grub2 EFI boot loader internal/external booting

[Nikos.Alexandris]

For external booting -

...

Hi! I have a question: I have already successfully installed grub2 (following directions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Grub2). Now I would like to try-out the steps to get the MBP5,1 to work with the 9400 graphic card.

In the wiki ( https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ma...5-1_5-2/Jaunty ) it is written to install grub2 in the efi directory. Hmm... ?
Do I need to make a clean install of grub2?
Do I need to remove the current installation/settings etc. (which, if I am right, are to be found under /boot/grub )?

Thanks for any help
Nikos

[alexmurray]

As noted in the wiki, you'll need a version of grub2 which supports the graphics output protocol, but as far as I know this has not been merged into upstream yet (see here). So you'll need to extract the tarball linked to from the wiki into the /efi directory (assuming you have installed rEFIt) on your os x partition, and then replace the grub64.efi with the latest one (also linked to from the wiki) that supports graphics output protocol.

[pxwpxw]

Hi! I have a question: I have already successfully installed grub2 (following directions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Grub2). Now I would like to try-out the steps to get the MBP5,1 to work with the 9400 graphic card.

In the wiki ( https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ma...5-1_5-2/Jaunty ) it is written to install grub2 in the efi directory. Hmm... ?
Do I need to make a clean install of grub2?
Do I need to remove the current installation/settings etc. (which, if I am right, are to be found under /boot/grub )?

Thanks for any help
Nikos

I think you have the grub-pc version of grub2 which is the default.

Grub2 comes in package versions grub-pc or grub-efi as well as many other platforms. You want an efi bootloader for choice between the dual graphics on the MBP5x as noted in the MacBook5-2 wiki,
and alexmurray above.

[pxwpxw]

I also have a MacBook Pro 5,3 and want to boot Ubuntu from a SD card, I'm happy to read arjanvm got it working
Is there any chance someone with skills could put together a more simple step by step manual on how to accomplish it? This thread is huge and rather confusing to me. I have never used grubs or rEFIt so that is all new.
Thanks in advance

This is my FIRST POST btw

Yes, its time to update some simple grub.efi installation doc after 89 pages, I will try to do so.

Meanwhile see the MBP5-2 page link and other basics for installing via the help.ubuntu.com cummunity help Mactel portal page -

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MactelSuppor...unityHelpPages
Also see the stickies at the top of this apple sub forum.

Here is a starter for your usb card -

The Ubuntu install procedure will be standard except to the usb card, and with addition of a small partition for grub.efi, type hfsplus (Macos Extended but not jounalled)).

1. Install rEFIt in your Mac OSX, get it working.

2. A suitable grub.efi is at post 849 as mentioned in the MBP52 page.

You can get started with grub.efi by formatting the usb card using Mac OSX Disk Utility. It needs to be about 4GB minimum, 8GB better.

Partition Option = GUID.

2 Partitions both Macosx Extended (Not journalled)

P1 size 100MB for grub.efi and extras. (grub.efi plus grub.cfg needs only about 1MB)

Partition 2 = the remainder, to be deleted and used by Ubuntu partitioner, or temprarily by OSX.

Then in Mac OSX download and copy grub.efi and grub.cfg to the P1.
Create directory in P1 named 'efi', open it and create directory named 'grub'.

Move grub.efi and grub.cfg into the grub directory.
So you have on the usb P1
/efi/grub/grub.efi, grub.cfg

rEFIt will detect grub.efi on the usb (if it is in /efi/grub/ on the usb, or if it is in /efi/grub on the OSX partition with refit. You can then play with grub.efi and grub.cfg can be edited from OSX.

Then you have only to install Ubuntu in the Usb P2 space, install without grub bootloader because you will be using grub.efi and the installer would install grub-pc.

Finally restarting to Mac OSX you can edit the grub.cfg menu to boot Usb ubuntu, or you can bopt it manually from the grub.efi command line, but you will need to see some examples of menuentry for that, in the wiki pages. or in this thread.

[pxwpxw]

elilo.efi from ubuntu package elilo 3.8-1ubuntu1 is booting ubuntu910 on IMAC81, MBP41, and MBP5x, on kernel 2.6.30-8-generic. MBP5x using Gop need an efi boot to enable choice between dual graphics hardware.

elilo 3.8-1ubuntu1 supports Graphic Output Protocol. (Gop).

Current (20090724 grub-efi and SVN grub2 ) do no yet have Gop support for EFI, patched in binary at post #849. patch at grub-devel Bean July 12 2009 ------ under disciussion, not yet committed.

[PATCH] Support graphics output protocol in EFI
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gr.../msg00152.html

I am starting a thread for elilo on Apple.

[Nikos.Alexandris]

I think you have the grub-pc version of grub2 which is the default.

