Using Fedora on Mac
 

Hi,

I have a Macbook (2,1) running OSX 10.4.11. I would like to run Fedora 10 on my machine using an external harddisk USB2.0. I have a Seagate Free Agent Go that I have formatted to HFS+ using Disk Utility. I could successfully install Fedora on my external harddisk using a DVD. But while booting from my external harddisk, an error says that booting from this device is not supported by firmware. Although looks clear I still hope there will be some solution to this problem.

So, it's Fedora saying that booting from this device is not supported by firmware?

You can definitely boot OS X on an Intel Mac (a class which definitely includes all MacBooks) from an external USB hard drive. Fedora, I'm not sure, but if that's a limitation, it's one of Fedora's, not the hardware's.

Trevor

Hi,

Will i need to install REFIT on my external harddisk. I think i am not able to successfully configure REFIT to the required settings. There may also be issues with the file system as Linux uses ext3 and Mac recognizes GUIT.

You should not need to do anything special with refit. Do you now or have you ever seen the refit boot menu come up when you start the macbook? If not then make sure it is selected as the startup disk in System Preferences >> Startup Disk. Did you try booting the Fedora 10 live dvd with the option key held down?

Also when you installed onto external drive did you partition and give some label to the drive? Fedora uses those to find the boot drive.

You can also look into an app called boot picker, which is a front end for refit. I think there is a new version out too that is 10.5 compatible now. If you google boot picker you can easily find it.

The problem is, not all Linux OSes are written to boot from EFI. In fact, unless you really need to run Linux natively on the Mac I suggest you just run it in a virtual machine instead.

I boot fedora from a macbook pro 1,1 from the hard drive. I have also booted from the Full Fedora DVD from and external dvd drive. This should be similar to the original situation. I did have a bit of trouble booting or installing the Live DVD. You should be able to boot up in Fedora on your mac.

You do need a working copy of refit. You should not need any other program.

Hi,

Well i was able to manage a lot of things. I definitely can see the rEFIt menu at startup. I did use a Live CD of fedora and it ran perfectly on my mac. Then using the install option in the Live CD, i installed Fedora on my external harddisk which is GPT parted. But while trying to boot from my external harddisk, i get the following errors:

not found from LocateDevicePath
External harddrives are not well-supported by Apple's firmware for legacy OS booting.

Now these errors are being shown by rEFIT menu only. i am still not sure whether the errors are due to rEFIt configuration problems or does apple actually does not support booting from external harddisk.

Is there a solution. The same harddisk which shows these errors on mac works perfectly fine on a windows machine.

May I ask you one simple questions, is a virtual machine out of the question? You can run the virtual machine with in OS X flawlessly, and the hardware can handle it no problem.

i have tried VMware with Ubuntu installed in it. Too slow. Takes 10 minutes to open an application. I need Fedora to run about four applications simultaneously.

Always using a Live CD may also not be feasible as that again is much slower than an actual boot.

I run kubuntu on my MBP using VMware Fusion and I have also used Virtual Box and it runs fine with out a hitch, I only got 2gigs of RAM too. I am not sure what you are running but it works fine for me.

I've had Ubuntu, Sun, and Windows running in Parallels all at the same time with very little issues, unless I was doing something network intensive. For example, don't try to install a large set of packages on all of those at the same time!

A LiveCD is not the way to go, as it uses the CD as the root drive. I would not use that for benchmarking.

I would look at virtualization again.

Brett

which fedora spin did you install? I would not use the Live DVD for the install. I had a similar problem as you until I used the Full install DVD. The install would work fine but it would never boot no mater what. I used a bit torrent to download another Live DVD and still the same problem. I then switched install to the Full DVD (i had to use the one for 32 bit, you may use the 64bit i think) then all was fine and it booted right up. There is definitely some problems with installing from the Live DVD.

