Re: Progress report on CodeFestAkihabara, macbook Debian installation experience
Hi,
I've just followed the instructions on the http://wiki.debian.org/MacBook wiki
to install Debian etch RC1 (i386) on my new core 2 macbook. I also tried
installing etch RC1 (amd64), but I failed because the refit package isn't built
for amd64:
admin/refit_0.7-3: Failed by buildd_ia64-caballero [optional:uncompiled]
Reasons for failing:
[Category: none]
not ours
Previous state was Building until 2006 Jul 13 17:45:14
(from http://people.debian.org/~igloo/package-status.php?package=refit).
Is someone already working on this, or should I poke at it and try to build it
on an amd64 machine?
Thanks,
Johannes
> Hi,
>
> >
> > Worst case: You have to abuse the firmware update released to facilitate
> > Boot camp, and have that boot normal lilo.
> > Perhaps not as nice as having EFI boot a bootload, or running a bootloader
> > as an EFI application, but
> > I think that is what most people are currently doing.
>
> I've tried actual installation and have a functional setup.
>
> Here is the current situation:
>
> 0. you can reduce the MacOSX partition size using Mac OSX "diskutil"
> command.
>
> $ sudo diskutil resizevolume disk0s2 20G
>
> 1. you can mostly install your system using debian-installer. cdrom
> boot is possible by holding down "C" key.
>
> 2. Installing the bootloader in d-i will fail. Current choice is
> elilo, grub and lilo, out of which they all fail after you have
> modified GPT partition, since it'll go out of sync with MBR.
>
> We probably need a phase to sync GPT->MBR here in d-i.
>
> Current work around is to reboot into rEFIt and run gptsync, and
> then run d-i from CDROM, and then configure the bootloader.
>
> 3. gptsync(rEFIt) seems to create paritions that look like FAT (I
> don't know why this has to be the case), and will only create up to
> 4 paritions due to obvious constraints. (you can check with fdisk
> -l)
>
>
> for /proc/partitions:
> major minor #blocks name
>
> 8 0 78150744 sda
> 8 1 204800 sda1
> 8 2 20971520 sda2
> 8 3 976563 sda3
> 8 4 19531250 sda4
> 8 5 2929688 sda5
>
> # fdisk -l (MBR) will see:
> Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>
> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/sda1 1 26 204819+ ee EFI GPT
> /dev/sda2 26 2637 20971520 af Unknown
> /dev/sda3 * 2637 2758 976563 ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
> /dev/sda4 2758 5190 19531250+ ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
>
>
> 4. However hard I tried I have not yet gotten elilo to work. It
> doesn't seem to be able to load the kernel; it seems to stop after
> starting to try loading the kernel.
>
> 5. grub doesn't seem to want to work. It probably is due to the fact
> that the MBR partition table claims partition type is all FAT, and
> grub is confused about it.
>
> 6. installing lilo to partition will work. Installing lilo to MBR is
> most probably not going to work.
>
> 7. If you have rEFIt, you can boot from USB devices etc. If you chose
> that way things are really simple since you can use FAT
> partitioning, which our existing tools (grub/lilo) function
> properly with.
>
> 8. to get rEFIt to work, you will need to locate the files and "bless"
> it with "bless" command in MacOSX. The command doesn't seem to
> affect the nvram parameters, so it's most probably changing
> something in the hfsplus filesystem.
>
> 9. The current working bootloading procedure is:
> rEFIt -> lilo -> linux kernel
> rEFIt -> MacOSX
>
> 10. It is possible to use rEFIt on CDROM, which is useful for rescue
> booting.
>
>
>
> I'm feeling quite stuck since it is impossible to install Debian
> without either an external storage or a MacOSX installation.
>
>
> regards,
> junichi
> --
> dancer@{debian.org,netfort.gr.jp} Debian Project
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