Arch Linux

Urfaust

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2009-01-30

Posts: 164

Macbook Air Mid 2011 - Stuck in Grub Prompt

Hi Archers,

I am trying to install Arch on an Mid 2011 Macbook Air. So far it looks ok, I am following the Wiki and this guide. The bootloader stuff is confusing me a little. I do not want to replace the bootloader from OSx, so I do not use rEFInd, right? I want to use the "Press alt while booting"-method, so does the above guide.
First problem:
While generating the standalone "boot.efi" file the "-C" option is not recognized.

grub-mkstandalone -o boot.efi -d usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi -O x86_64-efi -C xz boot/grub/grub.cfg

It complains that -C is not a valid parameter, so I just skipped it.
After deleting the boot partition in OSx and creating the directories and files and copying the boot.efi file I am able to boot from this partition. Problem #2: After booting the partition I am stuck in a Grub prompt. It recognizes HD0 and 1 and after fiddling around with

ls (hd0)
ls (hd1)
ls (hd0,4)
...

It always complains about an unrecognized partition type.

Any help appreciated. Will I get it working in this state?
Booting from USB and installing the base system worked like a charm, I have a feeling I nearly got it but the bootloader stuff is just plain confusing.
Thanks in advance.

Last edited by Urfaust (2014-01-29 18:55:29)

Urfaust

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2009-01-30

Posts: 164

Re: Macbook Air Mid 2011 - Stuck in Grub Prompt

Ok, I cannot find another guide which uses the OSx Bootloader. I installed rEFInd, reformated /boot with mkfs.ext2, chrooted to the base system and:

# pacman -S grub-efi-x86_64

# mkdir -p /boot/efi
# mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /boot/efi

# modprobe dm-mod
# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=arch_grub --recheck --debug
# mkdir -p /boot/grub/locale
# cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo

The boot partition is recognized in rEFind, if I choose to boot from it Grub is firing up, I can see 2 menu entries (normal and fallback) after choosing the first I get:

error: no such device: someUID
Loading Linux core repo kernel ...
error: no such partition
Loading initial ramdiks ...
unaligned pointer 0x22
Aborted. Press any key to exit

Why won't Grub find the partition?

Last edited by Urfaust (2014-01-30 16:14:39)

Urfaust

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2009-01-30

Posts: 164

Re: Macbook Air Mid 2011 - Stuck in Grub Prompt

I don't know what went wrong, I am starting over and reinstall the whole thing.

What would be the easiest dual boot option? I guess it's rEFInd and Grub2 or do you guys have better recommendations?

pytnik89

Member

Registered: 2014-08-20

Posts: 4

Re: Macbook Air Mid 2011 - Stuck in Grub Prompt

Just replace -C with --compress=xz and be careful with usr/lib/... > /usr/lib..., so u should have this comand:

 grub-mkstandalone -o boot.efi -d /usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi -O x86_64-efi -compress=xz /boot/grub/grub.cfg