Also check out the docs at http://refit.sourceforge.net/doc/c4s1_notfound.html

Can you tell me which link to load from this page.

http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/

i had used Fedora 10 i386 DVD install before using the Live CD and it still gave me the same problems.

I have a Macbook 2,1 Intel Core 2 Duo
Boot ROM Version: MB21.00A5.B07

.

That just shot my idea down. The only other suitable DVD would be this one http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/tor...64-DVD.torrent

Its weird because I had that same exact error and felt sure switching from the live cd did the trick.

Well i tried again and the same problem came.

i booted the installer DVD and did the full installation on my external harddisk. but when i tried booting again from my external harddisk, i got the same errors. did the same thing worked for you?

if it worked on you mac, i guess maybe i am missing on some settings in fedora. where did you install the bootloader? on the internal or external harddisk? which file system did you use on your external harddisk. I have currently used GUID Partition Table on mine.

is there a grub setting which should be changed in mac to enable booting from an external harddisk? as said before also, my external harddisk works perfectly on a windows machine. i am just an inch far from booting it on a mac.

i removed rEFIt and used the option key to get the boot menu. my usb harddisk was not shown here. maybe this is the problem. any settings i can change?

Have you tried using a virtual machine again? I think that may be the best way to go. I have had good luck running virtual machines on my macbook pro.

It should just work.
I have fedora 10 on a second internal hard drive but I have booted from an external dvd and usb sticks so in theory this should work.
You should probably use ext3 which is journalized and can better recover from a sudden loss in usb connection.
You are not even getting that far in the boot process.

It is perfectly normal for the option key boot prompt not to show a bootable ext3 partition. There are some drives that will not boot from Mac OSX maybe you should make sure it can be booted. Have you ever booted any os from this drive?

You need to put refit back on the mac. Did you run the little set up program from the refit boot screen? When you are at the refit boot menu and you highlight the linux icon does the label display something like boot legacy os or does it just display linux os?

I would use disk utility to prepare the drive. Make GUID and msdos file system and then let Fedora install carve it up.

Once you get to the point where Fedora "tries" to boot then you can worry about grub settings and other things. Maybe you should email the refit developer and see if he has any ideas.

I wish I could be more help. It will work and be way faster than a VM. I have it on this macbook pro although I really do not use it much. It was a nice exercise though.

Hi,

I reinstalled rEFIt and it shows the tux with the harddisk icon. But the label comes as "Boot Linux from Partition 4". When i hit it the same errors come up. not found LocateDevicePath. apple's firmware does not support booting from external harddisk.

The same harddisk boots and works perfectly on a Toshiba machine. So i guess the only problem that remains is making this drive boot enable. During the Fedora install it asks whether to make the drive bootable and i select yes everytime. i have indeed used Disk Utility to partition my drive. i have used GUID in the partition options.

As far as i have searched, the only problem i think is making mac recognise it as a bootable device. Like you said making it show as a legacy OS. But how, to that i am still searching for answers.

and what is the setup program? is there something to be done in the EFI shell? and somewhere i read using LILO as a bootloader for Linux.

Something interesting:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/EFI

So do i try a Fedora 11 now :confused:

When the refit menu comes up, highlight and enter on the icon that looks like a hard drive. It is below the bootable os icons. I am sure you have already done it. I can not remember off hand but it may also show the bootable flags and stuff as it sees it. It should also give any errors that it thinks it finds. Does all that check out and look normal?

Hey that Fedora efi project looks pretty cool. So basically they are doing what refit does now only adding linux specific tools.

Also, you have Fedora on partition 4. What is on the other partitions?

Have you tried this
Maybe you have a disk that just will not boot from mac. Maybe someone will chime in and clarify what disks can be booted. It seems that error message is trying to tell you something. :)

hi,

rEFIt does not recognize the partition as legacy OS. everything else is fine. gptsync shows both the tables are in sync.

any way to make the rEFIt see the linux as legacy OS?

