Arch Linux

nio817

Member

Registered: 2012-12-08

Posts: 2

I need help installing Arch on MacbookPro

Hello Arch Linux Community.

I have a mid 2010 macbookpro (7,1) and I wish to install Arch Linux on it. However, luck isn't with me today and I keep failing at some point.

I've burn the latest image and it boot with this error : Waiting 30 seconds for device /dev/disk/by-label/ARCH_201212 ...ERROR: boot device didn't show up after 30 seconds...

So I've decided to install with a USB key created with " dd if=image.iso of=/dev/disk1 bs=8192" but when I boot I get "Missing operating system".

I've reinstalled OSX Lion and applied the latest update, without any luck.

Can someone help me with this please?

Durden

Member

Registered: 2011-06-19

Posts: 261

Re: I need help installing Arch on MacbookPro

Are you holding down the option key during boot to get the boot menu, then selecting the USB drive?

nio817

Member

Registered: 2012-12-08

Posts: 2

Re: I need help installing Arch on MacbookPro

Yes, I've got no problems accessing de device selection screen. I also tryed Refit with the same results.

Durden

Member

Registered: 2011-06-19

Posts: 261

Re: I need help installing Arch on MacbookPro

Did you follow this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Macbook ?

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: I need help installing Arch on MacbookPro

I take it you are using the bios compatibility mode.  What does your gpt and its hybrid mbr look like? 

If you want to have Arch (or anything for that matter) boot with the bios compatibiltiy mode, you need to have at least the /boot partition in the hybrid mbr.  For this you can use gdisk.  In the recovery and transformation menu, there is a tool for creating the hybrid mbr.  It is simple and it works pretty well.  You have have to figure out whch partition you want to put in there.  If you don't have a /boot, you will want to have your / partition in there.

JoshuaBranson

Member

Registered: 2012-12-19

Posts: 4

Re: I need help installing Arch on MacbookPro

I'm experiencing the same issue described in the first post of this thread when I try to boot with a cd image of the latest arch iso. According to Macbook install Guide, section 3.1.2 BIOS-compatibility, I should "Boot installation medium and switch to a free tty". Can someone tell me what it means to switch to a free tty and how to do it?

askurihin

Member

Registered: 2012-10-03

Posts: 5

Re: I need help installing Arch on MacbookPro

I also had kind of the same issue with installing arch on my macbook.
The way I finally cracked the case is to boot from latest ubuntu livecd and install arch from there, following this article

Last edited by askurihin (2012-12-28 21:15:54)