Macs and Linux

[mjg59]

Firstly: If you want to buy a computer to run Linux on, don't buy a Mac.
Secondly: If you have a Mac and want to run Linux on it, the easiest approach is going to be to run it under virtualisation. Virtualbox is free, and worth every bit of what you're paying.
Thirdly: If you're going to boot Linux on bare-metal Apple hardware, boot it via BIOS emulation.
Fourthly: If you're going to boot Linux on bare-metal Apple hardware via EFI, and it doesn't work, write a patch. Apple's firmware has a number of quirks that I'm aware of and we're working through them, but anyone filing bugs against Apple hardware on EFI right now is likely to be ignored for a significant period of time until there's an expectation that it'll actually work. Maybe in six months or so.

Comments

EFI on non-Apple PCs

[(Anonymous)]

A bit OT maybe: but I'm just curious if there are issues booting Linux on a non-Apple EFI-based PC. I mean, a number of manufacturers are already producing motherboard with EFI rather than BIOS firmware, e.g., Asus and MSI. Presumably, the reason is to allow booting the 3GB+ hard disk drives that are coming off the line.

Re: EFI on non-Apple PCs

[mjg59]

The "Calling boot services code from SetVirtualAddressMap()" issue is present on some non-Apple hardware, and we've certainly seen other quirks such as an inability to set graphics modes properly. But, for the most part, it's been easier to work out what's going wrong with them.