we need, sufficient reference to safe time in installing and configuring. After Reading such nice post on several Blogs and forum, Albert Cardona wrote a nice post on his experience installing Ubuntu 12.04 on MacBook pro 8.1 and CK Knows Wayne posted great story on installing Gentoo on MacBook Pro 8.2. I feel comfortable with Gentoo Linux for supporting my work to run a Shipping Company and doing hobbies in tweaking, poking, tempering Android Devices.
Seems vague, to install Linux on MacBook. No doubt MacBook is great hardware with slick physical appearance coming from good design. OSX is great, designated for Mac Book since very beginning, thus the best should be a Mac Book running OSX. My problem is, I never use OSX, thus I'm not familiar with OSX, I have been doing many things serious in Linux machine and some windows where necessary. I do like OSX Interface, shiny and all OSX Physical appearance. But my computer skills is in Linux box and too lazy to learn another operating system, Linux is what I need. No certain reason in installing Linux on my Mac Book apart from ... I familiar with Linux
Well Ubuntu is very popular among Android Developer, but I do like Gentoo Linux. It's not about comparison, it is purely about TASTE of FLAVOUR I decided to pick up Gentoo Linux for MacBook Pro 8.1. After reading some blog post and forums. The following Challenges should be tackled to make Gentoo running nicely on MacBook Pro
- Configuring Proper Boot Loader on EFI Machine
- Wifi Adaptor Broadcom 4331 known bit difficult to be configured
- Fancy Mac Book Pro keyword configuration to achieve nice functions
- Three Fingers functionality Touch Pad on Mac Book Pro
- Built in iSight Camera functions
Installation Medium
SysrescueCD IMHO Is the best Installation Medium for Gentoo Linux, and also the best live CD ever. For sure, a good internet connection is Must. During this Super Holiday in Indonesia to celebrate Lebaran Day 2013, I have to back to "Home Land" Banda Aceh, thus mean about 1824 KM away from Jakarta, where I live daily for working. In my lovely Home banda aceh, a speedy home scheme internet connection is available, but only accessible by Wifi. Meanwhile SysrescueCD 3.7.1 did not Pick Up BCM4331 as the built in wifi adaptor. No choice, I need help a USB Wifi Adaptor, a TP-Link TL-WN722N Powered by Atheros AR9271 USB Wifi is available. SysrescueCD 3.7.1 Picked Up nicely this adaptor
Booted directly into GUI Environment from live CD made installation process free from Hassle and comfortable :=) GUI Environment with Midori web browser make everything easy and comfortable to read web page of gentoo handbook, blog posts, forums, etc etc. Nothing special in Installing gentoo linux, this linux distro maintain using orthodox method in installing linux. Downloading, extracting, finger base configurations. One of the most obstacle installing gentoo linux is high time consumed, today where linux distro like, ubuntu, linuxMint, Fedora, mandriva, Opensuse, Debian by default required about 45 minutes to install from scratch up to booting GUI system, Gentoo will consumed about 2,000 minutes
Most Gentoo users believed, it is worth to spend such time in installing,setting-up, configuring, Gentoo box to have great, fast, stable machine. Installation process went well.
Continue to GRUB2 EFI
