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Comment by mrj | Hacker News Reader

I just got a 13'' MBP and put Linux on it. The hardware is great and well supported, but you'll still have a bit of a hard time getting the boot in order.

I tried to fully wipe out the OSX partition, which I ended up reinstalling just to get the `bless` command back so I could boot off the drive. Ugh. So it is setup to dual boot now with Refit.

I am quite happy with it otherwise.

I'm not sure how Linux will look with a Retina display, though. That's why I stuck with the non-Retina 13''. The hi-dpi support in Linux desktops is pretty awful.

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I single boot Linux on my 13" MBP retina. I use xmonad+xfce and it can be tuned to work reasonably well with Hi-DPI. There are still some things that don't work great (chrome), but it certainly can be done.

My big problem is that there is no support for different DPI settings for multiple monitors. This is quite unfortunate and keeps me from using the full resolution on the laptop's display. Right now I run the laptop display at 1680x1050 (still quite a bit higher than the non-retina 13"), which plays nicely with my 27" monitor at 2560x1440.

Besides the display issues, Linux runs great on the MBP retina (late 2013 MacBookPro11,1). Things run more smoothly than my last Macbook (a mid 2010 13" MacBookPro7,1) which had occasional wifi and suspend/resume nvidia issues. The only thing that I can think of that doesn't work is the builtin webcam, which was switched from USB to PCI-E and doesn't have a linux driver yet.

I'm experimenting with xrandr's --scale option for this problem. For my external monitor with a native resolution of 2560x1600, I can run "xrandr --output DP3 --panning 5120x3200 --scale 2.0x2.0" to have it act as a 5120x3200 pixel display which is then downscaled to fit the screen. This makes the hidpi-rendered stuff appear at normal sizes on that screen.

Interesting. I'll have to give that a try.

Wayland is supposed actually to fix this but its a little depressing how long we'll have to wait for that.

How does the battery life compare between OSX and Linux?

When I last ran Linux on Mac hardware (several years ago), it was a pretty disappointingly large gap.

Doesn't surprise me at all, it's one of the main selling points for Apple.

It's fine on my laptop (Arch Linux), same as in Windows, but with an i7, GTX 660M and no optimus, and a 15.6" screen there's not much power to save.

Out of the box it is not great, but it can be tweaked to get more. Mine is plugged in most of the time, so it's not a big deal for me (and is still much more than I get on most PCs).

I dual boot Ubuntu 13.04 and OSX on my 13" rMBP. The hi-dpi issue really doesn't bother me at all. (I run the display at 1680x1050 - the only thing that shows up really tiny is the splash screen)

The install was easy enough. Setting up refit was pretty easy. The only slightly complicated issue was putting the wifi and other proprietary drivers on a thumb drive because the rMBP doesn't have an ethernet port.

My only gripe with this setup is, because I run it about 60% OSX/40% Ubuntu, is that I'm really only happy in Ubuntu when I have a USB mouse plugged in. I haven't figured out how to make ctrl-click equal right click and I'm one of those who likes to two finger scroll inverted (like an iPad), but use the scroll wheel on a mouse in the traditional direction. If anyone has figured out a magic solution to MBP trackpads in Linux, I'd love to hear it.

I'm not sure about the cntl-click. A Google shows a bunch of different options that may work but can't check them out today. But for scrolling you might try the advice here: http://linuxg.net/enable-horizontal-and-natural-scrolling-in...

It looks like the GUI shows options for both devices, but the settings are split between trackpad and device. So it may do what you want.

I attempted Linux on a Chromebook Pixel and it was miserable, which is why I had shied away from the Retina. :-)

I'm using a 13" retina MBP with Kubuntu, and I wouldn't describe the hidpi support as awful.

You need to make sure that X has the right DPI setting and additionally make some explicit adjustments like resizing the mouse cursor and choosing big icons for everything. Once that is set right, KDE programs work nicely. Some non-KDE programs (such as Spotify) are rendered pixel by pixel the same as on a regular/low dpi screen.

So there are some glitches, but for day to day use it is absolutely workable :)

Pretty good HiDPI support is coming to Ubuntu in 14.04. I've been running the dev and it is pretty good, though not perfect. I wouldn't have a problem getting a HiDPI screen with 14.04.

The version of XFCE in 13.10 works well in HiDPI (15" 2880x1620 on my T540p).

refit has been abandonded, but work contiues on a fork called refind.

http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/

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