Linux on my Mac, part 2 (05.27.2020)

After trying MX Linux for a few days on my Mac, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I liked Manjaro better and wanted to finally put it on my Macbook Pro (2010). I was reluctant to leave the Ubuntu / Debian world but Manjaro is just so damn elegant, fast and has so many software options.

If I’m being honest with myself, I just wanted a good looking distro that I could play my 90’s video games on and use a Microsoft Office alternative for school.

My top distro picks so far are:

  1. Manjaro (Arch based)
  2. MX Linux (Debian based)
  3. Zorin OS (Ubuntu based)
  4. Xubuntu (Ubuntu)

The XFCE desktop performs the best on my 5 and 10 year old computers.

I was curious so I tried the live versions of the other major distros:

Fedora: Unity desktop in live version, nice, but nothing “called” to me.

OpenSUSE: Good, but I didn’t like visual software installer.

Gentoo: Elegant desktop in live DVD but nothing called to me.

Slackware: I couldn’t figure out default login / password, so I gave up.

My mind just kept coming back to Manjaro… so that’s what I finally installed.

On my old Macbook Pro I had success with burned install DVD-roms and limited success with Live Flashdrives.

I think I have satisfied my distrohopping curiosity and I am going to stick with Manjaro for a while.

Linux on my Mac (05.13.2020)

After a decade, I have started to try Linux again. Although I did install distros before – I got frustrated after tinkering for a few weeks the last time (mostly installing proprietary drivers via command line).

I have been a “Mac user” since the Apple IIGS (I remember Zany Golf, Mickey’s Space Adventure, Oregon Trail, Beachhead).

This evening I tried running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on my 2010 Macbook Pro.  Ubuntu kept freezing, so I clean installed Ubuntu Mate over it.

In the two weeks that I have been playing around I have been mostly successful with Ubuntu Mate, Linux Mint (Cinnamon), and Zorin OS (Ultimate Edition). So far Zorin is my favorite, Mate is next and Mint is third.

I am looking for a “daily driver” for the 2010 Macbook Pro so I don’t have to use a $300 Windows 10 machine I bought to “get by” next semester (when I am not at home using my iMac desktop).

This whole thing started with my frustrations with MS Word for Mac 2016 edition. It runs so painfully slow on my newer iMac. I’m not a fan of Office.com, formerly Office 365, even though I have to use it sometimes. I tried switching to LibreOffice out of frustration… and that once again sparked my interest in Linux.

More “notes” to come.

Resources for Linux Beginners:

distrowatch.com (start here to pick a Linux Distro to try out)

Chris Titus Tech on YouTube

Podcasts:

Going Linux (with Larry and Bill)

Linux for Everyone (Jason Evangelho, journalist at Forbes)

Choose Linux (on hiatus as of 4/2020 but still excellent and educational)

Linux Spotlight (Rocco aka BDL)

As a beginner in 2020 these are the resources that have taught me the most.

Good Luck!

My Mexican Heritage

I am proud of my Mexican and Spanish heritage even though I “look like a pale, Caucasian-(white)-American nerd,” which I am as well.

I paid for the 23 and Me genetic heritage and health testing within the last 12 months.

In my results I found that 4.9% of my DNA came from Native American ancestors who lived in what is modern day Mexico.

Being that my paternal grandmother was born in Mexico (and naturalized as a United States citizen in the middle of the Twentieth Century) I was surprised that only 4.9% of my genetic code (that relates to family heritage) was from Native Americans (from “Mexico”).

Historically Mexican citizens have had predominately both Spanish and Native American ancestors. This is my basic understand of historical Mexican society – which could be inaccurate. At 5:40am on a Wednesday morning I do not have time to investigate these facts further at this time.

Using simple math I have come to the following hypothesis:

My paternal Grandmother was my only Mexican relative.

She accounts for an estimated 25% of my DNA.

I am 4.9% Native American from Mexico.

If 100% of her DNA is represented by 25% of my DNA then:

A simple estimate of my Grandmother’s Native American DNA. Using proportional estimates it is my hypothesis that my grandmother was 19.6% or approximately 20% Native American from what is modern day Mexico. The other 80% percent was most likely a combination of mostly Spanish and other European DNA.

DNA inheritance doesn’t “work that way” as you will find out should you participate in DNA testing. There is never an even distribution of DNA that is perfectly, statistically proportional to what your genetics should be as predicted by strictly percentages. My findings about my Grandma’s heritage are strictly a proportional estimate based on math and logic.

More on DNA in future posts. It’s time to go to work…