8.04 won't boot

[darcyb]

I have an intel dual core MacBook from last year.

I downloaded ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso, burned it using Toast, and let the verification complete. No problems.

I put the disc in, reset the Mac and hold down the C key. When the computer starts up, it reads the disc for a bit, then resumes booting into OS X.

Did I download the wrong image? Or should I burn with Disk Utility? Or? I can't get the CD to boot.

[piano08man]

you should download the amd 64 version for that machine. Also, I personally burned mine through disk utility. Had better luck there than I did through Toast for some reason. Hope that helps.

Josh

[cyberdork33]

you should download the amd 64 version for that machine. Also, I personally burned mine through disk utility. Had better luck there than I did through Toast for some reason. Hope that helps.

You do not have to use the amd64 version, but you can if you want to.

Burn the slowest possible speed.

[darcyb]

Yep, I get the same non-booting result from the AMD64 iso. I'll try burning at 8x instead of 24x this time.

[cyberdork33]

try burning at 2x

[darcyb]

8X was as low as Disk Utility would allow.

I managed to boot finally. I had to hold down the OPTION key to get the CD to show up as a choice, and then I booted from there. My Mac's been doing that a bit lately. I've been loosing the ability to boot off of Firewire drives unless I hold down the option key. I haven't had trouble booting off of OS X install CDs though by holding down the C key. Weird.

Does that sound like a partition corruption from my last Bootcamp install crash, or a PRAM zap opportunity?

So I'm going to try installing Ubuntu now and see how I fare. I don't know how to use the airport on this Macbook using Ubuntu yet. That's another challenge for another day.

Thanks for the suggestions!

[BIGtrouble77]

I have to hold the [alt] key when my system is booting. Maybe that will work for you?

[darcyb]

The CD shows up in the Startup disk part of System prefs now too. All that is solved.

Not that I can get it installed and booting, even with refit.

From the live cd, I used gpartition to create space after my OS X partition, and installed Ubuntu into there. No problems. The installer setup a swap and ext2 space and completes installation.

Then when I rebooted the Mac, I got a black screen saying, "no bootable device found -- insert disc etc."

I rebooted into OS X holding down the option key, installed refit, and rebooted. From the refit screen, I chose the Linux option for my internal HD. It then sat on the grey screen with penguin in the middle indefinitely and didn't boot Ubuntu.

I give up. This is beyond me.

[piano08man]

Did you install the GRUB bootloader onto your ubuntu partition? It's the very last step before ubuntu actually installs. You have to click advanced.

[darcyb]

Did you install the GRUB bootloader onto your ubuntu partition? It's the very last step before ubuntu actually installs. You have to click advanced.

I noticed it installing GRUB at the end of its install process. It may not have marked the boot partition as bootable.