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A Brief History of Apple and EFI: > For the models with Intel’s “Santa Rosa” chipset (and Core 2 Duo processors) Apple did something strange. The firmware went 64 bit, but was still EFI 1.10. This combination doesn’t appear in any specification; x86_64 support was only added in the UEFI 2.0 standard.
> Apple also introduced fat EFI binaries... > The format of the fat EFI binaries has never been officially published or standardized, meaning that non-Apple EFI systems won’t support it, and cannot directly load the Mac OS X “boot.efi” boot loader. (The format is easily reverse engineered; see the fat EFI binaries page for a description.)
> The firmware was 64 bit like in the Santa Rosa models, and also still identified itself as EFI 1.10.
> However, Apple started mixing EFI 1.10 and UEFI 2.x features on these models. Depending on the model and the graphics mode, the graphics driver may expose both the UgaDraw protocol (EFI 1.x) and the GraphicsOutput protocol (UEFI 2.x), while in other modes it exposes only the GraphicsOutput protocol. All earlier models only expose the UgaDraw protocol. It’s best to just be prepared to use whichever one is available.
Why stop at dual boot? Triple boot and got 3 computers for the price of two ;)
Edit...although I don't mess around with dual/triple booting anymore...I find virtualbox and ESXi are all I need nowadays.
I've done it. It's pretty easy.
- Install Mac
- Use bootcamp to install Windows
- Install rEFIt (http://refit.sourceforge.net/)
- Use gParted to split your windows partition into 2 (leave the other part unpartitioned)
- Install Ubuntu
- Boot with rEFIt
@methinks2015, what does it matter what the purpose is? Hes not asking anyone "should I do this"..
Edit: Also I'm pretty sure the "purpose" is to have 3 OS'es installed.. durh. As to why someone would want that is totally up to them. In my case I like to be up to date on what's happening with each OS.
Lets go ahead and blame Microsoft instead of our own technical abilities, or defects in our software?
> Recent articles regarding UEFI and Windows 8 suggest the problem of the former blocking Linux bootloader installation is a matter that will appear at the introduction of the latter. That is not the case. It is on Win 7 machines and blocking GRUB installation now.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFIBooting
> Some machines (all Dell laptops, all new Apple from 2010 on, some Lenovo) have bugs in their UEFI firmware, preventing them from booting (black screen). Linux Kernel 3.0 (and higher versions) includes patches with workarounds for them. It is therefore recommended to use a Linux kernel of version 3.0 or higher.
> My friend recently got an HP s5-1110 with Win 7 installed.
It has a Carmel2 motherboard made by Pegatron/ASUS for HP. So, brand new hardware with a few firmware bugs. This has never happened before, has it?
For booting EFI, I would look at this project http://refit.sourceforge.net/
Or, there is this (using the windows vista / 7 boot manager.) http://blogs.technet.com/b/port25/archive/2006/10/13/http-port25-technet-com-archive-2006-10-12-windows-and-linux-integration-3a00-a-conversation-with-the-author-aspx.aspx
This may also be an option for if the whole secure boot thing really does become a problem. (just piggy back off the windows boot loader)
Or you can use a custom boot loader and load whatever partitions you want. I use rEFIt and have partitions for Windows XP and 7, OS X Snow Leopard and Lion, as well as Ubuntu.
Let me know if you try it and need help.
Etcher (or 'dd') is used to write the Linux image to a drive/device, "rEFIt" is used to configure a Mac hardware to boot Linux (for if you want to install permanently and run in dual-boot scenario with OSX, for example)
So, they really do two different things
I'm actually using rEFIt for the boot loader, keeping a small OSX partition, to install Ubuntu Server on the bigger partition.
Another company who colo's in our facilities uses OS X however for web application serving.
We use Ubuntu more-so for the support with MySQL's Galera cluster, usually we are a FreeBSD house.
I boot into Windows for games and have never looked back. Gaming in Mac OS X is endlessly disappointing. I use OS X for everything important that needs to be done but when I want to play a game, Windows is only 45 seconds away. To that end I highly recommend rEFIt which makes booting into whatever OS you want a real joy.
I use a Mac Mini with Fedora and can't think of any problem with it. The requited steps are:
- Install rEFIt
- Partition your disk
- Install Linux
rEFIt is preferable to Boot Camp for the task (no problems with GRUB); I'm replying from my phone, so I'll just say the rEFIt website explains the mechanics of it.
