Rolling Ubuntu On An Old Macintosh Laptop

“What we’re doing here will send a giant ripple through the universe.”

Steve Jobs

I have an old mac laptop that was not doing anyone much use sitting around the house.  i had formatted the rig and due to it only being an i7 Pentium series mac you could only roll up to the Lion OS.  Also, i wanted a “pure” Linux rig and do not like other form factors (although i do dig the System 76 rigs).

So i got to thinking why dont i roll Ubuntu on it and let one cat turn into another cat?  See what i did there? Put a little shine on Ye Ole Rig? Here Kitty Kitty!

Anyways here are the steps that i found worked the most painless.

Caveat Emptor:  these steps completely wipe the partition and Linux does run natively wiping out any and all OSes. You WILL lose your OS X Recovery Partition, so returning to OS X or macOS can be a more long-winded process, but we have instructions here on how to cope with this: How to restore a Mac without a recovery partition.  You are going All-In!

On that note i also don’t recommend trying to “dual-boot” OS X and Linux, because they use different filesystems and it will be a pain.  Anyways this is about bringing new life to an old rig if you have a new rig with Big Sur roll Virtual Box and run whatever Linux distro you desire.

What you need:

  • A macintosh computer is the point of the whole exercise.  i do recommend having NO EXTERNAL DRIVES connected as you will see below.
  • A USB stick with at least 8 gig of storage.  This to will be formatted and all data lost.
  • Download your Linux distribution to the Mac. We recommend Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS if this is your first Linux install. Save the file to your ~/Downloads folder.
  • Download and install an app called Etcher from Etcher.io. This will be used to copy the Linux install .ISO file to your USB drive.

Steps to Linux Freedom:

  • Insert your USB Thumb Drive. A reminder that the USB Flash drive will be erased during this installation process. Make sure you’ve got nothing you want on it.

  • Open Etcher Click Select “Image”. Choose ubuntu-16.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso (the image you downloaded in Step 1).  NOTE: i had some problems with 20.x latest release with wireless so i rolled back to 16.0x just to get it running. 
  • Click “Change” under Select Drive. 

  • Pick the drive that matches your USB Thumb Drive in size. It should be  /dev/disk1 if you only have a single hard drive in your Mac. Or /dev/disk2, /dev/disk3 and so on (if you have more drives attached). NOTE: Do not pick /dev/disk0. That’s your hard drive! Pick /dev/disk0 and you’ll wipe your macOS hard drive HEED THY WARNING YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! This is why i said its easier if you have no external media.

  • Click “Flash!” Wait for the iso file to be copied to the USB Flash Drive. Go browse your favorite socnet as this will take some time or hop on your favorite learning network and catch up on those certificates/badges.

  • Once it is finished remove the USB Flash Drive from your Mac. This is imperative.
  • Now SHUTDOWN the mac and plug the Flashed USB drive into the mac.

  • Power up and hold the OPTION key while you boot.
  • Choose the EFI Boot option from the startup screen and press Return.
  • IMMEDIATELY press the “e” key.  i found you need to do this quickly otherwise the rig tries to boot.

  • Pressing the “e” key will enter you into “edit mode” you will see a black and white screen with options to try Ubuntu and Install Ubuntu. Don’t choose either yet, press “e” to edit the boot entry.
  • This step is critical and the font maybe really small so take your time.  Edit the line that begins with Linux and place the word "nomodeset" after "quiet splash". The whole line should read: "linux /casper/vmlinuz.efifile=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper quiet splash nomodeset --

  • Now Press F10 on the mac.
  • Now its getting cool! Your mac and Ubuntu boots into trial mode!

(Note: at this point also go browse your favorite socnet as this will take some time or hop on your favorite learning network and catch up on those certificates/badges.)

  • Double-click the icon marked “Install Ubuntu”. (get ready! Here Kitty Kitty!)
  • Select your language of choice.
  • Select “Install this third-party software” option and click Continue. Once again important.
  • Select “Erase disk and install Ubuntu” and click Continue.
  • You will be prompted for geographic area and keyboard layout.
  • You will be prompted to enter the name and password you want to use (make it count!).
  • Click “Continue” and Linux will begin installing!
  • When the installation has finished, you can log in using the name and password you chose during installation!
  • At this point you are ready to go!  i recommend registering for an ubuntu “Live Update” account once it prompts you.
  • One side note:  on 20.x update there was an issue with the Broadcom wireless adapter crashing which then reboots you without wireless.  i am currently working through that and will get back you on the fix!

Executing the command less /proc/cpuinfo will detail the individual cores. It looks like as i said the i7 Pentium series!

Happy Penguin and Kitten Time!  Now you can customize your rig!

Screen shot of keybase running on my ubuntu mac rig!

And that is a wrap! As a matter of fact i ate my own dog food and wrote this blog on the “new” rig!

