I have inherited a MacBook Pro 5.5 with MacOS X 10.6.8 installed. I
want to
use it as a dual-boot machine with MacOS and Linux, specifically
OpenSuSE
version 12.3. I installed rEFInd, and on reboot got the expected rEFInd
screen, with only the MacOS option. I then repartitioned the Hard Disk
(using the MacOS Disk Utility) with three additional partitions, one for
linux
/ one for linux /home and one for swap. I then installed linux from the
network, using the Opensuse 12.3 x86_64 bootable CD. The
installation
went OK, and when I got to the stage where you reboot into linux on
the
hard drive, the rEFInd screen appeared, with two OS icons, the MacOS
one,
and a generic penguin with a hard drive inset (not the Opensuse icon I
expected); selecting the penguin gave me the option to boot to the
hard
drive, and the linux configuration went as expected. Rebooting gave
the
same rEFInd screen, and I could boot into MacOS or linux by selecting
one
or other of the icons. But once I had removed the installation CD, while
I
could still boot into MacOS, selecting the penguin gave me a screen
with
“No bootable device—insert boot disk and press any key”. I can boot
into
linux if I reboot with the install disk in the drive—the machine boots
from
the disk, and offers a menu with “boot from hard drive” as an option,
and
selecting that option passes me on to GRUB. As far as I can see, the
/boot
folder under linux (which contains the vmlinuz files) is standard—it is
identical to the /boot folder on a single-boot desktop PC on which I
have
Opensuse 12.3 installed. refind-conf has the “scan_all-linux_kernels”
uncommented.
Ben Brewster
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Problem solved. I needed to run gptsync. But I couldn't do this with rEFInd, because (at least in the version I got with install.sh), there was no EFI shell that I could find--the Guide says it will show on the rEFInd screen if the shell is installed, and it didn't show in my installation. So I switched to rEFIt, which had an EFI shell, ran gptsync, and the dual boot now works.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
If you're dual-booting Linux and OS X without Windows, I recommend you install an EFI filesystem driver for whatever filesystem holds your kernel and run the mkrlconf.sh script that comes with rEFInd. This will enable you to boot Linux directly in EFI mode rather than in BIOS mode, which is almost certainly how you're doing it now. This in turn will enable you to remove the dangerous hybrid MBR that you created with gptsync. See the following pages for more information:
I have inherited a MacBook Pro 5.5 with MacOS X 10.6.8 installed. I
want to
use it as a dual-boot machine with MacOS and Linux, specifically
OpenSuSE
version 12.3. I installed rEFInd, and on reboot got the expected rEFInd
screen, with only the MacOS option. I then repartitioned the Hard Disk
(using the MacOS Disk Utility) with three additional partitions, one for
linux
/ one for linux /home and one for swap. I then installed linux from the
network, using the Opensuse 12.3 x86_64 bootable CD. The
installation
went OK, and when I got to the stage where you reboot into linux on
the
hard drive, the rEFInd screen appeared, with two OS icons, the MacOS
one,
and a generic penguin with a hard drive inset (not the Opensuse icon I
expected); selecting the penguin gave me the option to boot to the
hard
drive, and the linux configuration went as expected. Rebooting gave
the
same rEFInd screen, and I could boot into MacOS or linux by selecting
one
or other of the icons. But once I had removed the installation CD, while
I
could still boot into MacOS, selecting the penguin gave me a screen
with
“No bootable device—insert boot disk and press any key”. I can boot
into
linux if I reboot with the install disk in the drive—the machine boots
from
the disk, and offers a menu with “boot from hard drive” as an option,
and
selecting that option passes me on to GRUB. As far as I can see, the
/boot
folder under linux (which contains the vmlinuz files) is standard—it is
identical to the /boot folder on a single-boot desktop PC on which I
have
Opensuse 12.3 installed. refind-conf has the “scan_all-linux_kernels”
uncommented.
Ben Brewster
Problem solved. I needed to run gptsync. But I couldn't do this with rEFInd, because (at least in the version I got with install.sh), there was no EFI shell that I could find--the Guide says it will show on the rEFInd screen if the shell is installed, and it didn't show in my installation. So I switched to rEFIt, which had an EFI shell, ran gptsync, and the dual boot now works.
If you're dual-booting Linux and OS X without Windows, I recommend you install an EFI filesystem driver for whatever filesystem holds your kernel and run the
mkrlconf.shscript that comes with rEFInd. This will enable you to boot Linux directly in EFI mode rather than in BIOS mode, which is almost certainly how you're doing it now. This in turn will enable you to remove the dangerous hybrid MBR that you created withgptsync. See the following pages for more information:http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/linux.html
http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/drivers.html
http://www.rodsbooks.com/ubuntu-efi/index.html
http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html