I replaced OSX, and yes I remember having to switch to the proprietary WIFI driver. There's also an occasional problem with the suspend feature (i.e. not waking up after you close the lid and then re-open it) which also gets fixed (assuming the problem even happens with your model) with a proprietary graphics driver.
So yeah, everything should work, but I'd still recommend going with a dual-boot to make sure you still have something to fall back on just in case. I've been using refit on my macbook pro, and I'm pretty happy with it.
Edit: and, of course, also make sure to test the suspend feature on your machine a few times before you rely on it --otherwise unsaved data is just lost when you open it to a blank screen and can't do anything from there and have to hard-reboot, which is a huge pain (you probably won't need to worry about this, but make sure to test it just in case.).
13.04 is the version that works on that MacBook, there are specific instructions for installing Ubuntu on different MacBook Pro models...pick the correct one (model 9,2 or 10,2) from this list and then follow the instructions precisely. MacBook Pros have very specific hardware that is only covered by Ubuntu 13.4. To create a proper bootable USB you need to issue the commands in the terminal from this tutorial. You will also need to install rEFIt so that it's bootable. Follow the same instructions for making a bootable USB to install rEFIt. EDIT: spelling
The native Mac bootloader only supports OS X and Bootcamp (I think). But you should be able to replace it with rEFIt. It's an open-source bootloader that will most likely fix your issue.
You are correct. I own a 2009 27" iMac which came with a Super Drive. So using the Boot Camp utility doesn't work because it only supports the Super Drive and I removed it to add an SSD. Boot Camp gives different features depending on what model of Mac you have it running on. I was also not successful using the modifications that add USB as an installation option because the iMac still looks for a DVD.
I had to use Parallels version 9 (P9) and I setup a new VM with control over a physical hard drive rather than a virtual drive. This worked but came with its own challenges because of some built in security/safety mechanism in P9 to prevent accidental damage to partitions or boot sectors. Regardless I got it to work and I use Windows 7 on that machine to this day. But I was only ever able to get the P9 method to work.
Anyways my first suggestion if you are confident that you have an actual installation of Windows on that partition is to install rEFIt. http://refit.sourceforge.net/
Do that as a next step and report back on what results you get. You should see a menu very similar to this except no Linux Penguin (unless you have a linux partition).
Usually I just virtualize using Parallels. If your Mac has enough RAM it runs just as good!
However, if you really want to run it natively you need to get rEFIt
I have done such a dual boot, but what I did was replace the default Apple EFI loader with a custom one (rEFIt). This give you a more advanced boot partition/OS selector menu. It is compatible with any EFI machine (Macs and other non-Mac machines as well). I would have expected that you could boot to Linux by holding the option/alt key down at boot, so that's kinda weird...
Anywho, the second link from alucard86ers is great and should be all you really need. It would be good to have a copy of OSX install disk or USB drive on hand in case you bork things up and have to start over. It is advisable to first have a standard Mac OSX install working, then, from OSX's recovery partition, use Disk Utility to make a new partition for linux, then do the linuxy stuff.
It's extremely easy. Check out the Ubuntu guide here. Using rEFIt makes switching between OSes simple (or you can always boot up and hold the option key).
First get rEFIt. It lets you boot up on the CD easier. (Use the CD, the USB boot is iffy.) Don't ever set the CD drive as the primary boot disk in the System Preferences, I did that to my iMac and the LiveCD somehow messed it up so it only booted to the CD drive no matter what. So I had to take out some RAM, zap the PRAM, and finally it booted onto the disk.
This is a very helpful (if outdated) resource.
To boot from USB on any Mac you need rEFIt which will allow you to select a USB boot device in the dialog upon holding option on boot, not just for the MacBook Air like these directions suggest.
I spent a while figuring this one out. The main thing is that you need a distro which can boot using EFI, which is what macs use instead of a BIOS, assuming you have a recent macbook.
What type of model are you using?
Ubuntu worked for me, although I needed to use a slightly modified image which worked better with the EFI situation. Ubuntu also has some great community pages that will walk you through the configuration.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook7-1/Maverick
Now a word of caution. If it is a macbook, the osx kernel also controls the fans and the cpu throttling. When I booted Ubuntu for the first time, it allowed the CPU to run at a high clock speed and wasn't able to turn on the fan. There is a package which you can install once the system is booted though. Details are included in the link above.
