Ubuntu Upgrade Woes

I tried to upgrade to the newest LTS release last week. Let's get this out of the way, relevant XKCD. It took three solid, long days, which is more than anybody should ever be expected to spend installing an operating system for a desktop system (though I must admit that I spent a full week working through Linux From Scratch in my off time). All said and done, I was left with a (almost) fully functional Ubuntu installation, so I am pretty happy.

To put this in context, I have a whole bunch of rants about how much Ubuntu sucks filed away on my computer, but this will probably be the first one that will actually see the light of day. The only reason I bring it up is that it seems that I, sort of, figured out why this was causing me problems and how to fix it. However, I don't really know of a place to put this. I know what worked for me, but I really don't understand it fully and I really don't think I am in the position to give technical advice to anybody.

So, I'll get to the short of it with the hopes that anybody in my same shoes that is frantically Googling about might land on this page. If you:

1. Are running Ubuntu (or probably any other GNU/Linux that supports EFI boot) on a MacBook Pro (at least the 6,2 model, but perhaps others that use hybrid video technology).
2. Are having a tough time getting the Nvidia drivers to work (the install but you end up with a blank screen on the next boot).

You might be suffering from the same issue I had; you need to ensure that you are booting in emulated BIOS mode rather than using Apple's EFI. For me, this means that I need to hold the "Option Key" on boot and hand select the Ubuntu drive, but Google says that there are other ways to do this.

It actually solves one of the big mysteries I've had since starting to use Ubuntu on the Apple computers: the poor battery life in Ubuntu versus OS X (in my and my friend's experience this basically cuts the idle lifetime by a factor of two to three). At least one of the reasons for this poor battery life (and perhaps the major contributor) is that the video card is stuck in the discrete Nvidia GPU mode and never switches to the integrated i915 card.

This caught me by surprise as I wasn't aware that booting using different methods would leave the hardware in different states (i.e. boot one way and the system is stable and usable, boot another way and you will get crappy performance at best and very likely an install that will crash every time it tries to start Xorg). It is a shame that Ubuntu picks the unstable EFI way to set up the booting process… however…

You really can't blame Ubuntu for their decision. Apple used a non-standard EFI method for (at least) this series of MacBook Pros. They also used a non-standard hybrid video technology based on Optimus but sufficiently different that none of the bumblebee stuff works, yet. I think people are working on it and Youtube shows some videos with working proof-of-concept graphics switching, but it is a pretty old laptop so I'm not holding my breath.

As a side note, while the whole installation debacle should have soured me on 14.04, I have to say that it is extremely well polished compared to 12.04. Of course it could be better, but I absolutely love how Unity looks once you install a few themes and fiddle with Unity Tweak Tool to bend it to your taste.

Also, I know many people that would ask, "was it worth it?" Is it worth it to work for three days to get a GNU/Linux installation up and running? Absolutely. I am vastly more productive when working within GNU/Linux. Should it have taken less time? Absolutely, and that is the real question to ask. Would another distribution provide similar features for much less investment?