Can't boot into arch from live CD on Macbook Pro 3,1

drism · 2012-08-30 00:53:00

Hi all,

I'm trying to install Arch on my old Macbook Pro 3,1 (June 2007), and I can't seem to get it to boot any live cd (of any linux distro actually). I put a fresh Leopard install on one partition, installed rEFIt, and upon attempting to boot into Arch, it fails. Attempting to boot off a usb stick just hangs at the white boot screen, while an actual dvd causes it to boot to a screen that says "Select CD-ROM boot type" with no available keyboard input.

Have I somehow borked a boot partition? Not sure where to look at this point, any assistance is much appreciated.

hadrons123 · 2012-08-30 01:17:04

It would be helpful if you could tell us what install media you tried?
This could be of help too...
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBook

the.ridikulus.rat · 2012-08-30 01:55:59

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Un … t_from_ISO

nomorewindows · 2012-08-30 02:39:21

Do you have an Intel Mac or a Motorola/PowerPC mac? If it's Motorola/PowerPC, you need archlinuxppc.org.

hadrons123 · 2012-08-30 02:44:47

macbook pro 3.1 is not PPC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Pr … ifications

drism · 2012-08-30 03:16:17

hadrons123 wrote:

It would be helpful if you could tell us what install media you tried?
This could be of help too...
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBook

My mistake folks, it's actually a Macbook Pro 2,1; but it's still an Intel Core 2 Duo. It's now running Snow Leopard with the highest available firmware version.

I've tried booting from both a usb and dvd, and I've tried both archlinux-2012.08.04-dual.iso as well as archlinux-2012.08.07_04-00-01-netinstall-i686.iso.

I'm now able to actually boot into a Linux Mint Live CD, would it be possible to install it from this installation? (Found the wiki page to boot from an existing linux installation, but saw that was out of date...)

EDIT: Will try the.ridikulus.rat's solution and return with the results, sounds like it's my issue.

Last edited by drism (2012-08-30 03:18:20)

drism · 2012-08-30 03:52:30

the.ridikulus.rat wrote:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Un … t_from_ISO

Worked perfectly! Thank you very much.

drism · 2012-09-01 16:12:28

Hi folks,

Back again with some boot issues, I followed along the docs on the wiki, but I'm a bit confused with precisely what bootloader to use, and how to set it up. I also want to make sure I'm handling my partitions correctly. Please point out any glaring issues, I'm doing my best to learn arch!

I installed a fresh copy of Leopard, updated the firmware, and installed rEFIt. Then, I partitioned out my drive as follows:

1 EFI (Was there from mac installation) /boot/efi
2 Mac partition
3 (+128M out from Mac) boot /boot
4 swap
5 root /
6 home /home

I have a few questions at this point:
1) How do I mark partition 3 as a boot partition under cgdisk (Or more specifically, which type is correct)?
On my first attempt, I changed it to EFI System (ef00), is this correct for this type of machine?
Is it required to format the boot partition with mkfs.ext4?

2) I want to make sure my mounting procedure is correct, as I understand it, I'm mounting the original EFI boot partition into /boot (sda3) at /boot/efi?

3) I want to double check my mounting procedure:
mount /dev/sda5 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda6 /mnt/home
mkdir /mnt/boot/efi
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi

At this point, I followed the general installation instructions until it came time to install the bootloader.

I decided to use grub2, but is it actually possible to use syslinux on this machine?

I installed grub-efi-i386 and followed the instructions, but alas, it will not boot.

Right now, I have boot.efi and grubia32.efi located in /boot/efi/EFI/arch_grub, the autogenerated grub.cfg in /boot/grub, and the modules in /boot/grub/i386-efi. Does this sound correct?

Upon trying to boot grubia32.efi with rEFIt, I get an error saying "No Controller Found". Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!!!

Update: After reporting No Controller Found, it reports "Error: device 'UUID=(my root partition id)' not found, skipping fsck" followed by "ERROR: Unable to find root device 'UUID=(my root partition id'"
I checked fstab and everything looks okay to me. Does this indicate grub is actually installed correctly, but it can't find the root partition due to some other config issue?

Solved: Adding ahci to my mcinitcpio.conf module array solved it! "i8042: No Controller Found" is a red herring indicating no ps2 keyboard/mouse. It's now able to load the root partition.

Last edited by drism (2012-09-01 19:29:22)

drism · 2012-09-01 19:34:20

Solved the last issue, but now ran into a new one!

At the arch boot screen, I'm getting "Waiting for udev uevents to be processed [BUSY]" followed by "[4.493763] Unable to load isight firmware". It then hangs and is unresponsive.
Is the lack of a camera driver really preventing boot? How can I indicate I'd like this to be skipped?

I've found an old post suggesting setting a kernel param, acpi=off, but upon discovering it is some sort of power manager, this prospect is making me a bit nervous. Is this actually safe, and is it a solution?

Update: Seems the isight is another red herring, I'm seeing the same error when booting the livecd and that's able to boot no problem. I have no clues at this point as to why it's hanging...

Last edited by drism (2012-09-01 19:42:20)

Trilby · 2012-09-01 19:44:55

That shouldn't affect booting. I get that message every time I boot my iMac. I suspect this is an unrelated coincidence, and your issue will have more in common with other udev hangs.

Last edited by Trilby (2012-09-01 19:45:06)

drism · 2012-09-01 21:00:55

So I set the kernel loglevel a little higher and discovered it hanging on the following:

"fb: conflicting fb hw usage radeondrmfb vs. EFI VGA - removing generic driver"

I'm assuming I'll have to blacklist one of them, but should it be the radeon or EFI VGA?

Arch Linux

#1 2012-08-30 00:53:00

Can't boot into arch from live CD on Macbook Pro 3,1

#2 2012-08-30 01:17:04

Re: Can't boot into arch from live CD on Macbook Pro 3,1

#3 2012-08-30 01:55:59

Re: Can't boot into arch from live CD on Macbook Pro 3,1

#4 2012-08-30 02:39:21

Re: Can't boot into arch from live CD on Macbook Pro 3,1

#5 2012-08-30 02:44:47

Re: Can't boot into arch from live CD on Macbook Pro 3,1

#6 2012-08-30 03:16:17

Re: Can't boot into arch from live CD on Macbook Pro 3,1

#7 2012-08-30 03:52:30

Re: Can't boot into arch from live CD on Macbook Pro 3,1

#8 2012-09-01 16:12:28

Re: Can't boot into arch from live CD on Macbook Pro 3,1

#9 2012-09-01 19:34:20

Re: Can't boot into arch from live CD on Macbook Pro 3,1

#10 2012-09-01 19:44:55

Re: Can't boot into arch from live CD on Macbook Pro 3,1

#11 2012-09-01 21:00:55

Re: Can't boot into arch from live CD on Macbook Pro 3,1

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