If you have trouble booting the live-cd, try using rEFIt, burn the iso image to a disk. As always, if you hold down the option key when you turn on the computer and continue to hold it, you will be able to select which drive to boot using a menu.
I don't have experience with installing Linux on macs but I think these links might be of some help to you: http://refit.sourceforge.net/myths/ and of course: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBook .
reFIT is a boot menu that could help you. It times out after X seconds and defaults to OS X, so if you set it to 3 seconds (it's a textedit change) you have ample time to boot Windows instead. All other times it just adds 3 seconds to OS X's boot time.
You can dual boot Linux and Mac OS. Installing rEFIt makes dual booting easier, as it will give you the option of what to boot into every time. Basically, you'll have two partitions, one with OS X and one with Ubuntu, and when you start the computer, rEFIt will ask you what to boot to, or, if the counter expires, will boot to a default.
All in all, totally worth it. Ubuntu plays OK with Mac hardware. Plus, FOSS FTW.
Yes. You’ll probabaly need to disable System Integrity Protection (SIP). You might be able to select the Linux boot drive with the Apple EFI (holding option on startup), but Ive had mixed success. So you may want to install rEFIt (http://refit.sourceforge.net), it will recognize Linux boot drives.
Then follow this: https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac/how-install-linux-on-mac-3637265/
Scroll down to “How to install Linux on a Mac: Replacing OS X/macOS with Linux” but when it gets to the section about choose the hard disk, make sure you’re installing it on the SSD instead of /dev/disk0. Btw, /dev/disk0 is usually the main boot drive, so be careful.
Well if all else fails install a new Boot Menu that will read your hard drive and OS partitions and load them onto the screen so you can choose which to boot into.
The easiest one to install is rEFIt
That gem above makes creating a triple-booting computer possible and may solve your dual-booting conundrum.
Good Luck my friend - May this lay all your frustrations to rest.
Won't be able to do hardly any gaming on that thing. Very little you can do with a Core2 Duo and 9400M GPU these days. Linux is a better bet; I'd recommend trying Lubuntu on it.
You can also try making a Windows install image w/ Yumi on a flash drive, or try rEFIt instead of Bootcamp. I've had a lot of success with rEFIt in the past.
I did this several years back on a 2009 MBP. I used refit to get it to work.
As much as I like Slackware, the Arch documentation is usually where I find the best answers. You have to work around their Arch-only bits, but they're thorough and well written.
I am saying Use bootcamp. Do not skip it.
I had to skip it because I had a mac where I replaced the integrated DVD drive with a SSD back in the day, so bootcamp wouldn't work. rEFIt has tutorials on doing it if I recall correctly.
Again: I strongly suggest using bootcamp to install windows. I see 0 downside to doing so.
Arch is great if you know linux, If not it will be very frustrating. I dual boot my MBP with Lubuntu + Mac.
The install is super easy. Wireless didn't work for me, but it is a pretty easy fix.The other problem is that Lubuntu, because it is so lightweight, and fast does not come with a ton of software. If you want Help installing Ubuntu go HERE, http://mom.super-nathan.com It's a website I made to help my mom install Lubuntu , dual boot, with a bunch of additional software on her windows computer. The instructions are almost the same, but you will have to install rEFIt first.
If you want to go with regular Ubuntu, there is a +mac ISO also. You can just google for it. Frankly I recommend Lubuntu all day long, but it's up to you.
There are very few Macs out there that have the capability to boot into a Boot Camp based environment from USB. So far, only MacBook Airs, and Mac Minis from the last generation or two have had that capability.
They added this capability so that you'd be able to install Windows from a USB thumbdrive, or their external SuperDrive. They didn't see fit to include this capability on any of the other macs, however.
Your best bet is to wait and see if this new MacBook Pro will offer the same USB method for Boot Camp. Or you could also try rEFIt.
Be careful with this, though. Read the documentation before using it. By design, this tool fucks with your bootup routine. You should read the docs so you understand what it's doing.
Yes you can. You need a new boot loader though.Get this and it should do the trick. I don't know if it will work with Lion, but it worked for me with Leopard and Snow Leopard.