OK

All that the refit app does, is that it is a front end for the command bless, which does support legacy devices. I used the bless command in scripts and network policies to force boots into Windows XP on my Macs at work.

Now, I still say use a virtual machine, they are awesome and run very smoothly on my Macs. However, if you still refuse to try that, you may try this.

Do note that you will need to place the path of the partition you wish to boot that matches your configuration. This configuration in my command shows that disk zero slice 3 has my Windows partition on it. The legacy switch forces it to boot from a master boot record, not EFI, and the next only switch says don't make this the new permanent boot drive.

Hi,

I executed the command and tried booting again. Same errors :(

Have you tried the fedora forums? Is there a way you can post the partitions of your drive with the flags and types listed. A partition map perhaps.
Actually I think you have this backwards. You dont want the partition to be seen as legacy. My fedora partition does not show up as legacy.
Although I have seen that happen and actually I have a mystery partiton that shows up in the refit boot menu that claims to be a legacy os. It is a grey windows icon. When I click it nothing happens. It is a I think it is leftover from some early bootcamp thing I did.

@tlarkin

Really? So I can get rid of refit and use the command above and Fedora 10 will be listed when I hold down the options key? I also have a winxp partition on that same drive. Would that change anything? I do not seem to be using a legacy os with fedora and certainly do not want to mess up a working solution. This means that if I drop the --legacy option then the only thing I am doing is setting the boot flag. Is this correct?

Yes, really. I have highly managed macbooks in my environment and all users are non admins. So they can't run things like refit or even access the system preferences to manually pick windows XP to boot into. I used the bless command to get around this. I even posted a video on youtube on how we did it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_rlv...e=channel_page

Open up terminal and type diskutil list and copy and paste the results would you? I don't try to boot from USB but I have read it can be problem prone on Macs. Do you have firewire you can boot from?

Yes, very slick.

Hi,

i don't have a firewire.

/dev/disk0
#: type name size identifier
0: GUID_partition_scheme *111.8 GB disk0
1: EFI 200.0 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 111.5 GB disk0s2
/dev/disk2
#: type name size identifier
0: GUID_partition_scheme *298.1 GB disk2
1: EFI 200.0 MB disk2s1
2: Apple_HFS Untitled 1 99.2 GB disk2s2
3: Apple_UFS Untitled 2 96.2 GB disk2s3
4: EFI 200.0 MB disk2s4
5: Linux LVM 99.1 GB disk2s5

please type this into terminal and then paste the results

diskutil info /dev/disk2s5

is /dev/disk2 UFS format? I know that UFS is no longer bootable in OS X, or maybe it never was...

OK, so if you launch this command from terminal and then reboot, does it boot into Linux? You will probably need to run it as sudo

Device Node: /dev/disk2s5
Device Identifier: disk2s5
Mount Point:
Volume Name:

Partition Type: Linux LVM
Bootable: Is bootable
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: USB
SMART Status: Not Supported

Total Size: 99.1 GB
Free Space: 0.0 B

Read Only: No
Ejectable: Yes

Hi,

i hope now everyone agrees i have not been making any major mistakes :)

I think this should say "Partition Type: Microsoft Basic Data" at least that is what mine is working with.

Although I am unclear what partition type "Linux LVM" is exactly. I know there was/is a windows LVM. I think lvm was a way to get past the 32GB size for fat volumes. I really think that needs to be a different type. Did you try partition with type 82 or 83? I used ipartition to get fat32 ms data type.

Where is the File system type? I do not see it listed. I assume you are putting a file system on the partition?

Here is my disk info for the Fedora Partition.

