Installing Xubuntu 20.04 on a Mac mini
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Guide to install Xubuntu 20.04 on a Mac mini (Late 2014) with 1.4 GHz clock speed and 4 GB of RAM. I decided to install Xubuntu because this machine’s processing power is below the recommended >= 2 GHz for Ubuntu 20.04.
1. Download Xubuntu image
- The download page can be found here. I downloaded the Desktop version from the Indiana University mirror, found here.
2. Acquire a USB Drive
- This software allows you to create the bootable USB drive, which will install Xubuntu on the Mac mini.
4. Create the bootable USB Drive
- Use balenaEtcher to flash the Xubuntu image to the USB drive.
5. Install Xubuntu on the Mac mini
- Insert the USB drive into the Mac mini.
- If you receive the pop-up “The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer”, click “Initialize”. This will open the “Disk Utility” program, and then you should verify the disk. If the prompt outputs “0”, you can proceed.
- Restart the computer, and immediately after hearing the start-up tone, hold the Option/Alt button on your keyboard. This will open the bootloader.
- You will have the option to boot Mac OS or EFI. To load Xubuntu, click EFI.
- Click “Try Xubuntu”. This will load Xubuntu, and you can fully install the OS by clicking the “Install Xubuntu” icon on the desktop at any time.
6. Connecting to the Internet
- If your router does not appear under the “Network Manager” icon in the top right of the ribbon, you will need to install its driver.
- To do so, connect to your router with an Ethernet cable.
- Click the top left icon, go to Settings > Additional Drivers. Select “Using " and then "Apply changes". This will install the driver, and you should then find your router when you select the "Network Manager".
7. Set up Git
- Follow instructions here to set up Git locally.
- I configured the username to be the same as my GitHub account, and the email to be the noreply email address given to me by GitHub.
- GitHub no longer supports password authentication for local pushes; create a personal access token using this guide.
8. Install Visual Studio Code
- I decided to install the snap file as opposed to the deb file. Instruction can be found here, and a brief discussion on snap vs apt can be found here.