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Thread: How to create a Live-USB-Stick, that is able to boot a Mac

  1. #1
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    Thumbs down How to create a Live-USB-Stick, that is able to boot a Mac

    Hi folks,

    does anyone know how to create an Ubuntu-Live-USB-Stick, which is able to boot a Mac?

    I have several Intel-Macs here, they all have rEFIt installed, and they all have both OSX and Ubuntu Jaunty.

    If I create a Live-Stick using unetbootin or the usb-creator, I am not able to boot my Mac from that stick.
    rEFIt recognizes the stick as bootable, but if I select it, it
    a) stops the boot process by saying something like "Apple's firmware is not good to support booting legacy-OS"
    b) makes the stick blinking for a short time, and then boots Ubuntu from my HD

    (Whether it is a) or b) is dependened to the stick's filesystem: FAT leads to a) and HFS leads to b)...)

    I tried to format the usb-stick as hfs+ with and without journaling, but won't solve my problems.

    Does anybody know how to create a Live-Stick that works on Intel-Macs?
    Last edited by produnis; September 9th, 2009 at 09:50 AM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
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    Belgium
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    Distro
    Kubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

    Re: How to create a Live-USB-Stick, that is able to boot a Mac

    I've had no luck with this. USB boot needs to be supported by the hardware, and I have the impression that at least my macbook does not have this support. I've tried several ways to make the USB disk and although it boots well on a Dell and Asus Eebox, it doesn't on my macbook ...

  3. #3
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    Re: How to create a Live-USB-Stick, that is able to boot a Mac

    This is remarkable,

    as in general the mac is able to boot from a usb stick.

    I copied my SnowLeo-Install-DVD to a USB-stick, and my Mac boots from that USB-Stick without any problems...
    So, that works fine...

    ...but creating an UBUNTU-Stick seems to be a great problem...

  4. #4
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    Re: How to create a Live-USB-Stick, that is able to boot a Mac

    I already installed Ubuntu to every Mac I got here, and every Mac is able to boot Ubuntu using rEFIt.

    Is it possible to use these Ubuntu-Installations to boot from USB-Stick?

    I am thinking about an entry in GRUB2 that shows something like "Boot from USB-Stick"...

    Does anyone know how to configure GRUB2 to do so?

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
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    Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

    Re: How to create a Live-USB-Stick, that is able to boot a Mac

    Quote Originally Posted by produnis View Post
    I already installed Ubuntu to every Mac I got here, and every Mac is able to boot Ubuntu using rEFIt.

    Is it possible to use these Ubuntu-Installations to boot from USB-Stick?

    I am thinking about an entry in GRUB2 that shows something like "Boot from USB-Stick"...

    Does anyone know how to configure GRUB2 to do so?
    Copy from the usb /boot directory, the 2 kernel files = vmmlinuz... and initrd.img...
    Copy them to your internal HD linux partition root and rename them usbvmlinuz, usbinitrd.img. (name can be anything). ( Or alternately copy to your OSX partition via another usb stick or partition readable from OSX).

    Then if your usb root is at /dev/sdb2 -
    make a grub2 menuentry
    Code:
    menuentry "usb " {
     search --set -f /usbvmlunuz
     linux /usbvmlinuz root=/dev/sdb2
     initrd /usbinitrd.img
    }
    (The catch is , if you upgrade kernel, you need to copy again to the internal HD.)

    You can only boot directly from external using an EFI bootloader, that is what OSX does.

  6. #6
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    Re: How to create a Live-USB-Stick, that is able to boot a Mac

    Thanks for that!!!

    I am a little bit confused, I just figured out that I have GRUB 0.97 - and not GRUB2 - , so
    I used this tutorial, and it works fine...

    Quote Originally Posted by pxwpxw View Post
    You can only boot directly from external using an EFI bootloader, that is what OSX does.
    But currently, there seems to be no way to create an UBUNTU-Live stick, that uses an EFI bootloader an is able to directly boot a mac, right?

  7. #7
    Join Date
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    Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

    Re: How to create a Live-USB-Stick, that is able to boot a Mac

    Quote Originally Posted by produnis View Post
    Thanks for that!!!

    I am a little bit confused, I just figured out that I have GRUB 0.97 - and not GRUB2 - , so
    I used this tutorial, and it works fine...


    But currently, there seems to be no way to create an UBUNTU-Live stick, that uses an EFI bootloader an is able to directly boot a mac, right?
    The grub-efi attacehed bootusb.tar.gz will do it.

    You need a USB stick 2GB or more, partitioned as MSDOS with one full sized FAT32 partiton (most come like that). I use 8GB.
    Code:
    Download and extract the 
          /efi folder which has -
    
          /efi/boot folder with 3 files -
    
          /efi/boot/ bootx64.efi	bootx64.icns	grub.cfg
    Copy the /efi folder to the USB fat32 partition.

    Copy a ubuntu-9.04-desktop-amd64.iso to the USB (do not extract it just copy the .iso file (see the grub.cfg to match the name).

    If your Mac is recent model with 64bit EFI, you should see an EFIBoot icon when starting up with Option key, or with refit.

    You will probably have to experiment with the grub.cfg menu choices and config, but they should boot the ubuntu iso kernel. The grub.cfg has other menuentries for Slax also, easy to boot for a start.

    For 32bit EFI Mac models (MB21 or earlier),
    "bootx64.efi" needs to be renamed to "bootia32.efi" in order to see the Apple startup icon without needing refit.

    Still needs some tidying up, that should do for a test.

    Refer to these posts in grub2 EFI bootloader thread for some more info
    #919 Booting ubuntu live iso with grub.efi
    #930 grub2404b.efi (used for bootx64.efi or bootia32.efi )
    #992 UEFI spec reference.
    Attached Files Attached Files
    Last edited by pxwpxw; September 10th, 2009 at 04:53 PM. Reason: Add reference posts grub2 EFI thread

  8. #8
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    Thumbs down Re: How to create a Live-USB-Stick, that is able to boot a Mac

    I CANNOT BELIEVE IT!!

    IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WOKRS!!!


    Thank you so much for this,
    I tried it for about 3 days now to get this working !!!!

    I will translate your tuto for the german ubuntuusers-wiki!

    Am I allowed to share your attachment bootusb.tar.gz there?

  9. #9
    Join Date
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    Re: How to create a Live-USB-Stick, that is able to boot a Mac

    I have a MBA Revision B and I have no luck using the bootefi files above, I do see the USB drive when booting with option key pressed, but choosing it throws me to standard OSX boot.

    I have also tried renaming to 32bit name but then the drive does not even show up in the boot menu.

    Any ideas?

    Thanks so much for all your help guys!

  10. #10
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    Re: How to create a Live-USB-Stick, that is able to boot a Mac

    Quote Originally Posted by 17844 View Post
    Any ideas?
    Have you tried to install rEFIt? This might help you to boot from the usb-device...
    hmm..

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