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I'm considering buying a Macbook Air as a graduation present, but it will be a 64GB SSD and I'd like to install Ubuntu to the entire disk. Do I need to create a new msdos partition table as this guide suggests, or can I leave it as GPT? Can I just boot to the USB (I know I need to convert the .iso to .img and DD it over to the USB disk) and use the default tools to create my partitions? After installation, will it automatically know that it's a bootable partition and go to it? If not, will holding down the option key work?

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I would follow the steps in the guide exactly as written - it has been tried and tested and works. As it suggests for a single boot system also keep a copy of OSX – Mark Rooney Apr 7 '12 at 3:50
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Nathan, you need to be aware that there are tremendous difficulties installing from USB to a MacBook Air. The official guide is fine, but underscores this point. The 'dd'-ing procedure is hit-or-miss. Ubuntu forums has a lot of horror stories; I found that it worked once, but did not work when I tried it again on the same computer! Advice: Get/borrow the MacBook Air Superdrive; even if you have to go to some trouble to buy and return it (at an Apple Store, no restocking fee anymore AFAIK). That's worth a few days of messing around with this. – Chan-Ho Suh Apr 15 '12 at 23:39

closed as too localized by fossfreedom♦ Mar 28 at 14:00

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