Grub2 comes in package versions grub-pc or grub-efi as well as many other platforms. You want an efi bootloader for choice between the dual graphics on the MBP5x as noted in the MacBook5-2 wiki,
and alexmurray above.

Thanks, now its more clear to me.

Yes, I have grub-pc (since I installed it following the steps described in Ubuntu-Wi.ki [1]. Reading Alex' steps, I understand that I just need to put the "grub64.efi binary from the grub2 grub-efi package" [2] and the (provided) latest grub64.efi under /efi in the OS-X partition [3].

I am going to test this probably today. Great work
---

[1] At https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/Grub2Testing see section How to Install grub2
[2] http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=772
[3] http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=849

[Nikos.Alexandris]

Thanks, now its more clear to me.
...
I am going to test this probably today. Great work

I can't get it working. I think the wiki isn't so clear. Maybe info needs to be put together in a similar fashion as in post http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=884.

1. download grub-efi64.tar.gz [1] and grub64.zip [2]

2. untar grub-efi64.tar.gz under /efi in any HFS+/EXT2/EXT3/FAT partition

3. (currently) replace grub64.efi which already exists in grub-efi64.tar.gz with the one downloaded from [2].

In post http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=884, pxwpxw writes Then you have only to install Ubuntu in the Usb P2 space, install without grub bootloader because you will be using grub.efi and the installer would install grub-pc..

Question: does the above mean that users (like me) who already work with grub2 (grub-pc) should remove it?

4. the page How to test GRUB 2 on Macbook [3] suggests to copy grub.efi and related files to /efi/grub/ and rEFIt will find it automatically and list it in the boot menu.

The above is the same as many posts in this thread recommend. But, there is some info that the efi folder has to be written with capitals, that is EFI [4][5][6]. As far as I understand from post 89, both should work, or not? I'll try changing to EFI via Finder under OS-X.

5. and then is the grub.cfg file which has to be adjusted properly I guess.
---

[1] http://ubuntuforums.org/attachment.p...6&d=1245744464
[2] http://ubuntuforums.org/attachment.p...9&d=1247378313
[3] http://grub.enbug.org/TestingOnMacbook
[4] http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...3&postcount=19
[5] http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...1&postcount=21
[6] http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...7&postcount=89

[pxwpxw]

I can't get it working. I think the wiki isn't so clear. Maybe info needs to be put together in a similar fashion as in post http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=884.
....

The MBP-2 wiki is not mine, you are free to fix it, it is just a brief mention of using grub.efi for a specific purpose, and any expansion should go to that wiki page, no point posting it here.

I will try to keep any grub.efi pages separate and not Mac model specific, as this thread is intended to be.

The http://grub.enbug.org/TestingOnMacbook is written by grub dev Bean and quite up to date and good reference, but not detailed or specific to MacBook, however it takes in most of the debugging by bean123 on this thread.

The case problem with EFI v/s efi was fixed, /efi/ is fine for hfsplus file system, also is converted by default to EFI on the Apple EFI partition (200MB fat32), I have not had a problem there lately with grub.efi.

You dont have to uninstall grub2-pc, there is no conflict with grub.efi when a prebuilt grub.efi such as
post #849 is manually installed in a hfsplus partition. It is indeed useful to have both available to boot via altenate methods, as I do.

However if you should try to install the ubuntu grub-efi package in Ubuntu, it will need to uninstall the grub-pc package because they conflict.

The procedure outlined in my post #884 should do to get started, except it was a quick answer to installing on an external drive, so for a HD install, you put grub.efi and grub.cfg in /efi/grub/ on your OSX partition with rEFIt in /efi/refit/.

You will have to do some editing to grub.cfg for your system, but any grub.cfg will let you get the grub.efi boot menu displayed and see how it works.

The grub.cfg language for grub2 is common to grub-pc and grub-efi (as is the grub-common package). However there are also specific different commands and kernel commandline options.
(fakebios, loadbios, fix_video and video=efifb, noefi refer to the Testing on Macbook page)

[Nikos.Alexandris]

Thank you for your time pxwpxw.

I'll try again later today to get this running. In case of success then I'll try to (carefully) update the wiki ( https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ma...5-1_5-2/Jaunty ).

All the best

[Nikos.Alexandris]

I must be doing something wrong. Something very simple... but don't know what!!

I have:

* under the (default) Mac OS Extented (Case sensitive, Journaled) partition a directory called /efi

* under /efi there are the directories refit , tools and grub

* under /efi/refit there is:
- (directories) efi, icons
- (files) enable-always.sh, enable.sh, refit.conf, refit.efi, refit.vollabel

* under /efi/grub there is:
- (only files) grub-dumpbios, grub.cfg, grub64.efi (the one from post #849), grub64.icns

This is the way I have both an icon for Linux and another one for OS-X when I turn on the machine. Nevertheless, I don't get an icon for grub-efi.

Anything that is related with file/directory permissions maybe?