I don't know the technical side or the "why" to it. But I'm pretty sure you need ReFit Bootloader installed because Mac's bootloader doesn't play nice with anything other than MacOs running from the hard drive or install cd.
You'll probably need to use rEFIt, but after that, i'm not quite sure, as the process is slightly different with every macbook there is, it seems. At times, the Mac won't boot from a CD without a couple of tries with the c button, at others it won't boot from an USB stick without a CD in the tray, and tons of other ideosyncracies.
Seems to be a pain in the ass from what I've found. Which is strange, since it is now possible on the Airs and I think the new Minis as well since they don't ship with a drive. Hopefully Apple applies it to all versions of BootCamp if possible.
http://refit.sourceforge.net/ ReFit seems like a necessary app to start with.
I also found this bit of crazy instructions involving XP:
http://tubeshards.wordpress.com/2006/12/05/install-windows-to-a-macintosh-usb-drive/
and some other info here:
I can't help with the Windows7 load since I've never tried.
You're going to need rEFIt to boot into the Fedora installer (http://refit.sourceforge.net/).
Getting everything working from there on will require some tweaking. Try looking at the instructions here: http://www.thelinuxdaily.com/2011/06/fedora-15-lovelock-on-macbook-aluminum-guide/
I found it easier to actually triple boot my computer with Windows than to simply have a dual boot. That way you can let the mac side first handle the partitioning for Windows/Linux, and then use parted to create the necessary partitions for Linux...
Also: refit to be able to boot correctly. http://refit.sourceforge.net/
Taken from their site: rEFIt is a boot menu and maintenance toolkit for EFI-based machines like the Intel Macs. You can use it to boot multiple operating systems easily, including triple-boot setups with Boot Camp. It also provides an easy way to enter and explore the EFI pre-boot environment.
Tried it once, i was satisfied with the solution they provide.
You actually can't just install Windows 7 on a 2007 Mac Mini. As I wrote: The A1278 model Mini has 32-bit UEFI and won't boot the 64-bit Win 7 DVD. When you try, you get:
Select CD-ROM Boot Type:
1
2
-And you're stuck there, as it won't respond to the keyboard.
You have to go through the hoops of making a custom Windows 7 install DVD for the 2007 Mac Mini.
Other Macs, like the 2010 Mini, did not have that problem, and I'm guessing your MacBook Pro didn't have that problem either. There were also early and late 2009 Mac Minis in the same original Mac Mini form-factor that came with Penryn family Core2Duo CPU's soldered to the motherboard, but I've never had one to experiment with and I don't know if they have the 32-bit UEFI problem for booting the Windows 7 DVD or not.
There's more about Apple's EFI implementations here: http://refit.sourceforge.net/info/apple_efi.html
But other than the kink with booting the Win 7 DVD on the 2007 Mini, the process really is pretty much just: Install Windows 7, then install the correct Boot Camp drivers for the model of your Mac (but know that Lion's Boot Camp doesn't have the right drivers for the 2007 Mini hardware, but Leopard and Snow Leopard do; but Leopard and Snow Leopard's Boot Camps don't have the right drivers for the 2010 Mini, but Lion does), then disable the three DLL's that will cause you a BSOD, then update to Windows 10.
The major hurdle was getting Windows 7 installed on the 2007 Mini to begin with. If you try to do it through Boot Camp Assistant, it will tell you that Windows 7 can't be installed on the 2007 Mini. And then if you're going to seriously try to do anything useful with a 14-year-old Mini, upgrading its hardware to the best it can take is a smart plan before you start.
i guess its a general incompatibility like https://sourceforge.net/p/refind/discussion/general/thread/7d1fb49f/ and http://refit.sourceforge.net/help/aluminum-keyboard.html then. except for updating the bios i wouldnt know how a user could fix that
It turns out the magic answer is to reboot the computer, wait for the LED on the keyboard to flash (which is after the computer starts booting and chimes and does a self-test which on this iMac with 12GB of memory all takes about 20 seconds), and then immediately press and hold Command-R. Any earlier than that, and you’ll be ignored.
Bluetooth drivers have to load, hold keys too early and it won’t work.
Also as stated above rEFIt will work as well.
Even if you cant boot the machine - you should be able to rsync/tar your user folder to an external drive. System Rescue CD would let you boot from a USB thumb drive.
It's late and I'm digging in the back of my memory can you remove refit?
