[Mactel-linux-users] How to boot Linux from USB

[Stefan M. <mo...@ir...>]

I'm trying to get my GNU/Linux rescue key (basically a USB key with
a Debian install on it) to work on my Macbook Pro, but am
encountering problems.

Apparently my Macbook Pro is not able to access USB drives when booted
using the "legacy BIOS" boot mode (aka "bootcamp").  So I need to use an
EFI boot loader.

I have added an HFS+ partition to my USB key, and have added Debian's
elilo.efi loader into it.  By blessing the corresponding folder, I can
get that entry to appear in the Mac's boot menu, but selecting it
"doesn't work" (the screen stays blank while the key appears to be
accessed for a few seconds and then the boot falls back to booting the
main OS X from the hard drive).  Apparently, there's some kind of error,
but I don't get any report about it.

I then tried to boot via rEFIt+elilo, but rEFIt gives me the error:

   Starting elilo.efi
   Error: Unsupported while loading elilo.efi

Does anybody have some idea of what I need to do to get the damn thing
to boot?  I know the machine can boot straight from USB since it has
booted a Mac OS X distribution this way without any difficulty.


        Stefan