Comments on: Ubuntu on a Macbook Pro

By: blip

blip — Sun, 22 May 2011 02:36:37 +0000

I have successfully booted a Mac from USB using the PLoP boot manager on a CD.

By: fak3r

fak3r — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 19:11:42 +0000

I’m wondering if this is still an issue, I want to create a 30G OSX partition, a 30G Linux partition and then have the rest be FAT32 so they can both read/write to it. I plan on having my Dropbox on there, and all of my Music files, so I’m wondering if iTunes is still going to have issues with that? Googling is only pointing to ways to use iTunes between OSX/Windows successfully, but that’s not my issue. Thanks.

By: Chester

Chester — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 05:35:05 +0000

Oops.. forgot to include this little tidbit. If you’re not uncomfortable with trying out Fedora, you can boot Fedora from a USB on Macs. The Fedora DVD releases include an EFI boot USB image that can be dd’d onto a usb.

In addition, you will not have to burn a DVD, after you boot into the USB stick, you’ll be able to install either through NFS or http.. On your machine with the ISO, just mount the ISO and point the installer to the NFS export etc.

By: Chester

Chester — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 05:31:52 +0000

This may be too late, but i THINK Mac OS can read from JFS partitions, so you may want to use that instead of FAT32 for your itunes folder.. I think i remember my sister’s macbook running on JFS volumes.

By: ubuntucat

ubuntucat — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:57:40 +0000

Your guess is wrong, unfortunately:
http://refit.sourceforge.net/help/usb_disk.html

By: HandyMac

HandyMac — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 14:27:34 +0000

“since Macs can’t boot from USB”

Intel Macs (and a few earlier PowerPC Macs also I believe) can boot from USB, at least to the Mac OS (assuming it’s a version that will run that model). I don’t know if a Mac will boot from a Linux OS via USB, but I would guess it ought to.

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 03:35:47 +0000

You can keep OS X on an external hard drive and install the firmware updates via USB/Firewire.

By: ubuntucat

ubuntucat — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 23:11:36 +0000

The Ubuntu wiki highly advises against a single-boot. Apparently there are some firmware updates that can come only through OS X?

By: Guitar John

Guitar John — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:54:54 +0000

I will be interested to see how this works out for you, long term. I have been looking into buying a used MBP, although I would probably do a clean install rather than dual-boot.

By: ubuntucat

ubuntucat — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:04:31 +0000

No, no random hangs. It may depend on what model Macbook Pro you have maybe?