I also have a MacBook 5,2 (early 2009) and I experience the same errors than you do. This has been tested on Ubuntu 10.10
I managed to build a grub2 1.99rc1 x86_64-efi. I had to do some tweaks to make some progress. I'm hacking directly in grub.cfg but from now, I don't care, I just want to test. So here is my entry : menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.35-25-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set debug=video insmod efi_gop set root='(hd0,gpt3)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d5175c18-7da2-49a9-a3af-844bad27c91d linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-25-generic root=UUID=d5175c18-7da2-49a9-a3af-844bad27c91d ro initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-25-generic } The options are pretty much the same than the ones from my working grub (with maxcpus=1). At my first boot, I got "error: no argument specified". From what I've seen on the internet, it's because the syntax is different between Grub 1.98 and 1.99rc1. In 1.98 it's --set d5175c18... while --set=root is needed for 1.99rc1. However, this error wasn't a real problem because we're asked to press a key and then the boot continues. It continues until the second error: "error: no suitable mode found". I've resolved this error by putting "set debug=video" and "insmod efi_gop" in my grub entry. >From this point, I can see that the kernel starts booting until the error I now have which I haven't solved yet : "fb: conflicting fb hw usage nouveaufb vs EFI VGA - removing generic driver". I hope this post will help some of you to make some progress until the point I've reached. I also tried what post #41 detailed but I have the very same error : conflicting fb... -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/341230 Title: Booting linux crashes on 2009 White Macbook (hardware version ID "MacBook5,2") unless you use acpi=off or maxcpus=1 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs