Dual-Boot OS X/Ubuntu woes - getting OS X to play right

Seems always to be something with apple. Apparently, partitioning must be done prior to any Ubuntu installing. Yet some say simply make 1 partition and let Ubuntu handle it from there.

Using method #2, Ubuntu gets stuck on setting up the file system.

I have no clue what to do, having tried both methods, both fails.

Any thoughts?

Thank you in advance!