Until Then,

#iwishyouwater

@tctjr

Muzak to blog by: Dreamways Of The Mystic by Bobby Beausoliel

Vaspar 21 Minute Workout (Review)

The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Due to my hobbies and extracurricular activities i sometimes get in situations that are disadvantageous to my physical well being. Let’s just say i have my number of sprains, broken bones, and metal parts in my body. Which in addition to being a fan of Dr. Norbert Wiener’s work i also believe in Cybernetics. That said over the past number of years i have had recurring issues with neck, back, shoulder, and hip chronic pain due to what i would term having too much fun whether it be martial arts, lifting weights, surfing, snowboarding etc. Through Lisa Maki (click her name for her story on her trials of pain) i was introduced to Marc Dubick, MD who is a Pain Medicine Specialist in Charleston, SC, and has over 46 years of experience in the medical field. He graduated from the University Of Kentucky medical school in 1975. He also happens to be a really amazing human being. Here is a picture of Dr. Marc Dubick and Your Author:

Me and The Doc

I started just as Lisa Maki did with injections of recombinant human growth hormone and testosterone to the painful and dysfunctional areas in my body that would otherwise have had to be operated on or replaced. Over the years while these injections are extremely painful they eventually help and heal the affected areas. i prefer the short term pain over the complexities of evasive surgery.

Dr Dubick has since retired and handed over the reins to a great doctor (and human) Dr. Todd Joye who is a partner at interveneMD. He is continuing the rGH therapy and it is proving as expected just as effective. This brings us to our current reason behind this blog. He has employed a rehabilitation – human performance machine called Vaspar.

Brochure of VASPAR

As it turns out professional sports teams and the military have started utilizing this machine with astounding results. To understand the physical benefits Vasper provides, they conducted research backed by supporting literature. In order to study its impact effectively, Vasper conducted a safety study, which verifies Vasper is safe and easy to use for most. Dr. Joye told me when he took delivery he had been working with the creator of Vaspar and Vasper users talk about increases in energy and strength. In a small study, they observed significant increases in testosterone as a result of Vasper use. Though there may be other factors at play, it is likely this testosterone boost explains the improvements in performance after Vasper use, which was discovered in a different study. Combined with its low impact physically and physiologically, the anabolic hormone increase with Vasper use is an unbeatable combination for anyone who wants to increase their physical performance. It is well known that testosterone is a key hormone that is involved in regulating muscle growth, bone density, fat metabolism, and mood in both men and women. The Vaspar folks explored this hormone with five professional baseball players in 8 Vasper sessions over 2 weeks. They data showed an 80% increase in free testosterone levels, with an average increase of 132% across all participants.

Purported levels of free testosterone level increase:

Given how much i pursue all things in human performance for mental and physical edges i was skeptical. However i am open to trying (almost) anything once if it shows the benefits of performant edge. Thus i went for my first 21 minute session.

Your author doing his best duck face:

In preparation, you get suited up in cuffs for your thighs, biceps, and neck. You train barefooted as the pedals are also supercooled. The thing that attracted me to the Vaspar workout was that it is low impact. The principles behind Vaspar are three areas: compression, cooling, and interval training.

Compression and cooling create the effect of high intensity (anaerobic) exercise without the major time soak or muscle damage. Compression also allows lactic acid to accumulate to your muscles which drives signals to your brain requesting higher amounts of human growth hormone and testosterone to accelerate repair and recovery. The cooling also increases oxygen to the muscles.

For interval training, it is obvious to anyone who has trained that is the way to go as far as i am concerned to generate high amounts of caloric burn in a shorter amount of time with higher amounts of lactic acid buildup which create a feedback effect.

The system can be customized for limb reach and throw as well as numerous analytics such as pulse oxygen, pulse rate, wattage burned etc.

So what happened?

The staff at interveneMD set the system to slightly higher than intermediate. Well dear reader it blew my mind in the first and second sessions. In 21 minutes it felt like i had been deadlifting substantial weight with sprints in between sets for at least an hour. Which i have done many times before with an extremely sore body afterward. The workout was very intense and exhilarating.

To my amazement, i had zero pain and in fact, greatly reduced pain probably to the endorphins released as well as the amount of HGH and testosterone.

My favorite part is after the interval workout you lie on a super cooling mat for 6 minutes. Nighty night bunny rabbit!

For anyone who is into human performance or needs rehabilitation of any means i highly recommended finding a facility that has one of these for use. As a note health insurance does pay some portion!

In full transparency i have no affiliation with interveneMD or the makers of VASPAR. This blog was written in order to amplify others and the fact i was totally amazed after so many years of searching for novel ways to workout.

Once again here are the links

interveneMD

Vaspar

Here is a great reference to Dr Marc Dubicks paper on rGH:

“Use of localized human growth hormone and testosterone injections in addition to manual therapy and exercise for lower back pain: a case series with 12-month follow-up.”

Hope everyone is safe!

Until then,

#iwishyouwater

tctjr

Muzak To Blog To: Johnny Smith – Kaleidoscope