If you hold the option key turning on the machine - does it give you the option to boot OSX?
Apple's bootcamp is a Mac HW boot program to run windows.
However, there is an open-source (also free) Mac OS bootmanager that can also run Windows and LINUX on Mac Intel HW.
Named REFIt, try this if bootcamp won't work.
Perhaps rEFIt can help you out:
EFI boot manager for Intel Mac's.
With the Free version of Diskdrill you can create an OSX installer on a USB stcuk (8GB at least).
hth
So you don't know shit about:
Apple's Bootcamp.
https://support.apple.com/boot-camp
rEFIt, an Intel Apple bootmanager
With both "methods" you can run Windows on Apple HW. With rEFIt you can get LINUX running too on Mac HW.
Thx for the fucking "advice".
I've actually done it on the same model, basically you need a bootable usb with a 32bit distro of your choice (I recommend Peppermint OS as it's the fastest fully featured distro I've ever used and works great on Core Duo and 2GB RAM), Peppermint OS can also partition the disk for you if you want to keep Mac OS X as well so no need to bother with disk utility. Now you can use the regular boot manager or you can install rEFIt which will allow you to select USB at boot. Once you have that you can just go ahead and install it, Peppermint OS doesn't even require to install any drivers (except the proprietary webcam drivers but that's a whole other bag of snakes).
Years ago, I used refit (http://refit.sourceforge.net/ ), or maybe a fork, to do similar things, like took a boot camp partition out of one machine and into another, and then boot into it (although not exactly what you're trying to do).
you may be out of luck and need to make a Windows install from boot camp first, but it can't hurt to try this. (Actually it can hurt, back up everything first and be careful).
I also haven't used it for years, so don't know what the current compatibility is with new security chips, new file systems etc
So you want you computer to automatically boot into the Startup Manager each time? (From another post "One way to do this is to install a boot loader such as rEFI" http://refit.sourceforge.net ) If your Mac is not Intel I would not use this and I haven't tried it myself so proceed with caution and use at your own risk.
Try using rEFIt (http://refit.sourceforge.net). Google a little bit what this is and how to use it. Basically it's a custom bootloader which lets you boot nearly any operating system (Linux, Windows, etc). So you'll need a USB dongle where you'll install the Windows image on. Then you'll boot into rEFIt and selerct the Windows-USB and after that in the setup you will be able to completely wipe the internal ssd and install Windows on it. BUT!! please inform yourself about drivers and maybe things that might not work in Windows like in Mac OS (Apple peripherals etc) Take your time and try to understand what you'll be doing before actually doing it! Good luck ;)
Hello,
I have a Macbook pro running OSX and Linux (Ubuntu 16.04) I am using rEFIT ... I think... Will have to check.
I'm pretty sure it's this one as it's open source. It was a tricky setup but it only took a few goes. Probably because I didn't RTFM... I just blithely went at it until it worked...
Hope this helps...
Cheers.
Depending on how you repartitioned the drive, it might be that the MBR (Windows boot record) and GPT (Mac partition table) are out of sync. The gptsync tool in rEFIt (http://refit.sourceforge.net/) might be able to correct this.
I suggest backing up any critical data first since I can't be certain exactly what your problem is, and it's easy to make mistakes that cause data loss when editing disk partitioning.
Haven't installed linux in many years, but some initial googling leads me to believe that rEFIt is probably the way to go, I think both Slackware and Arch use lilo by default and I believe that requires rEFIt to get up and running with fewer hassles.
Personally for all multi-booting, if there's a reasonable way to manage it with your configuration, I would suggest an extra drive rather than partitioning your main disk. It's just SOOOO much easier to troubleshoot things, and you never have to worry about something partition related in one OS exploding your other OS(s). Not sure how practical that is with the 2013 though (one of the reasons I refuse to give up the older pro's... internal drive bays FTW!).
No idea on drivers, but I believe ATI has open source drivers that are "good" these days... compared to nvidia who I believe has closed sources drivers that are "really good"... Most linux distros to the best of my knowledge have had no major issues with apple BT or WiFi adapters for some time, but YMMV of course...
