Macbook Pro 5.1 Installation Issue

johan1391 · 2010-08-20 09:39:52

I just did a NET install of Arch Linux onto my Western Digital 1 TB external hard drive, using the entire thing with the automatic partitioning option. I followed the install guide along with the needed changes for a Macbook Pro from the Macbook wiki page. After configuring the grub menu.lst and mkinitcpio.conf I finished the install. Upon rebooting using rEFIt, I got a white blinking underscore in the upper left corner of the screen.

I then decided to reinstall grub using a kubuntu live cd, after that I get a blank/black screen (just as I did before when installing Arch the first time without looking at the Macbook wiki page). I'm guessing this has something to do with grub even though I have very little experience with Linux. Any ideas?

hume's doona · 2010-08-20 10:38:18

How long did you wait. [apparently 8 seconds is the average computer scientists threshold] ? Mine [4,2] can take up to about 15 seconds of flashing cursor. Booting can be slow on the macs

johan1391 · 2010-08-20 18:02:26

I left it on my computer for about 10 minutes to be absolutely sure that it was not a time issue. Any other ideas?

Inxsible · 2010-08-20 18:35:03

You might want to try disabling KMS. Search the forums. There are a bunch of threads on how to go about it.

litemotiv · 2010-08-20 19:18:01

johan1391 wrote:

I just did a NET install of Arch Linux onto my Western Digital 1 TB external hard drive

Is this a USB drive? I haven't been able to boot my 5,5 from USB as of yet..

johan1391 · 2010-08-21 04:20:32

Yes, this is a USB drive. If you have any success with this please let me know, I will try disabling KMS now.

Update: I followed the ATI wiki article on how to disable KMS and followed all the steps. Now when I load up there is an initial blank screen, then the cursor appears for two blinks, pauses, and continues to blink with no sign of Grub working.

Last edited by johan1391 (2010-08-21 05:07:24)

litemotiv · 2010-08-21 09:54:50

johan1391 wrote:

Yes, this is a USB drive. If you have any success with this please let me know, I will try disabling KMS now.
Update: I followed the ATI wiki article on how to disable KMS and followed all the steps. Now when I load up there is an initial blank screen, then the cursor appears for two blinks, pauses, and continues to blink with no sign of Grub working.

I'm positive that KMS shouldn't be the issue here, it only kicks in after Grub has finished and the OS starts booting. Also the default Nouveau driver that is used should have no problems setting KMS for your Nvidia chip.

I wouldn't advise running Arch from a USB drive though, start with Virtualbox if you just want to experiment, then setup a dual-boot for the real deal.

johan1391 · 2010-08-21 15:03:05

I really don't understand why it has to be so incredibly difficult to boot linux from an external USB hard drive. What would be the best (safest) way to shrink my current Mac OS X partition?

Do you think there is anyway that I could put the /boot partition on my internal HD and the swap, / and /home on the external?

Last edited by johan1391 (2010-08-21 15:04:29)

litemotiv · 2010-08-21 15:19:12

It's usually not difficult to boot linux from external USB drives on generic computers, but on the Macbook with it's EFI bios this can apparently be more problematic.

See the Wiki for more information on dual-booting and partitioning.

Performance with an external USB drive will usually be worse than in a virtual machine because of the limited bandwidth/throughput and high access-time of USB, so i would still suggest not going for the USB route unless you have a really good reason to.

Last edited by litemotiv (2010-08-21 15:22:59)

johan1391 · 2010-08-21 16:44:30

would that theoretically be possible, I just don't want to take up that much space on my internal HD.

litemotiv · 2010-08-21 18:47:47

johan1391 wrote:

would that theoretically be possible, I just don't want to take up that much space on my internal HD.

To only have /boot on the internal hdd? Yes i would say that's possible.

johan1391 · 2010-08-22 03:19:13

How would one go about doing that, I'm sure you would have to manually change some of the config files. I'm not that experienced so some detail would be greatly appreciated.

skodabenz · 2010-08-22 06:38:32

I think you need to use grub2 efi for this. Find out what efi arch you Macbook uses (from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/will-yo … serve/4712 )-

Boot into Mac OS X and type

ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi

It will return either EFI32 or EFI64. Use the appropriate grub2 package from aur - http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=39901 for EFI64 or http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=39902 for EFI32.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-08-20 09:39:52

Macbook Pro 5.1 Installation Issue

#2 2010-08-20 10:38:18

Re: Macbook Pro 5.1 Installation Issue

#3 2010-08-20 18:02:26

Re: Macbook Pro 5.1 Installation Issue

#4 2010-08-20 18:35:03

Re: Macbook Pro 5.1 Installation Issue

#5 2010-08-20 19:18:01

Re: Macbook Pro 5.1 Installation Issue

#6 2010-08-21 04:20:32

Re: Macbook Pro 5.1 Installation Issue

#7 2010-08-21 09:54:50

Re: Macbook Pro 5.1 Installation Issue

#8 2010-08-21 15:03:05

Re: Macbook Pro 5.1 Installation Issue

#9 2010-08-21 15:19:12

Re: Macbook Pro 5.1 Installation Issue

#10 2010-08-21 16:44:30

Re: Macbook Pro 5.1 Installation Issue

#11 2010-08-21 18:47:47

Re: Macbook Pro 5.1 Installation Issue

#12 2010-08-22 03:19:13

Re: Macbook Pro 5.1 Installation Issue

#13 2010-08-22 06:38:32

Re: Macbook Pro 5.1 Installation Issue

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