Aaron Feng

A few days ago I came up with an idea for a side ruby (possibly using rails too) project. After doing the initial research, I realized it makes more sense to test out the idea on Linux instead of OS X. I don't want to change the setup of my MacBook since I'm just toying with the idea, so I decided to install Linux using Parallels. Parallels is a virtual machine for Mac that is capable of running any operating system.

There has been a lot of hype around Ubuntu, so I decided to give it a try. The latest version at the time of this writing is 7.10 (codename Gutsy Gibbons). Installing Ubuntu on my MacBook via Parallels was a much more difficult task than I expected. Shortly after I started the installation, I was faced with the following error:

The display server has been shut down about 6 times in the last 90 seconds

After some googling, I found the fix on Shane Duffy's blog - Ubuntu 7.10 Install guide - Parallels Macbook pro. The installation worked as expected. However, Unbuntu wasn't able to connect to the internet during the installation, so the software package management system (apt-get) configuration file was commented out. apt-get is similar to MacPorts on Mac. I uncommented all the locations in the /etc/apt/source.list. I ran the following command to get the system up to date:

apt-get update
apt-get dist-update

The apt-get is pretty slick. Learning more about it will definitely pay off in the future. A good place to start is the AptGetHowto.

Moving on to the ruby and rails installation. apt-get wants to manage all the packages it installs, so installing gem using apt-get won't be feasible. Walter Wilfinger has posted complete instructions on how to get ruby and rails running in his post Installing Ruby and Ruby on Rails in Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon.

Last but not least, I found it annoying that I can't use the apple key as control key in Ubuntu. Once again I found a post written by Stuart Colville on how to remap the apple keys.

Wait, the system is not complete if you can't watch videos on youtube. When I tried to open a video on youtube firefox prompted me to install the missing flash plugin. Don't install it, it won't work. Download the Linux flash player from Adobe from here. Open a terminal window and run the following commands:

# exist firefox before running these commands
tar xvfz install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz
cd install_flash_player_9_linux
./flashplayer-installer
# at this point, the installer should ask you where the firefox
# directory is, it should be in /usr/lib/firefox

Overall, the installation went well, but was time consuming. There were some pitfalls, but they were easy to overcome. Ubuntu runs well on my MacBook with Parallels (I'm actually blogging from it). I'm sure it would run even better on a MacBook Pro. I really enjoy having a complete separate environment for development. I have complete freedom of experimenting with different things without worrying about messing up my system. If you ever wanted to play around with Ubuntu on a Mac, Parallels is definitely the way to go. If this works out well, I might just keep all my development stuff on a separate Parallels image.