Physical damage caused by software is largely a myth. It's not technically impossible, but it usually takes the form of things like fans running to fast and wearing out, or not running at all an over heating... It takes a LOT to burn out a modern fan, and almost everything with a fan these days will have built in thermal protection so they can't fatally overheat. Again, it's not impossible to damage hardware from software, but especially with modern (stuff not from the 90s) hardware, it's largely boogieman tales left over from the early days of the internet.
Use Disk Utility to create a FAT partition with some bigger than your Windows partition.
After that, install rEFIt.
Now, reboot 2 times for the rEFIt to install properly on your system.
In the 4th step, install VirtualBox, VMware or Parallels.
Try the virtualization software to install Windows into a virtual machine at a size which you want partition.
Now, use the in-built virtualization software features to mount the virtual HardDrive.
Install cloning software like WinClone or Stellar Drive Clone.
If your virtual drive is mounted, then this software should be able to see this in the tab ‘Image’.
Now, choose the Restore tab and restore this image to your BootCamp partition.
Now you can reboot and boot into your BootCamp partition with rEFIt, which is no longer of any use from this point on, but you can keep it around as well. Windows should now continue configuring itself and finish the installation.
i tried using this process: which has succesfully installed the EFI
http://refit.sourceforge.net/doc/c1s1_install.html
problem is, i still don't know how to boot into 64-bit kernel mode... so it's just like im running normal Lion, except now i have the rEFIt menu before i boot into it
EDIT: even using the terminal command sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture x86_64
still not booting into 64-bit kernel
To update .. Using rEFIT (http://refit.sourceforge.net/) .. I am unable to see any USB key to boot from, how I make the key or which distro I use .. no dice at all.
Going to dismantle and try a CD...
In my experience (used to have a 2009 MBP), you have to install a custom EFI in order to boot from USB and properly install windows. Haven't messed with it in a while, but I believe rEFIt was the tool of choice. Be careful, though. It's possible to royally fuck shit up when messing with the EFI settings. Keep a backup.
refit is a good efi boot loader for the Mac that will let you do triple boot no problem. Partitioning can be a little tricky since boot camp utility only lets you divide the boot volume in half but it could be be done with diskutil from the command line, but I would probably just boot from a gparted live ISO to split everything up. And of course you should really back up your data before doing anything like that. There should be some good write ups on how to get this set up on the net.
Waiiiit
Did you try using rufus to create a install USB? After that, don't make sure your HDD is partitioned correctly. If it is partitioned for dual-boot already, you don't need boot camp, just reboot while holding down the option key. Wait a while until your install USB appears and select that. If, after 5 minutes, the USB does not appear, trying installing rEFIt and redoing it :)
Did you read the Arch wiki?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBook
I don't think you want 'two' ESP.. like ever.
If you would like to use GRUB as your main bootloader and use the "boot while holding the Alt/Option key" method to go back to OS X rather than using alternatives such as rEFIt (http://refit.sourceforge.net/, mentioned previously in #BIOS-compatibility and #OS X, Windows XP, and Arch Linux triple boot) then you must install grub to your Mac's already-existing EFI partition (see below).
mac do note have a standard motherboard firmware (efi). They need tweaking to start booting
you kinda need refit. I do not own macs or install ubuntu on a mac before since I avoid such hardware.
You can ask the ubuntu forms to guide you through it
> How will that get around the fact that his MBR is Windows-formatted ?...
"MBR" refers to the older method of describing the size, location, and other info of partitions. The fact that a drive is partitioned using an MBR doesn't affect the ability to have two partitions side-by-side.
> If he installs OSX to an external.. and then copies that to an internal partition... somehow the MBR has to be updated to understand there is now a Mac partition.
Disk Utility sets the MBR code for HFS+ filesystems to 0xAF, although who knows how the firmware determines the presence of HFS+ partitions. What is known is that the firmware is capable of booting OS X from an MBR.
> Seems to me like he'd have to wipe the entire drive.. create a 50% partition (50% of the entire drive).. install OSX to that.. and use BootCamp to use the 2nd 50% for Windows.
Nope. Shrink the Windows partition by however much is desired, use the empty space for an HFS+ partition, then copy an OS X installation to that.
Boot camp is only for windows which kind of sucks. Its kind of hard to install linux on a mac but its a fucking bitch to dual boot linux and OSX. First you have to install this http://refit.sourceforge.net/doc/c1s1_install.html to get it to work. The last time I tried this was several years ago and I bricked a Mac trying to get it to work. Luckily the Apple store fixed it for me even though it was out of warranty.
