linux on MacPro 2008 won't boot text

[Ryan Letourneau]

Hello, I'm dual booting Mac OS X 10.9.5 and Fedora 20 Linux x86_64, with refind-0.8.7 on the Mac EFI partition. What I want to do, is boot and shutdown linux with verbose text, so I can see and troubleshoot any issues. However, I have not been able to get it working. I've tried many different config options in the refind.conf and refind_linux.conf. Right now, linux boots, but there is just a white screen, and a black screen when it shutsdown. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Ryan

[Roderick W. Smith]

Check your boot options. If rEFInd is fully installed, these will be in the /boot/refind_linux.conf file from Linux. If that file is not present, try running the mkrlconf.sh script that comes with rEFInd. (Run it in Linux.) If your boot options include the options quiet splash, delete those options -- or better yet for testing, select a boot option (via F2 or Insert) that lacks those options. (mkrlconf.sh should create an option line called "Boot with minimal options" that should omit those options.) This should enable verbose booting.

If that doesn't work, then you've got a video mode issue. This may be fixable, but if so, it will depend on your specific video hardware. You're more likely to get help about that on a Mac forum, and you'll need to specify your exact model (not just "Mac Mini" or "MacBook Pro," but the specific revision/date of the hardware). In some cases, passing a specific kernel option (via /boot/refind_linux.conf) -- or ensuring that certain options are not present -- will fix the problem.