Device Identifier: disk1s4
Device Node: /dev/disk1s4
Part Of Whole: disk1
Device / Media Name: Linux

Volume Name: UNTITLED
Mount Point:
File System: Ext2

Partition Type: Microsoft Basic Data
Bootable: Is bootable
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: ATA
SMART Status: Verified
Volume UUID: 016A50B8-228A-4B4A-83F8-311F475840E3

Total Size: 20.0 Gi (21474836480 B) (41943040 512-byte blocks)
Free Space: 0.0 B (0 B) (0 512-byte blocks)

Read Only: No
Ejectable: No
Whole: No
Internal: Yes

what i did was partition my drive in disk utility into 3 partitions. one HFS, one UFS and leave the other as free space. i also checked the partition type to be GUID.

then i used the installation DVD to install fedora in free space. after that you can see the status in diskutil list of the drive.

how did you configure your harddisk? you must have formatted it in windows.

http://rentzsch.com/tidbits/intelbas...ncompatibility

i contacted the guy who has written this article and he said i need to format it in GUID. still no improvements.

You know performance wise booting from USB is probably not going to be any better than a virtual machine.

Also, the new Macbooks have 1 high powered USB port, and it is the first device you plug in. Do you have multiple USB devices plugged in?

will i have only one USB plugged in. i have told you that i have used VMware which is a virtual machine. works like dead.

and the only reason of using a harddisk is that it can be used with any machine. i am working on a hardware based project and we need a fedora environment to work on.

Hmm, always format the linux partition in MS-DOS in disk utility and never leave any free space when installing linux or any os. I have never used UFS so we can assume that will not help us here either.

My thoughts are use Disk utility as before only select MS-DOS as the format/partition type for the Fedora partition and the partition that had as Free space. When in disk utility lable the partition you want to be linux "Fedora10" or any such name and then label the Free space partition something as well.

When you get that done run the above commands again and post the results.

Also, tlarkin has a very good point about usb ports. I hope you are using a drive that plugs into an electrical outlet or is the first one in as he states. Even though Fedora uses disk labels to assign partition maps you could still probably confuse it by plugging and unplugging different usb "drive" devices while you are installing linux.

Are you running leopard? I cant even get ufs to show up as an option.

strange but i am not getting MS-DOS in the disk utilities. i think its the same as UNIX file system, which is what shows in my menu. i am using tiger only.

now i am removing all free space and making 3 partitions, one in HFS and two in UFS(which i think is your MS-DOS).

I definitely agree with you there. However, there are these ridiculous people that insist on installing the latest linux variety on a piece of hardware they own.

Also divi2109 needs it for a hardware something or other.

Yes, that is what I thought. There are definitely different options in disk utility on tiger as opposed to leopard. I am working on leopard but can boot up a tiger machine. One thing is for sure UFS is not going to get you anywhere. What you need to start is a MSDOS vfat partition to then slice up for linux. I seem to remember trying this in Tiger and having some issues with the vfat file system. I will go up and boot the tiger system and see for myself.

In Tiger there is an option for a MS-DOS file system partition.

See this screen shot

Attachment 3217

:o that was embarrassing. i am erasing the drive in MS-DOS format. that is what brings that menu on in partition tab.

Yes, also a little confusing is that you need to click on "Volume Scheme" to change order of things.


I have no idea what that means. Please clarify. No offense.

/dev/disk2
#: type name size identifier
0: GUID_partition_scheme *298.1 GB disk2
1: EFI 200.0 MB disk2s1
2: Apple_HFS Untitled 1 99.2 GB disk2s2
3: Microsoft Basic Data UNTITLED 2 99.3 GB disk2s3
4: EFI 200.0 MB disk2s4
5: Linux LVM 99.0 GB disk2s5

didnt work still.

should i try creating a custom layout in the fedora installation.

Maybe you should. Other wise I would use disk2s3. Custom layouts are beyond me.

please type this into terminal and then paste the results
diskutil info /dev/disk2s3
diskutil info /dev/disk2s5

BTW why did you omit this from your last post? Without the output from the above command there is no way to tell if you have the partitions right.

I did not think Disk Utility would create 2 efi partitions. I managed to do this in ipartition but wonder how you did it with disk util.