[wplug] Dual boot w/OS X

[Justin Smith]

I gave up trying to get this setup to work with OpenSUSE. Unfortunately, 
none of the suggestions worked.

I did, however, manage to get it working with Ubuntu quite easily. I 
downloaded the Mac-specific AMD64 build of Ubuntu 14.04 Beta 2, chose 
"Install OS X and Ubuntu side by side" in the installation wizard, and that 
was that. Ubuntu took care of the rest.

Well, almost all of the rest. The kernel threw a fit the first time I booted into 
Ubuntu because of a Broadcom wireless driver that was missing. To solve 
that, I blacklisted the b43 module in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, rebooted, 
and installed the packages "b43-fwcutter" and "firmware-b43-installer." 

Those two packages installed the appropriate wireless driver for my Mac 
Mini. I then removed the B43 blacklist entry, rebooted, and everything 
worked perfectly.

So this, essentially, is an abbreviated version of what I did:

1) Booted into OS X and resized the HFS+ partition using Disk Utility to 
make room for Linux
2) While still in OS X, downloaded the rEFInd boot manager and installed it 
using the provided script: ./install.sh --alldrivers
3) Rebooted into Ubuntu 14.04 Live CD, launched installer, and chose 
"Install side by side with OS X."
4) While still in the live CD, mounted the newly-created root partition and 
blacklisted B43 kernel module.
5) Rebooted into Ubuntu, installed B43 packages, and removed B43 
blacklist entry
6) Rebooted

This experience tells me that it probably makes sense to use something 
with a lot of community support when your individual resources are limited. 
Although I prefer using OpenSUSE, the support just isn't there. I'll probably 
end up pitching Ubuntu as my alternative to OS X.

-- 
*Justin Smith*
GNU/Linux System Administrator

/"Any fool can use a computer. Many do."/


> Does anyone have experience dual booting Linux and OS X? I've been 
trying
> to set up OpenSUSE on a couple of ~2009-2010 Mac Minis by using the
> rEFInd[1] boot manager, but I'm having a devil of a time getting it to 
work.
> I guess I just don't understand how you're supposed to partition Linux
> after you install rEFInd from OS X using the supplied install.sh script.
> 
> If I remember correctly, the OpenSUSE installer recommends a fairly
> standard setup of non-LVM EXT4 partitions. I went with that, but it 
wouldn't
> boot; the bootloader said it couldn't find the hard disk and hung. I also
> noticed that rEFInd mistook my OpenSUSE root partition for FAT even 
though
> it was EXT4 (and I had installed all filesystem drivers, including ext4,
> via install.sh --alldrivers).
> 
> As an alternative, you can have the OpenSUSE installer recommend an 
LVM
> setup. That's what I tried next. Well, this configuration overwrote rEFInd
> with GRUB2-EFI, which is /not/ what I wanted. OS X was listed in the GRUB
> boot menu, but it threw a kernel panic when I tried to select it.
> 
> I /was/ able to get dual-booting to work correctly by re-installing rEFInd
> from Linux, but I don't understand /why/ that worked. I'd like to be able to
> set up dual booting without clobbering rEFInd and then re-installing it.