Hi, 56yo Apple-emigrant already thinking I may have got myself in WAY deeper than I can handle… Have had a 12th Gen DIY for months but only just got it out of the box and set up cos it all seemed a bit overwhelming but my 2012 MBP has almost zero memory left and I wanna get out of it and iCloud ASAP…
BUT already stuck on the first screen on first start up - Boot Manager… no idea what to do and can’t find a help topic… I’m not completely tech-moronic but I deffo need my hand held at the beginning…
If anyone can point in the right direction to get moving forward and recommend the easiest, most intuitive means of entering the Linux world and importing everything from Mac - I’d be most grateful. Not looking to do anything too fancy - I’m a standard user browsing, loading/storing/playing photos, music, etc… I am a SketchUp user though and would like to be able to continue using that - is it compatible with Linux? - though I could just use the MBP for that for as long as it keeps going.
So, you are using Linux, right? Which distribution (kind of Linux) are you using? Could you share a photo of the stucking taken maybe by your smartphone?
However, keep in mind that the official Framework support will probably only be able to help you with the first 3 Linux distributions.
As for getting your data off iCloud and import them to linux, that won’t be as easy as you would imagine. Apple is a closed wall system and barely allows any way outside of their official apps to retrieve or push data of/into their services.
This is why some guides recommend either ssh access, rsync or dropbox (like this one).
Depending on which SketchUp version you are using, you could be in luck. Wine allows people to run Windows programs on Linux, and your program seems to have good support with more recent versions.
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I was just looking at that - seems that Mint would be a good choice for a beginner though I would like the interface to be as Mac-like as possible and it sounds like it’s more like Windows…
Even if I decide which Linux Dist’ (even that’s a new term/abb’ for me!) I have no idea how to get it on… is there a guide that leads you through the start up/install process from this Boot Manager page?.. I looked and couldn’t find one and being already somewhat overwhelmed I posted here…
So I just restarted and got back to the first page which says:
Default Boot Device Missing or Boot Failed - Insert recovery media and Hit any key - Then select ‘Boot Manager’ to choose a new Boot Device or to Boot Recovery Media
If you follow the link below and scroll down to the “How-to Guides” you can see guides for each supported distribution with step by step installation instructions.
The process for creating the installation USB is the same for all OS installations and once you have done it once you will find the next time very easy. I say the next time because you basically get to “try before you buy” with Linux, the installation comes with a “live environment” which basically means a version of the OS that will run of the very same USB stick/files you use to install with.
I can recommend you use the Gnome desktop environment as it it most similar to Mac OS (where KDE is closer to a Windows desktop) but this is the fun part, you can just keep trying out different options and then boot into the USB stick without committing to anything!
So all I’m missing at this point is a USB stick with an OS on it? Once plugged in I’ll use the Boot Manager to access it? Sorry, but while I am kinda familiar with most computer terms it’s not part of my everyday language or knowledge and I’m used to Mac where you just get led thru everything…
As long as you have got the RAM and SSD installed then I believe that is all you are missing
The amount of choice with Linux can be overwhelming but the most fundamental choice is the desktop environment (which actually you can change but IMO it is best to pick the distribution with it set-up).
Yup, been thru all that as described then…stuck… and now I look at that guide again and see that I completely missed/ignored/forgot the last step… I think because I didn’t think I wanted any of the distros listed and moved on sigh Thanks for your patience!
While the distros in the how-to guide (first link I shared) are recommended/supported I think you can try out others and see how well they work/you like them but they are not “supported officially” so there could be problems that you would need to ask the respective communities about fixing, there are topics on the forums of “unsupported” distros so you might find what you need here too.
