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I have an early 2011 macbook pro.

My primary hard drive location has a mac os X yosemite installation.

I replaced the optical drive with a secondary hard drive, which has two partitions created with bootcamp: (1) Mac OS X Mavericks and (2) Windows 7

I followed official ubuntu instructions for creating a bootable USB stick on Mac OS X.

When I reboot the system holding the option key, two new boot disks appear with the USB logo. Both titled "EFI Boot". I click on one and it takes me to the Ubuntu menu. When I select "try ubuntu" in order to use a live installation, I then get the message ''i8042 No Controller'' and the system hangs. I then have to use the power button to reboot. Any idea as to how to get around this?

If I select install ubuntu, I get the same error.

Joe
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  • you are not the 1st: http://askubuntu.com/questions/541036/macbook-pro-ubuntu-install-freezes-after-grub-menu – Rinzwind Jan 01 '15 at 00:33
  • @Rinzwind Thanks for that link. That user reports that they originally had disk encryption enabled on one of their disks, and that the issue was resolved when they disabled disk encryption. I do not have disk encryption enabled so unfortunately their fix isn't helpful in my case. – Joe Jan 01 '15 at 00:39
  • It is a hardware error related to a PS/2 keyboard. This seems something to try: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/28736/what-does-the-i8042-nomux-1-kernel-option-do-during-booting-of-ubuntu – Rinzwind Jan 01 '15 at 00:42
  • Check my answer on this similar thread. It worked for me on a 2011 MacBook Pro. – Velin May 07 '15 at 21:00
  • I got the same error when trying boot a usb stick on a 2009 iMac via the usb slot on the keyboard. Booting from a usb slot on the actual computer works. –  Mar 05 '15 at 22:05

1 Answers1

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I don't have the answer to the OP's original question, however I just recently, like today, installed Ubuntu 20.04 on my 2011 MacBook Pro and I'm happy to say it works 99%, including the Intel GPU and discrete GPU, in my case, a Radeon. What doesn't work? The Apple Remote control, which I lost a long time ago anyways.

Ubuntu 20.04 is very mature for installing onto a 2011 MacBook Pro and everything just works. The GPU's (you can right click an application and choose which video card you want the app to load to), both levels of function keys work, all the lights work, and all the dimming, sound, screen level all work as well.

I add this here because this thread is very old, however should someone attempt to do this in 2021, you can be rest assured that you will have a compatible working system. It's the best thing I've ever done on this MacBook Pro and having it Ubuntu only is like having a Porsche for a troubleshooting laptop. (I put in a new battery, 16 gigabytes, and a 512gb SSD)

Ron

PS. Additionally, the setup was Ubuntu ONLY, NO OSX. Just the single Ubuntu OS which the MacBook now boots directly into.

Ronald Johnson
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