Trying to install Ubuntu 20.04 on mac pro 64bit

1. Created a bootable USB drive.
2. Downloaded Ubuntu 20.04 ISO file.
3. Used Etcher to create USB bootable install disk.
4. Powered mac on hold down option key.
5. Boots into boot loader and I choose EFI Boot, tried both EFI Boot.
6. Grub loads up and I tried choosing Ubuntu or install oem.
7. Main Ubuntu install screen appears and then just gets stuck. Can't use mouse or keyboard??? wtf

I also tried different version of Ubuntu 18.0 & Linux Mint newest version 20.3

Same result. Just hangs.

looked in the .bash_profile and the line has nomodeset for the video hang up issue

Any help allowing me to install one of the above on my mac pro would be very much appreciated.

It often happens that nomodeset must be added to an installation boot process in order to proceed past issues with some GPUs. It's not a Mac-specific thing. At the initial menu presented by the installer, you may need to edit the default selection by striking the E key, navigating to the line that begins linu, then goto the end of that line, which probably is wrapped, add a space, type in nomodeset, then proceed to boot.

When was this Mac manufactured? What model exactly?

I tried this several times, but I could not save it. What keys do I hit to save the entry? The grub is so tiny, that I can barely read it.

Ok this is why Linux is so hard for new users:

1. Trying to see if mac pro has grub installed. I run sudo find / uname grub and it returns tons of hits. I try to go find in any of the locations it states where grub is located in and I either can't access or doesn't exist????

2. Can't run dpkg -l to see what is installed because mac bash shell command line has to have different linux commands. wtf

A simple install and a simple edit turns into a all day event, trying to figure out 10 different platforms language. Why could Linux just use all the same command s across every platform. Make it a standard.

I have no clue where to turn to now or what to try. Totally exhausted.

But I'm not giving up!!!!!

MacOS is not Linux!

(It's XNU/Darwin/FreeBSD.)


Also, you haven't answered this:

What I described serves the purpose of rescue or workaround, not intended to survive a boot. To make nomodeset a permanent entry requires a post boot edit of /etc/default/grub, and regenerating /boot/grub/grub.cfg. Also it handicaps normal operation for each boot that employs it. Read here and here for further clarification of nomodeset.

Using nomodeset on a Mac could cause a complete failure of X being able to run, but should present a command line shell environment from which reconfiguration, repairs, and installation and removal of program and system packages can be performed.

Are you able to reach a shell prompt? If yes, what do efibootmgr -v and aptitude search grub produce? If not, what are the last things you see onscreen?

Well just found out I needed external keyboard & mouse to install Ubuntu 20.04.3 on new mac pro.
Also after install error came up and disappeared quickly. Ubuntu had not shut down option anywhere after the install. Very strange.

This answers everything I have been having problems with:

https://gist.github.com/gbrow004/096...009fbb87b781a4

Time to get rid of all my old I Macs and my 2 year old mac book pro.

I guess Linux is best on old Windows PC. Let's see if this is the real deal...

Well, not exactly. Old is relative... You don't want to go back to far, like another poster was trying to see if he could get Linux running on an old 286.... FWIW, I am running KUbuntu 20.04 on a Ryzen 5900X and on another system using a 5600X with x470 motherboards ... so not old by any means and Linux is running rock solid on both systems. I have several older laptops that have KUbuntu Linux installed too with no problems.

That link is bad. What's with the 3 dots?

Unfortunately, I don't have experience with Linux on Mac hw.
But if you have an x86_64 CPU, and probably SSE2 instruction set for Firefox or Chromium and any mobo, almost any 10 y old graphics card, probably you can run any Linux distro.
I think most Linux distros are compiled for x86_64. You can find it for PPC, ARMv7 and some other CPUs as well.

Example:
I have Kubuntu 20.04 (This is from 2020) running on a Athlon II X2 240 CPU, Geforce 8600, 16 GB DDR3 RAM.
I think the CPU is from 2009.

Slowness is noticeable on certain overloaded websites, when I want to zoom in and out of LibreOffice documents .......but mostly, it does the job.
I picked up this PC from the side of the road and I added more RAM.

LQ abbreviates the display of URLs that are over a certain length (possibly 56 characters), unless you go out of the way to prevent it.

I guess Whalers1988 copy-pasted the rendered version of their other post (where the working link is):
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/when-learning-and-installing-a-linux-distro-first-time-4175708630/#post6334229

(Had they pressed the quote button before copy-pasting the content, the URL would have remained working.)