HOWTO: Install Ubuntu on a MacBook and use GRUB to boot.

[Entity]

We will delete Mac OS X as we don't use it often enough and install Ubuntu its partitions in order to take advantage of the entire disk's space. This is not a multi boot setup.

You will be able to boot Mac OS X and/or Windows XP from an external hard drive (with a GUID Partition Table) in order to update your hardware firmwares, etc. (Not covered here for the moment)

You will need :

- MacBook Mac OS X Install Disc 1 (Might not be necessary after all, see hereunder for more details)
- Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (aka Dapper Drake)
- The MacBook itself (duh!)
- A patched version of the GRUB boot loader (provided here)

***

1) First you will boot using the MacBook Mac OS X Install Disc 1. Press C on system startup.

You will then launch the Disk Utility and select you hard drive. You will click on the Options button and change GPT (GUID Partition Table) to the MS-DOS partition table. We save the change (We don't care about the partition setup for now, the default is OK).

Update: This first step might not be mandatory as you can convert the partition table to MD-DOS type from gparted using the Ubuntu Dapper Drake LiveCD. It would need to be tested. If it doesn't work restart from step #1.

2) Restart the computer and now you will boot using the Ubuntu LiveCD. Press C on system startup.

In Ubuntu, simply launch the Installer as you would do in a normal installation. Partition your drive as you wish and there is no need to keep your HFS volume.

Since we change the partition table to an ms-dos type we won't get any error and the installation process will complete normaly (GREAT!)

3) When finished, set the active partition. You can use parted :

sudo parted

print (no flag?)
set (enter the partition number)
boot
on
print (check the boot flag!)
quit

4) Now you need to install the patched version of GRUB or else the boot process will hang on stage2. Let's chroot our root partition.

sudo mkdir /mnt/ubuntu
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/ubuntu/
sudo mount -t proc none /mnt/ubuntu/proc
sudo mount -o bind /dev /mnt/ubuntu/dev
sudo chroot /mnt/ubuntu

Now install the package after unzipping it.

unzip grub_0.97-1ubuntu10_i386.zip
dpkg -i grub_0.97-1ubuntu10_i386.deb

Just to be sure...

grub-install /dev/sda

Voilà! You can now restart the computer and wait for GRUB to do its job. The only difference you will note, is that you will not see the apple logo on startup anymore but a folder with a question mark instead. I would love to replace it by the Ubuntu logo!

FYI, I guess it would be possible to install Mac OS X on an external drive that has a GPT partition table but I can't test it tonight!

Also note, the patch was taken from there. And I applied this patch to the package myself using the Ubuntu source package and this simple but great howto. It was my first time doing so! Use at your own risk.

[Jukey]

Sounds really cool but its destructive to OSX. That's fine if you only want ubutnu but the OSX environment is also really cool.

[incubii]

For some reason i cant download that file at all. Keeps saying im not logged in. :/

[incubii]

Originally Posted by incubii For some reason i cant download that file at all. Keeps saying im not logged in. :/

Never mind i got the file.

Also i followed your guide and it work perfectly! Hopefulyl they will add official support to ubuntu for intel macs.

I have it running on an Intel MacMini 1.666ghz

[Entity]

Originally Posted by Jukey Sounds really cool but its destructive to OSX. That's fine if you only want ubutnu but the OSX environment is also really cool.

Yes, OS X is cool. But I don't use it on a daily basis, actually after playing with it a few hours, I never booted it again.

You would still be able to boot Mac OS X and/or Windows XP from an external hard drive that has GUID Partition Table (Partionned with the OS X Disk Utility) in order to update your hardware firmwares, etc.

That is what I will do because I need those GB!

[jedsen]

Edit: nevermind, you have to click on the "partition" tab, and then change the options before you partition it.

I don't know what you mean when you say in step 1 to click on the "options button" on the Apple Disk Utility. I have no option button.

Thanks, and good riddance to OS X!

[blot0]

i manged to get through the whole walk thru, everything happened as it should (after hunting for the right places).
reboot.. (sorry dont have it infront of me right now.. so not 100% sure)

comes up with something about starting stage 1.5

then it comes up with GRUB installing please wait (i think thats it)
and does not move any further, was like that for a good 10min, had to leave so not sure if its still like that now. but it shouldnt take that long should it?

only thing i could think of is i ran the .deb file (because i couldnt find where it was in command line) but that came up ok, nice little installer program, and seemed to install it ok.

[Entity]

Originally Posted by blot0 i manged to get through the whole walk thru, everything happened as it should (after hunting for the right places). reboot.. (sorry dont have it infront of me right now.. so not 100% sure) comes up with something about starting stage 1.5 then it comes up with GRUB installing please wait (i think thats it) and does not move any further, was like that for a good 10min, had to leave so not sure if its still like that now. but it shouldnt take that long should it? only thing i could think of is i ran the .deb file (because i couldnt find where it was in command line) but that came up ok, nice little installer program, and seemed to install it ok.

You have to upgrade grub or else you get this problem. What you need to do now is to boot from Live CD, then chroot your installed system and upgrade grub.

[blot0]

yeah.. i figured out what i did wrong.
i wasnt chrooted into the hdd system when i did it.
did it over again when i got home and all works good now...
except when i reboot.. if i reboot. when it starts up again it just has a black screen rather then coming up with the grub stuff and loading linux.
i have to shutdown and then boot up for it to work.

bit strange, but not to much of a hassle, boots rather quickly.
just need to figure out how to get wifi working now.
i run a wpa network so its a little trickyer i'm reading.
and people having issues with wifi in the latest 686 kernel with SMP

[mdmunoz]

I apologize for my ignorance, but could someone explain how exactly I would "convert the partition table to MD-DOS type from gparted using the Ubuntu Dapper Drake LiveCD"?

I would really appreciate it, as I am now surviving solely on the Live CD.

On an unrelated note, it seems the installation error only occurs if I've updated GRUB. Of course not updating it makes the installation a moot point...