Hi all,
I'm running Fedora 12 on an older macbook pro. For a long time I've had a co-installation of Fedora and OS X. Since I never use OS X, I'd like to install over the OS X partition (my plan is to try to install the F13 alpha over the OS X partition, and keep my existing F12 installation in case something goes wrong).
The problem that I have is that I've been using refit (http://refit.sourceforge.net/) as my EFI boot environment. So right now when I boot my computer, refit loads, and then that loads grub, and grub boots the kernel normally. It's my understanding that overwriting the OS X volume would break refit, making my computer unbootable.
It's also my understanding that: * GRUB 0.9x does not support EFI volumes * GRUB 2 supports EFI, but isn't supported by Fedora
The GRUB 2 package description specifically states: : This is a development snapshot, and as such will not : replace grub if you install it, but will be merely added as another : kernel to your existing GRUB menu. Do not replace GRUB (grub : package) with it unless you know what are you doing.
Does anyone have any advice on how to proceed? At this point I don't care about support for OS X (or Windows), I just want to make sure that whatever I do next I'll be able to boot an operating system after rebooting my laptop.
Thanks.
-- Evan Klitzke evan@eklitzke.org :wq
On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 9:44 AM, Evan Klitzke evan@eklitzke.org wrote:
The problem that I have is that I've been using refit (http://refit.sourceforge.net/) as my EFI boot environment. So right now when I boot my computer, refit loads, and then that loads grub, and grub boots the kernel normally. It's my understanding that overwriting the OS X volume would break refit, making my computer unbootable.
Not quite true.. OS X sits on the second partition, the first is a VFAT partition which holds your boot loader. Deleting the OS X partition should not remove rEFIt.
However, if you're only going to boot Fedora, then you don't need rEFIt. Fedora does support booting from an EFI system, maybe you should install with the F12 efidisk image. Perhaps something on my blog will help you:
"http://blog.christophersmart.com/2009/07/23/linux-on-an-apple-xserve-efi-onl..."
The Macbook Pro does have MBR emulation however (unlike an Xserve), so you *should* be able to boot with a generic MBR and use gptsync under Fedora to write the table.. Did I say "should"?
Either way, I highly suggest that you back up your entire drive (perhaps just a direct dd) and then experiment. You can always dd everything back if it goes belly up..
If backing up is not an option, I have a Macbook Pro 2.1 which I can experiment with and let you know how I go.
-c
On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 9:54 AM, Chris Smart mail@christophersmart.com wrote:
However, if you're only going to boot Fedora, then you don't need rEFIt. Fedora does support booting from an EFI system, maybe you should install with the F12 efidisk image. Perhaps something on my blog will help you:
Also, I've found that the Arch and Gentoo wikis have lots of helpful information:
"http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Apple_Macbook" "http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Apple_Macbook_Pro" "http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBook"
-c