All this being said I totally encourage you to try. Fucking up Macs was how I cut my teeth on technology. (Breaking your families 2000 dollar computer is great encouragement to learn how to trouble shoot technology lol.) And getting OSX a notoriously locked down os to do what I want was always a fun experience. I would also suggest that you consider running linux in a virtual machine. Honestly virtualization in OSX is a great experience. And if you have never tried out OSX give it a chance as a former linux guy I will bet you like it. I know I do and I have used Ubuntu since its first release.
Alright so it worked, but it seems that I don't need the Windows Boot partition at all, just like Nifttyyy. I completely deleted that partition and it still boots into Windows. It might have something to do with newer macs. These are the partitions I ended up with.
I am unable however to change the Windows icon on the boot loader. I've managed to change it while in OS X with Paragon NTFS, but it won't show the changed icon during startup. Using rEFIt would probably work, but I am not too comfortable with that piece of software. This is no big deal however.
Thanks for your help!
Fix'd!
so, here's what i did.
- boot into Mountain Lion, make 30 gb free space on HDD with disk utility.
- install rEFIt: http://refit.sourceforge.net/doc/c1s1_install.html (take a reboot to check it's working)
- Make a ubuntu amd64 gnome (non +mac) usb with unetbootin (no persistence)
- restart, boot the ubuntu usb
- install ubuntu alongside mac
And now i have a lot of options! :D
If I recall correctly, what I did was use http://refit.sourceforge.net/ create a partition and then used a usb drive.. then i added bootcamp after the fact for the drivers..
Never used parallels for it thos
quick summary: refit - http://refit.sourceforge.net/ ubuntu - http://www.ubuntu.com/
Use disk utility in OSX to shrink main partition. create second partition and format as whatever.
Install refit.
Create bootable cd/USB with ubuntu and boot into it. Use gParted to delete the 2nd partition you made, create ~1 to 2GB SWAP partition, create another partition with the rest of the unallocated space formatted as Ext4. Launch ubuntu installation, select custom partition setup and make the Ext4 partition the installation target with boot from root (/)
Install and enjoy. Refit will be your new bootup screen and allow you to select OSX or Ubuntu. You can also go further and do a triple boot setup if you desire windows.
Use PLOP boot manager (google it) and then you can boot into USB, otherwise use CD/DVD. You should shrink your OSX partition down through Disk Utility and then use the extra stuff for the new partition (make it FAT32 for temporary purposes this will be sda3?). Then boot into disk/usb and get the installer up. Follow the instruction and at partition selection select the FAT32/sda3 partition and use that a "/" and set it "bootable", you should then later select /dev/sda3 as the device for bootloader installation (it's a little dropdown), if you want to have it easy to boot into sda3 then you can install http://refit.sourceforge.net/ beforehand or while in the installer if you dont install it on the mac partition(click go back until u hit main menu then select the terminal option down at the bottom) and make sure u are connected to the internet via ethernet cord. type: sudo apt-get install refit then it will install refit and u can do: gptsync in terminal once it's installed (note you want to do this AFTER you have installed the bootloader to the partition). once that is all done with then proceed with installing the system (if you havent already) and reboot. the only thing that doesnt work for me (i have a macbook running crunchbang and have used slackware/debian in the past) is wireless but this helps for debian: http://wiki.debian.org/wl/
HAVE FUN
Hoooo boy. I'm not sure if it'll work on a computer that old, but check out rEFIt to try to boot from USB. If that doesn't work, you could attempt to make a bootable partition out of the Windows 7 install disc, but I don't know how much luck you'll have with that.
Apple can be so annoying sometimes. I did the same with my macbook and a windows 7 iso. I ended up following part B of this guide where you have to download and install rEFIt to let me see the windows 7 install disk. Pain in the ass.
I got arch working decently well on my MBP. I installed refit and the installation from there using a USB stick was relatively straightforward following the installation guide and using the wiki (and I'm pretty inexperienced, I believe that was my first Arch install).
Can you elaborate on this "walled content policy"? Maybe there are other solutions.
I highly recommend Ubuntu. Try a live CD/DVD or possibly installing on an external drive before committing. And of course you can always dual boot using Refit.
