Mac Pro and Linux

Let's get started
October 24, 2007

I've bought a 8-core Mac Pro a couple of weeks ago for running CPU-heavy applications in the visual effects field (mainly Nuke and Houdini). I thought running Linux on this box is going to be a piece of cake but I can tell you, it's not. There's a serious lack of information on the subject and this is what this blog is trying to fix. I will try to post howtos, tutorials and small snippets of random information that is going to help you to get your Mac Pro up and running with Linux. Ok, than let's get started!

Posted byvfxdude at 1:50 PM  

7 comments:

Bob said... November 21, 2007 at 7:18 PM  

haha, what are the odds. Same here mate. stuck with setting up linux on this beast. Houdini and Fusion are pretty tied up on 32-bit xp windooz. If you find anything please post it as soon as you can. Thanks in advance.

vfxdude said... November 21, 2007 at 7:33 PM  

Hey Bob,

have you checked out the other articles on the blog?

There's a general howto:
http://macprolinux.blogspot.com/2007/10/installing-ubuntu-710-gutsy-on-mac-pro.html

There's one on setting up a custom kernel:
http://macprolinux.blogspot.com/2007/10/howto-compile-2623-kernel-for-mac-pro.html

And this is the main page:
http://macprolinux.blogspot.com/

Let me know how it goes!

Cheers

Bob said... November 21, 2007 at 10:05 PM  

hey vfxdude,

I don't know if it has to do with something on my hardware but the ubuntu installer freezes no matter what options i use, i used "irqpoll acpi=force" but still no hope. can you tell me the exact specs of your machine please?

cheers,
bob

vfxdude said... November 21, 2007 at 10:10 PM  

This is my config:

http://macprolinux.blogspot.com/2007/10/my-configuration.html

And if you mean by "freezing" that the screen turns black, than:

"If you get a black screen during booting from the CD or the installation, then try to remove the "splash" option from the boot options. This helped me with my 23" Apple Cinema Display."

Are you using the 7.10 64-bit CD?

vfxdude said... November 21, 2007 at 10:11 PM  

-Mac Pro 8-core 3.0 GHz
-8 GB RAM
-500GB HDD
-XFX 8800GTS 320MB graphics card (but worked with a ATI X1900XT as well)
-23" Apple Cinema Display (aluminum bezel)

Bob said... November 22, 2007 at 2:09 PM  

Yes i used the 7.10 64 bit CD.

well i have thesame configuration but i have the quadro gfx board as well as a 30 inch display( i don't think there's a difference anyway).

I'll try to remove the splash options nad see how it goes.

cheers

Habi said... January 22, 2008 at 12:03 PM  

this blog makes me want to buy a mac pro ;-)

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