Ubuntu

Mac Book Pro(2,2) power supply and battery are being damaged by Ubuntu 9.04

Asked by EvanRoot

I installed Ubuntu 9.04 on my MacBook Pro (2,2 late 2006) and shortly after wards my power cord died. It was damaged but has been for a year and a half. After about two or three more weeks my batteries capacity has gone down (according to Ubuntu, things may actually be working better in Mac OS X) by 30%. The battery started at 75% capacity and now there is an error message about my battery being old or broken. It's stating that it is at 45%. It took two years to lose 25% with Mac OS X and a six weeks to loose 30% in Ubuntu. I think there is a power issue. I installed the temp and fan monitors because I was worried about a post I read were the MBP's have a hardware bug related to the fans and can just shut down, but the temp never went over 70 C and the fans kicked in at over 64 C which is what a 'genius' told me was perfectly acceptable. This genius also told me that my battery isn't among the silent recall batch of MBP batteries.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

Make sure you have setup the power and acpi options appropriately is all I can suggest. I'm sure there will be guides around.
If not, log a bug.
MAC hardware is really designed for MAC OS and I really dont understand buying an overpriced MAC then putting Linux on it. But it is possible.

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EvanRoot (cellarweasel) said : 		#2

Well, it's dual booted because I wanted to learn more about software, I don't really need Ubuntu I just wanted it because I was told that it was a better place to learn about alot of CS stuff, but whatever Darwin isn't that bad.
Also, how do I set up acpi on a mac? The main problem here is that Mac's don't have BIOS'. There is a compatibility layer for bootcamp but they don't actually enter a settings screen by hitting Delete or F2 or whatever.

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Steve (stupendoussteve-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#3

Both Windows and Linux run fine on a MacBook Pro. In fact the main reason I bought a Mac is a prefer Mac OS (even doing Ubuntu packaging from within OS X) but can boot into Windows or Linux easily and run very well. You're using bootcamp, right? If so, boot into OS X and see what it has to say about your system status. I extremely doubt Ubuntu somehow ruined your battery or power cord, it seems highly improbable.

If you're wanting to learn about CS on your Mac you may like using VirtualBox better. It is not the fastest emulation, but if you're using it for experimenting vs daily use, it's not so bad (and it flies in cli). If you want to learn something similar to Darwin, you might consider BSD. Of course, if you install fink you can install pretty much all of the "Linux" utilities in OS X anyway.

And yes, the Mac does allow and use acpi. See http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7642115 for some suggestions.You usually do not set up acpi through a bios setup screen.