MacBook Aluminum

Yea-Yea · 2010-02-19 13:34:55

Thanks frigaut, I have a problem though... I was instaling arch and when i rebooted the system it doesn't seem to work... that might be a problem once I start installing things like the pacman updates, desktop, and other things. Does reboot not work by default? How can I get it to work?

frigaut · 2010-02-19 13:50:10

What do you mean it doesn't work:
- can you get to grub?
- does it stall somewhere after grub?
- does it not start X?
- does it stall before restarting?

Yea-Yea · 2010-02-19 15:57:56

What happened was that I started installing arch and when I got to the partition section I didn't have time to go any further so I closed the installer and I typed reboot and it started fine but then it stayed "reboting..." and didn't go any further.

frigaut · 2010-02-19 17:01:40

ok, no worries. Sometimes liveCDs/liveUSBs have problems shutting down the computer. No sweat, you're running a live *CD*, so you disk is untouched. You could even press the power button in the middle of your live session and will not damage anything (there is generally no write to the live media) and as long as you didn't mount the hard disk and did writes.
That said, it's a very bad idea to start an install and not go through with it. But as you stopped before the partitioning section, you should be safe.

Did you read the instructions for an install on a macbook (pro)?
The most important thing is to *NOT* install grub on /dev/sda (one of the last or the last step in the arch install). Instead, install it on your root partition (/dev/sdaN, N=your partition number, generally, 1 is for the EFI partition, 2 for macosX, and your linux root partition is on 3 or 4, depending how you set that up). Other than that install should follow the general arch install.
An advice: install using the core CD. and use x86_64, you'll get better performance on this hardware.

Yea-Yea · 2010-02-19 18:42:18

Hi,

First off, thanks for your fast and helpful replies. I've read the archwiki guide, i actually have it printed out in front of me haha. But I didn't remember what you said about grub, so I'll keep it in mind. I have the core CD x86_64. Also thanks for explaining the reboot issue to me.

Thanks a lot!

frigaut · 2010-02-19 18:55:45

in
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mac … stallation
I see in red:
Warning: Do not install GRUB onto /dev/sda !!! Doing so is likely to lead to an unstable post-environment.

May be you're not looking at the same page?
Anyway. Super important.

Otherwise, the install is really simple, once you know what you're doing. But the first time, I remember it took me quite a while. Good luck.

Yea-Yea · 2010-02-19 19:43:52

Bfffffff I'm useless. I can't even get the partitions right... in the guide it says that I can only have a maximum of 4 primary partitions. So I'm not really sure what to do because I don't understand what the logical partitions are all about. The wiki recommends "to have a system and home partition, and use a swap file (I haven't tried to use logical partitions)". How can I do that exactly, wouldn't that be 3 partitions? Also, when they say a "system partition", is it /root? I tried making a swap partition and a linux partition(option 83) with the rest of the free space but when I wanted to apply the partitions it didn't let me because it said that more than one of my primary partitions is bootable. I had by default the EFI as boot,NC and mac as boot. So what am I supposed to do?
Thanks...

frigaut · 2010-02-19 21:32:42

right. I'm not going to go through all possible solutions, but I can tell you what I use: I use 2 partitions, one for home, one for root. You don't really need a swap file if you have (like me) 4GB of RAM. In any way, you can create a swap file later. If you're planning to use a swapfile, I recommend that you plan some space in your root partition (say 2GB, other would say 4GB but I use 2). So I recommend:
- a minimum of 10, ideally 14GB for you root partition (subtract 2 if you don't plan to have a swapfile)
- whatever you need for your home partition (I have 50 or so, cause I have all most of my media on the OsX partition)

PS: btw, there is one drawback to a swap file, is that hibernate is a bit more difficult to setup (suspend is fine though, suspend has nothing to do with swap). Personally, I have learned to live without hibernate (I just use suspend). The only nice feature about hibernate, beside the fact it doesn't burn any power, is that you can hibernate linux, go boot your osx partition, do you stuff in osX, and then reboot in linux and find your session as you left it. Cool, but not completely indispensable for me.

Last edited by frigaut (2010-02-19 21:37:24)

crocowhile · 2010-02-19 21:43:53

If you plan on encrypting both the home partition and the root partition, then you'd better create also a tiny boot partition as the arch installation suggests.

On a different note: is anybody using a custom kernel on their Mac? I do and I'd love to share tweakings. For now I apply kernel patches for the IR port, the nvidia backlight and to remove the i8042 keyboard support. Kernel is customzied for dual duo core. Nothing else.

Yea-Yea · 2010-02-20 00:18:46

frigaut wrote:

right. I'm not going to go through all possible solutions, but I can tell you what I use: I use 2 partitions, one for home, one for root. You don't really need a swap file if you have (like me) 4GB of RAM. In any way, you can create a swap file later. If you're planning to use a swapfile, I recommend that you plan some space in your root partition (say 2GB, other would say 4GB but I use 2). So I recommend:
- a minimum of 10, ideally 14GB for you root partition (subtract 2 if you don't plan to have a swapfile)
- whatever you need for your home partition (I have 50 or so, cause I have all most of my media on the OsX partition)
PS: btw, there is one drawback to a swap file, is that hibernate is a bit more difficult to setup (suspend is fine though, suspend has nothing to do with swap). Personally, I have learned to live without hibernate (I just use suspend). The only nice feature about hibernate, beside the fact it doesn't burn any power, is that you can hibernate linux, go boot your osx partition, do you stuff in osX, and then reboot in linux and find your session as you left it. Cool, but not completely indispensable for me.

