Arch Linux

orlfman

Member

Registered: 2007-11-20

Posts: 141

Installing Arch on a macbook pro with a dead cdrom drive....

Hey all.

My Internal dvd drive died on me two years ago (which I was able to successfully boot Ubuntu from it before it died, but sadly didn't install it) and I picked up an externel dvd drive (Lacie) since I can use it on my desktop as a backup drive (which has Arch running perfectly). Ever since I got it, I've been trying to install Arch, and many other distros on my Macbook Pro (santa rosa late 07)  via the external firewire dvd-drive with no success. I either get "No Bootable Device," gets to the apple boot screen and the drive just keeps spinning the disk until I unplug it, or it just halts and does nothing at the apple boot screen and will literally stay there until I reboot the machine. I've burned so many cds I've lost count, I've tried almost all the major distros out there, and not one will boot. I am able to successfully, and easily install Mac OS X again via the firewire drive.

I also tried booting from a USB flash drive. I've tried two different flash drives, and could never get my Macbook Pro to boot off of them. They wont even show on the boot menu when I hold down "Option."

I really don't know what to do. How can I get Linux on my Macbook Pro?

Edit: Oh, and it has the latest firmware installed

Last edited by orlfman (2010-07-26 23:04:55)

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 19,793

Re: Installing Arch on a macbook pro with a dead cdrom drive....

I don't have a fully formed procedure, but I believe you can do a network PXE boot.

You will need another computer, networked to your netbook, that is running DHCP and a TFTP server with the appropriate image files.

It is non-trivial, but it should work

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nTia89

Banned

From: varese, italy

Registered: 2008-12-22

Posts: 1,230

Re: Installing Arch on a macbook pro with a dead cdrom drive....

at MB powered off insert a usb memory which contains archlinux iso (for this passage watch archwiki) then keep pressed ALT button and power on your MB. now you can select which device to boot

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+pc: custom | AMD Opteron 175 | nForce4 Ultra | 2GB ram DDR400 | nVidia 9800GT 1GB | ArchLinux x86_64 w/ openbox
+laptop: Apple | MacBook (2,1) | 2GB ram | Mac OS X 10.4 -> DIED
+ultrabook: Dell | XPS 13 (9343) | 8GB ram | 256GB ssd | FullHD display | Windows 8.1 64bit ArchLinux x86_64 w/ Gnome