Yes it is, I've done it on my iMac. Just create a partition for it (using Disk Utility), install rEFIt, then install your distro of choice and when you next boot up, rEFIt should detect all three and give you a nice boot menu.
Did you run the bootcamp drivers that you put on a flash drive during the initial bootcamp steps?
Also if you install rEFIt on the mac side, you'll have an option to boot into either the windows or mac side of your computer on start up.
Typically I'm just dual booting and using bootcamp to do so.
However whenever a new OS comes out (Lion, Snow Leopard, Windows 7, etc.) I like to give it some thorough tests while they're in betas or developer previews. So triple booting is a must.
The default bootloader won't let you do that. But rEFIt sure will! I've had very little to no issues using rEFIt to triple/quad boot on my Mac.
I'm looking at the refit website, it says under the heading "Starting Linux with elilio":
> NOTE: It is currently recommended to boot Linux through BIOS compatibility mode (a.k.a. Boot Camp) using LILO or GRUB. Otherwise, the fully accelerated ATI and Intel graphics drivers will not work.
I'm not sure what that means...does it mean it's not recommended to use refit for Linux? That would seem odd...
EDIT: Okay I installed refit, the usb showed up, selected it, but it went to a grub command line, which I think is wrong since all the mint "how to" stuff makes it sound like it'll go to some easy-to-use GUI.
It is a mac so grub does not work so well , because macs do not use bios but rather efi . He should try refit http://refit.sourceforge.net/ it is a boot loader like grub , that will detect the usb drive if formatted correctly. It detects most bootable media.
ChrisF79 is actually partially correct – Macs have difficultly booting Windows/Linux from USB. Your best bet is to either burn a CD/DVD to install from (if you have an optical drive), or give a virtual machine raw disk access to a partition you want to install Linux on (it can be done, but requires some MacGyvering).
I haven't used this particular one myself, but I've seen it used before: http://refit.sourceforge.net/ Among other things, what it'll do is force the system to option boot, allowing you a chance to select which boot disk you want.
I run Ubuntu 10.10 with a 2006 macbook. I did basically what's listed in grzelbu's link, except I couldn't get my partition to resize because my files were so fragmented that there weren't enough contiguous blocks to repartition without damaging files. Anyhow, I had no other thing to boot into to do it, so I eventually just installed ubuntu using an external harddrive.
But, if you have a larger harddrive, which you do, do this:
- Run Disk Utility and resize your OS X harddrive and then create a new partition, linux. (you'll reformat it during the ubuntu or whatever install).
- Create an install cd of your distro of choice (it's super easy to do with the ubuntu live cd).
- Install rEFIt. Reboot and you should see a bootloader.
- Start your computer from the cd by choosing it at the refit menu (or you can hold down 'c' when you start your computer).
- Install linux after reformating your new partition to ext3. BE CAREFUL and do not overwrite your OS X install.
- Restart computer and refit should show both operating systems.
Why not replace your EFI with rEFIt? It'll give you a nice graphical boot loader that'll allow you to select the OS at startup. I use it in a university lab environment with great results.
If you don't want to use a VM, you can use rEfit. I used it for my OSX/Ubuntu dual boot.
Incredibly easy. It will give you a list of the OS's loaded, and you just navigate to it with the arrow keys.
Dont by a MBP for games. Get a tower or an iMac. They are much better suited for high temps than a laptop. If you really want a mbp and want to game you should run it in dual boot OSX/win7. Here are a couple ways which makes jumping between boots easier:
Install refIt http://refit.sourceforge.net/
Buy an SSD. If youre considering buying a MBP, there is a good possibility you can front an extra 100$ for an SSD. Booting will never bother you again.
You probably shouldn't be using a torrented version of Windows XP, and if you are you should probably not use one that's been split into two disks instead of a regular unmodified copy.
That said having never even seen a torrent version of XP that was split in half like that my best guess is that it's looking for a normal version of XP and isn't expecting it to be in two halfs so it doesn't ask for the other one. Though I'm not clear whether you mean the XP install isn't asking for the other disk, or whether the assistant is asking for the other disk.
I would suggest either getting a real copy of XP, getting a torrent that's not split in half, or downloading the rEFIt bootloader and try launching the first disk with that. rEFIt also allows you to install Linux OSes onto MBPs. Incidentally, in my experience Ubuntu has better MBP drivers than Apple's own Bootcamp drivers for XP.