Dual Boot with OS X

slackcub · 2009-04-15 04:11:37

Not quite sure where this should be posted, so I figured I'd post here. I came upon a rather large hard drive and I was thinking about dual booting with OS X. I meet the system requirements, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to integrate. I did some searching on the forums here, and on google, but I wasn't able to find much. I guess my main questions are:

1) Can GRUB load OS X from an external USB hard drive?

2) Is it possible to mount ext3 partitions from OS X?

3) Is there any common pitfalls I should be aware of before starting this?

Any help I can be given would be greatly appreciated!

David

FrozenFox · 2009-04-15 08:48:06

1: Probably. OSX refusing to boot from the drive without grub even being considered is more likely than grub not doing its job. It wouldn't boot on my sata, for instance, but doing it from an internal ide worked fine [including Grub2], and I've seen examples of it working on legacy grub.

2: Yes. http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index. … opic=34227

3: Not really, assuming you're using a real mac instead of a "hackintosh", but that doesn't seem to be so from your post [I would expect someone to say it the other way around, "I want want to dual boot -Arch-", if theyre using a mac machine]. I'm not sure what kinds of things about this topic would be shaky ground on the forums, so I'll try to keep from saying anything troublesome.. I will remove it if necessary, but I don't expect that to be the case. If you're using a "hackintosh", expect hardware problems (it can be a serious hassle and hack-job installing and getting everything to work) and highly probable legal issues (even if you own OSX). On a side note, I personally think OSX is the most boring, user-limiting OS in existence.. However, on the positive side, it pretty much does what it says it does if you're using the real deal, and does it well.

Last edited by FrozenFox (2009-04-15 08:51:06)

thisperishedmin · 2009-04-15 12:39:40

From what I remember....I let darwin (osx boot manager) launch windows and linux. I cant recall if darwin actually called grub, or if I found a way to have it call up the linux install directly though. Each way seems right, and I know it was only one.

Yes on the note that hackintosh is questionable on several levels, but hardware is likely to be more of a problem. I was lucky and had a motherboard with awesome support and an ATI card that shipped in some macs. I doubt my new ATI card would work though. I quickly grew tired of the novelty of OSX and came to the same conclusion as firefox...OSX just isnt for me. It has some great apps and the super tight integration of everything is nice...but I demand more than that out of my OS lol.

All in all...I felt more at home back on Windows than OSX. Any advantage of OSX was less satisfying than the advantages I had with *nix, but all the disadvantages were identical.

Anyway, I feel on a tirade and off topic....but good luck!

I did get my machine to boot all 3 "major" os's, but sadly I cant for the life of me remember exactly how...but good luck! All I can say for sure is that darwin had to take precedence or osx would complain. This did make it hell after I decided to ditch OSX and go back to *nix / windows dual boot haha.

Again, good luck!

FrozenFox · 2009-04-15 13:03:07

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index. … pic=150004

I just found my old Grub2 multi-os-boot thread with my question and solution. It -might- end up helping you. However, note that it's for grub2, not grub, so partitioning numbering scheme and entry format stuff is different.

Lexion · 2009-04-15 13:51:57

use rEFIt as a bootloader. If you are going to install linux it will be your friend.

Also, to warn you beforehand, use parted to edit partitions, not (c)fdisk. You have to because there are 2 partition maps going to be in use at the same time: mbr and gpt.

Ranguvar · 2009-04-15 15:06:51

From what I understand, Arch is trying to stay away from takedown-happy Apple. I'd direct all questions to www.osx86project.org and avoid using the Arch forums

Arch Linux

#1 2009-04-15 04:11:37

Dual Boot with OS X

#2 2009-04-15 08:48:06

Re: Dual Boot with OS X

#3 2009-04-15 12:39:40

Re: Dual Boot with OS X

#4 2009-04-15 13:03:07

Re: Dual Boot with OS X

#5 2009-04-15 13:51:57

Re: Dual Boot with OS X

#6 2009-04-15 15:06:51

Re: Dual Boot with OS X

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