Booting Ubuntu from Intel Mac OSX Laptop

Asked by warp.factor.three@googlemail.com

I acquired a recent MAC OS-X Laptop from work. I am in charge of completely wiping data from PCs before they are either recycled or disposed of. Anyway, I ran a disk wipe utility on the HDD to completely remove all possible confidential information. However it seemed a shame to throw the machine away if it could be re-used. The keyboard is sticky, battery is dead but it still works off the power cord.

I installed Ubuntu 9.10 and it will boot off the live CD and can boot into the installed system provided I start off with the CD in the drive (well, usually!).

However, it does not boot into Ubuntu on its own. I believe this is something to do with the EFI bootloader but I thought this should be supported in Linux, since I can get my O2 joggler to boot off an SD card into Ubuntu.

My question is:
How do I get an old MAC OS-X system to boot correctly from scratch into Ubuntu. I do NOT have the original MAC-OS installed or have access to the install DVD. I do NOT intend to purchase proprietary software for this machine. I am happy to consider other Linux variants and don't mind restarting from scratch.

Thanks in advance.

Chris

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delance (olivier-delance) said :
#1

Use the Ubuntu CD, and choose "Try but not install".
Then open Gparted (upper bar, Administration->System->Gparted).
Gparted should display partitions of disks.
Remove all partitions and then remove partition table (today EFI).
Then create a DOS partition table (i.e. Windows Boot Sector).
And after install as a usual PC.
I never used Gparted on disk with EFI as boot sector, but it is supposed to work.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#2
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warp.factor.three@googlemail.com (warp-factor-three) said :
#3

Thanks a lot guys.
Unfortunately the MacBook still doesn't boot reliably. I'm beginning to think there is a hardware fault. It only booted once out of about 20 attempts and has started being difficult about ejecting CDs and DVDs. I'll try a few more times but think it has nearly died. Thanks again.

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AJenbo (ajenbo) said :
#4

Did you install rEFIt?

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warp.factor.three@googlemail.com (warp-factor-three) said :
#5

I don't think this problem is due to rEFIt. However I'll give it a go!. I am still thinking it is now in fact a hardware problem, but have not really had enough time to mess with it properly. It only rarely now boots from the CD and then only if I hammer on the keyboard.

Anyway, thanks all for the suggestions

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jfhd sdf (ery44432) said :
#6

Same for me at ubuntu 18.04.1, gdm3, GeForce MX150 (nvidia-motive force-390).
When I even have establishing Android Emulator, switching between workspaces causes to system crash and logout! Visit here for more detail here https://disposeitwell.com/

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