Arch Linux

kahrkunne

Member

Registered: 2013-08-24

Posts: 88

Arch/Hackintosh dualboot

I have no idea what section to post this in, this seems to come the closest.

I plan on dual booting my existing Arch installation with OS X. How would I do this without erasing my Arch installation?

All tutorials I could find on the internet assume OS X to be installed first.

Also, I don't have an UEFI motherboard

mdshann

Member

Registered: 2009-10-08

Posts: 33

Re: Arch/Hackintosh dualboot

It's been a while since I last messed with OSx86 stuff, but from what I remember OS X doesn't deal with linux file systems. If you are using seperate hard drive, that will probably make it easier, but if not you probably want to boot to a live CD such as the gparted live CD and resize your linux partitions to make room for OS X. I think you will need to have your GRUB installed to the boot or root partition of your arch install instead of the mbr of the hard drive, and then make sure in gparted that you set the boot flag on that partition and that you can boot back into arch after resizing. You will have to install GRUB to the partition before you resize, I believe. Once that is done and working you can install OS X to the empty space you made when moving arch. Then install whatever efi boot loader you are using to the mbr of the drive, it should see OS X and GRUB and allow you to boot either one. Again, it's been a while since I messed with OS X 86, so I may be totally wrong. Backup your /home first!