Thanks for clearing this up, I was trying to do the 2 partition option. Basically what I'm doing is selecting the free space and making the partition the size I need, and in type I put number 83 (Linux). so my partition scheme looks like:
sda1 efi
sda2 mac os
sda3 (my root partition)
sda4 (my home partition)

I select write and it says it's done its job. However, when I proceed to mount filetypes to set filesystem mountpoints it only gives me the option to configure sda1 and sda 2. I don't know what's going on... I want to configure 3 and 4! What could the problem be?
Thanks and sorry for being a pain in the a***

frigaut · 2010-02-20 15:17:02

The partitioning scheme looks good. Now from what you say I infer you're using fdisk to create your partitions. Are you doing that from another tty? Maybe you're doing it to late and have to let the installer know about the new partition scheme? What if you partition (in the arch session, with fdisk), and then reboot and restart the arch installer? If you don't see the partitions there, there is indeed a problem.
Also, after partitioning, you can check it with "fdisk -l" from another TTY.
Sorry, I hope this make sense. Linux/arch may have a steep learning curve at the beginning, but it's worth it :-)

Yea-Yea · 2010-02-20 17:23:46

Hi, I don't know if I made myself clear.

I have not installed archlinux yet because I'm having trouble with the partitions. I selected to partition the hard drive manually (3rd step) and when I enter I can see that it shows the scheme that I posted previously, however, when I quit that and proceed to mount filetypes it only lets me chose between sda1 and sda2, which are the mac and efi partition. I don't think I'm doing it in the order...and the partition program shows that there is an sda3 and 4 partition so I don't know what's going on...

frigaut · 2010-02-20 17:53:10

Did you sync the MBR as mentioned in the guide?
"At this point, if you are dual booting, you should reboot your computer and have rEFIt fix the partition tables on your hard drive. (If you don't do this, you may have to reinstall GRUB later on in order to have your Mac recognize the Linux partition.) When you are into the rEFIt menu, select update partition table, then press Y."

Yea-Yea · 2010-02-20 18:08:43

But shouldnt I do that after having completed the full partition process? I still havent even set a filetype for my two linux partitions. However, I'll try it and see how it goes.
Thanks

frigaut · 2010-02-20 18:55:39

wait wait wait.
now I'm confused.
* what method do you use to partition?
* what guide/tutorial/instructions do you follow ?
I though your problem was that the arch installer, at the partition step, did not see the 2 linux partitions, but now I see you haven't completed the partitioning process.

In short, let me try to summarize:
- boot up with the arch CD (do not start the arch installer), or whatever live CD (the ubuntu liveCD can also be handy)
- Partition your drive according to the many-guides, using either fdisk, parted, or gparted (in the ubuntu live environment, that would be my weapon of choice, but parted / fdisk should do just fine).
- exit the partitioning program
- check that everything is fine: fdisk -l
- reboot
- sync the MBR in refit
- boot once more in the arch install CD
- follow the regular install procedures.

Yea-Yea · 2010-02-20 21:09:21

Ooooh I see. The way I was doing it was the way it showed in the macbook archwiki page... it said to create some free space (I used disk utility) and then in the installation use the free space to create the partitions I need, which is what I did. I'll try what you said.
Thanks.

frigaut · 2010-02-20 21:38:04

yeah, you are right, sorry I forgot to mention: you have to create free space from within osx (disk utility or something like that) before you create the partitions. That would come before step one in my list above.

Yea-Yea · 2010-02-20 21:41:53

Yep, I'll try what you said... so to boot up partition program that you recommended me, instead of running /arch/setup I type in / fdisk?

frigaut · 2010-02-20 22:02:32

yeah, at the prompt instead of /arch/setup, you type either "parted" or "fdisk". Then you may partition.
I don't know either of these very well, as -as I said- I'm generally using gparted from a liveCD environment (usually ubuntu).

Yea-Yea · 2010-02-20 22:36:30

Ok, I have an ubuntu live cd. So what you are saying is to create my home and root partition in gparted and then I mount the filetypes in the installation right?
Thanks for the help

frigaut · 2010-02-20 23:44:56

correct.
Use ext3 for the root partition
You can use either ext3 or ext4 for the home partition (with ext4 you'll have better performance but no way to read it from osx as far as I know).

Last edited by frigaut (2010-02-20 23:48:03)

T-u-N-i-X · 2010-02-21 09:50:33

You can read/write ext4 by using MacFUSE and its ext3 driver.

Yea-Yea · 2010-02-21 12:05:44

Thanks frigaut, finally got arch installed! Now I'm configuring the system but after doing pacman -Syu I tried to reboot the computer and its still not working... I'm not using the cd now so I don't know why it doesn't work. I looked around and found this http://bruno.im/2009/dec/12/archlinux-macbookpro/

The guy says that reboot doesn't work from default. He says "At first, if you want reboot support, add reboot=pci to the kernel command-line in /boot/grub/menu.lst." Is it possible to do this without having the desktop enviroment set up?

frigaut · 2010-02-21 13:50:47

when you say "reboot doesn't work", do you mean the computer never power off?
In that case, yes, the solution is to add "reboot=pci" to the kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst. I have this in mine too.
You can do that without the desktop environment, yes. At the console, log in as root and just
nano /boot/grub/menu.lst
add the reboot=pci stuff
Save and exit
it will not work on the next shutdown/reboot, but it should after that.

general advice:
- when you touch menu.lst, or anything concerning grub, be particularly careful (double check what you write)
- I advise to leave the "Fallback" grub entry (in menu.lst) alone. That way, if you mess up the regular entry, you can still boot :-)

Last edited by frigaut (2010-02-21 13:52:57)

Yea-Yea · 2010-02-21 15:43:00

Thanks! will do

Arch Linux

#151 2010-02-19 13:34:55

Re: MacBook Aluminum

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Re: MacBook Aluminum

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Re: MacBook Aluminum

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Re: MacBook Aluminum

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