Hi all, For the duration of my MSc thesis (and for my job) I have lent a laptop from my university. This laptop happens to be a 2007 model Macbook (plus a new SSD, since somebody else has the original drive because his data is still on there), and chances are slim that I will be able to lend a different one for this long a time period (6+ months), since the laptops are mainly there for conferences and such. So I suspect I need to get *this* laptop to work.
Now since I am productive with it, I wanted to install Gentoo on it but have thus far failed. So here are my overall goals: - install Gentoo - ideally ditch OS X - boot using EFI instead of in BIOS compatibility mode (e.g., I read that this is a requirement for getting suspend to work) So far, I have followed almost all steps of the installation guide (right before restarting the system), supplemented with Macbook-specific steps I found spread around the internet (see below), which boils down to setting up a GPT partitioned disk with an ESP (EFI System Partition) and setting up GRUB2. The problem seems to be to get the laptops firmware to find the ESP on the SSD. Note that I did this *without* a prior OS X installation. I tried blessing the bootloader with an Apple USB stick (10.4) I also got from the university, but that doesn't do anything (i.e., the installation doesn't show up in the boot menu). Using efibootmgr also does not seem to work. I also tried formatting the ESP as HFS+ instead of FAT32 (it turns out parted can do that). After a lack of results, the Apple "Disk Utility" then reformatted back to FAT32, so I guess that wasn't the problem :) . Now I decided to try installing OS X and see if I can get it to work with rEFInd, the fork of rEFIt (I set up some free space at the end of the SSD and formated it as HFS+ from the OS X installation disk), but the installation of OS X (10.7) is failing somewhat randomly. Sometimes it doesn't find the SSD, sometimes it hangs during the installation (the progress bar stops and activity from the DVD drive ceases). The farthest I got so far is to the end of the installation, right before it should reboot, but then the ETA starts going negative. *sigh* My search results on Google show that a lot of people just waited it out and that it eventually finished installing (after it got to -20 minutes or -2 hours) , but I just waited at least 10 hours in total. It then hung up after I tried to reboot after it reported -12 hours :( . Before installing Gentoo I also tried installing OS X 10.4 from the aforementioned USB disk, but the installation hung up after the reboot and now every time I boot from it it gives me an "installation failed" message, followed by the ever so helpful hint of "try restarting the installation", which can't work, because quitting the installer reboots the system. So... that's a lot of semi-coherent narrative to take in, sorry :) . Right now I'm thinking that this really *should* work, I mean, the firmware finds the System Rescue CD, which boots perfectly fine in EFI mode, so why shouldn't my installation? Also, if anybody has any tips on getting this to work without an intermediate layer like rEFInd, please speak up! So now the links I took my steps from: - This series of blog posts: http://juliansimioni.com/blog/2012/03/14/installing-gentoo-on-a-macbook-pro/ - http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-6988228.html (referenced above), without step 2 because SysRescueCD boots in EFI mode - I tried the grub2-install line from https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GRUB2#UEFI.2FGPT - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBook#Arch_Linux_only tells me that I most likely can in fact ditch OS X. - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBook#Booting_directly_from_GRUB shows that I probably do need to install OS X first and have it set up an EFI System Partition for me in order boot directly to GRUB2, and not just if I want to install rEFInd. - I tried the grub2-install steps from https://plus.google.com/105450642479356031129/posts/F87vrsMtxz4, but they didn't work either - I also tried the steps for setting up the ESP here: http://glandium.org/blog/?p=2830 - I tried installing rEFInd in the fassion explained here: https://astrofloyd.wordpress.com/2008/11/01/installing-gentoo-linux-on-an-apple-macbook/#Installing_a_Bootloader Well, hmm, after going through my sources I found a bit of information on the Arch Linux wiki (see my sources below) that says that I need an EFI system partition set up by the OS X installer in order to be able to boot into GRUB2 directly. If that is correct, then what I need to do is get the OS X installation working. I also want to apologise for the... complexity and perhaps lack of coherence of this email but I'm sort of pressed for time (wasting time on the laptop instead of working) and thought maybe somebody might have a reply while I'm sleeping ;) (it's past midnight here). Greetings -- Marc Joliet -- "People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup
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