Macs and Linux
May. 18th, 2011 02:49 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mjg59Firstly: 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.
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.
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Re: Bummer
Date: 2011-05-22 02:53 pm (UTC)with 2.6.39 i can run imac12,2 27" in EFI physical-mode-patch, but not without. BIOS mode is mostly all right.
I tried (without the physical-mode-patch) booting with noexec=off, it hangs shortly after initrd is loaded (no noise from hard disk);
and tested your 5-patches set from
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/gi
but it gives the same result : black screen just after initrd is loaded.
Config is : updated 1.6 apple firmware, grub-efi-amd64, pristine efi firmware (no refit), gpt (no mbr).
I'm willing to help testing, if needed. Not desperately :)
Re: Bummer
Date: 2011-05-22 03:18 pm (UTC)Re: Bummer
Date: 2011-05-22 06:04 pm (UTC)"It" works ! You probably don't need that, still, let me say
YOU ROCK :)
i'm rebuilding the kernel with your patches only, just to make sure
i'm not wildly hallucinating.