how to install ubuntu for mac from cd?

With the disk in the optical drive, restart, and after you hear the 'bong", hold down the "C" key.

An alternate method is, again, put in the CD, restart, and hold down the "opt" key, until you see a blue screen. Then, select the disk, and hit the arrow.

Is it one of the live cd's for Ubuntu? I played with it for some time and was impressed in how well it ran from cd. (My mac had no sound though.)

If memory serves, you can also use the startup manager in preferences.

Do be careful about installing though. Be absolutely sure that the partition/disk it offers to install on is the one you want. The naming of the partitions/disks is not what you give them in osX. I have 9 volumes that auto mount and when I saw the Ubuntu disk utility the volumes had the machine names not what I call them. Use Disk Utility and select your volumes and disks and use the "information" function to get the device tree name.

The information you posted is for the cd.

As scb stated you put the cd into the optical drive and boot with the c key held down. Or put the cd into the optical drive and restart with the option key (start on a windows keyboard) held down. Choose the ubuntu disk when given the option.

The live cd's allow you to run your computer off of the cd. The operating system has the bare bones installation and you can hook up a camera, surf the web, do word processing but it is all off of the cd. When you remove the cd everything is gone just like you never operated linux from your mac.

There is an option on the live cd to allow you to "install" linux on your mac which would make everything you do with ubuntu linux permanent. Doing this means creating a partition (unique space) on your hard drive to install to. If you are not careful with this option you can erase all of your mac files!!!

To summarize:
Play with the live cd all you want without fear of harm. Install carefully as you can erase all your mac files.

I would not install to the mini unless you have another hard drive to work with and I'm not sure that ubuntu will install to an external drive (since you have a mini). This means cloning your mac to an external and then playing with installing/repartitioning the mini's internal drive with the live cd. If the repartitioning destroys your mac installation at least you will be backed up.

I hope that this helps.

It sounds like your cd is not a valid live cd.

If you look at it in the startup disk in preferences does it show up as a possible boot disk? If not then it won't work.

Where did you get it? I downloaded mine from the ubuntu site and made the live cd from it following the directions on the site. It just takes quite a bit of time to download.