MacBook Pro 8,2: howto for dual boot Ubuntu/MacOS EFI

[whatsamac]

That's weird, I used the following guide to create the bootable USB thumb drive: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/deskt...ick-on-mac-osx The steps I described above should work if you have a MacBook Pro 8,2... do you have another model maybe?

[whatsamac]

Latest Kernel Update (3.8.0-27) is running nicely.

[SilverOne]

I didn't follow your guide but i've been doing ubuntus installations very similarly to yours, i however don't use reFind and have been compiling custom kernels for integrated graphics support: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2115317

i've tried using your refind setup with the v3.9 kernel available from : http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/ but no luck with efi stub

i haven't tested the sd card reader but the keyboard backlighting works perfect, with the notable exception of it always booting with it.

[bustamanteguevara]

Do you guys know if this information is relevant to the Macbook Pro 9,2? I suppose I will have to check what is the chipset and what are the differences.

[whatsamac]

I fear that the MacBooks' hardwares are pretty different from revision to revision, there seemingly are even models of the 8,2 series around that behave differently than mine does. At least I have followed several tutorials for other distributions and none of them really worked for me despite other users reporting success.

I don't know why one would avoid using rEFInd as it works rather flawlessly as far as I'm concerned, but unmodified kernels from 3.8 upwards should boot without problems via EFISTUB - if you get them selected for loading via EFISTUB properly. At least that's what I've read.

Note that with my installation procedure you'll end up with the following bootable symbols in rEFInd:

Ubuntu (GRUB) - MacOS - some Tuxes, depending on the number of kernel upgrades (all of them not working!) - Ubuntu (latest kernel, EFISTUB, working) - Ubuntu (previous kernel, EFISTUB, working) - etc...

[Courtney_Bodi]

Thank you so much! I've been trying to dual boot my computer without having it overheat for days. This tutorial was extremely easy to follow and it worked : )

[whatsamac]

Glad to hear that, thank you! Recent Kernel Update 3.8-29 did not cause any troubles.

[SilverOne]

Hello,

this method is working for me under arch linux with kernel 3.10.10-1.

thanks again whatsamac!

[whatsamac]

Hey SilverOne, thanks for the feedback! I would greatly appreciate if you could document how you succeeded in installing Arch Linux on this machine, as I have been trying very hard to get Arch Linux to run on this and somehow never succeeded to make it boot into i915 mode with radeon disabled. I always struggled at the point where it comes to installing a bootloader - where should I install it to (EFI partition, or somewhere else), what needs to get into the relevant directories and such. I found this tutorial http://rorygarand.com/blog/2013/6/6/...-4-boot-loader but unfortunately it didn't work out for me

I value Ubuntu for its stability and easy installation, but I'd personally prefer Arch for various reasons. If you could take the time to document your installation process (probably on the Arch Linux forum), I would be very happy to give it another try!

Also I was just experimenting with fglrx and fglrx-updates, but both end up with not being able to get the VBIOS from the kernel. Strangely, the opensource xorg-radeon driver does not seem to provide ANY performance improvements over the i915 chipset (benchmarking with Xonotic here), not sure if I need to specifically set the driver via config but the Xorg log looks like it gets loaded.

The recent kernel update 3.8-30 ran through fine.

[SilverOne]

Hey SilverOne, thanks for the feedback! I would greatly appreciate if you could document how you succeeded in installing Arch Linux on this machine, as I have been trying very hard to get Arch Linux to run on this and somehow never succeeded to make it boot into i915 mode with radeon disabled. I always struggled at the point where it comes to installing a bootloader - where should I install it to (EFI partition, or somewhere else), what needs to get into the relevant directories and such. I found this tutorial http://rorygarand.com/blog/2013/6/6/...-4-boot-loader but unfortunately it didn't work out for me

I value Ubuntu for its stability and easy installation, but I'd personally prefer Arch for various reasons. If you could take the time to document your installation process (probably on the Arch Linux forum), I would be very happy to give it another try!

Also I was just experimenting with fglrx and fglrx-updates, but both end up with not being able to get the VBIOS from the kernel. Strangely, the opensource xorg-radeon driver does not seem to provide ANY performance improvements over the i915 chipset (benchmarking with Xonotic here), not sure if I need to specifically set the driver via config but the Xorg log looks like it gets loaded.

The recent kernel update 3.8-30 ran through fine.

sure i'll pm you