Installing on a mac without a CD burner or USB boot

Question

I am new to Ubuntu, i installed it in an old PC and now it works GREAT!!! My Macbook pro has a glitch and refuses to run Mac OS X, so i installed Windows, and i really want Ubuntu since Windows is not for me. Here's the problem(s) my drive only READS DVDs, if i put a blank in it, it will ignore it and my mac has the updated EFI, so no booting from a USB connected device! I also tried Wubi, but then i cant make it a FULL partition and get rid of windows!!! Thank you!

Answer 1

If I understand, you want to download a new version of Ubuntu and put it on some media and boot from that media to install it to the whole disk on your Mac OS system. You are constrained in that the media you can write to you can't boot from and you can boot from the CD/DVD drive but have no means of writing one. Further, I assume you can't write a CD from that old PC running Ubuntu.

If all of that is correct, I can see three choices. (If it's not correct, please correct me by editing your question).

1. Buy an Ubuntu 12.04 CD. Canonical has them here . At one time Canonical would give away single CD's on request but I don't see that on the Get Ubuntu part of the Ubuntu site anymore. The cost is about five pounds.

2. Get an Ubuntu CD from your LOCO (or maybe one nearby). If it's inconvenient to meet with LOCO members perhaps someone would mail you a CD. LOCO's are Ubuntu Local Community Teams. You can find LOCO's starting from here. A LOCO near me always seems to have extra CD's they give away. A LOCO is a good alternative for getting help and advice too. This would be my choice if I were in your situation.

   In France, for example, please see this site.

3. As a final alternative, if you still have the old CD you used to install Ubuntu on that old PC, perhaps you could install from that CD onto your Mac, and then upgrade the system to 12.04. If you installed from USB, however, I see from your question that USB booting won't work.