mac mini booting f8 off of flash drive

[Andrew Farris]

Benjamin Kosnik wrote:
> Hey folks. I'm trying to get an up-to-date fedora 8 x86 install working
> on a core2/1.8 mac mini. 
> 
> I've tried two approaches, each with different errors.
> 
> 1) custom live cd
> 
> ie, from
> 
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/LiveCDHowTo
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/USBHowTo
> 
> I made an updated f8 live image. (These tools are cool!!!) Then, I
> burnt the image to dvd, and tested that. It works on the mac mini and
> on all my non-mac hardware. (For the mac, you press alt (option on mac
> keyboard) to get boot devices, and select the "windows" cd.)

Wait a sec, if the live cd image is working why aren't you installing from that DVD?

> So, all clear. Next step: I transfer this iso image to usb key via the
> above link.
> 
> This works on the non-mac computers, but not on the mac. On the mac,
> it's not listed as a boot device when I restart with alt. 
> 
> Searching on the web, I ran across this (dated) article:
> 
> http://www.redhat.com/magazine/007may05/features/mac-mini/
> 
> it appears as if the flash disk has to be partitioned in a unique
> manner to work on x86 mac systems? Does anybody know what works?
> 
> I tried formatting this on the mac, set to GUID partition tables. Then,
> when I take this formatted usb key to the linux box and attempt to run
> the livecd-iso-to-disk script on it, it tells me that the partition is
> not marked bootable, and to use parted. So, i do, and it's marked
> bootable in parted.
> 
> But the livecd-iso-to-disk script doesn't seem to think the install
> partition is bootable when I re-try. What's up?

You could also try this: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/LukeMacken/WindowsLiveUSB

Or try setting the bootable flag with fdisk on your linux machine after you've 
created the fat32 partition with windows or osx.  This worked fine for me to get 
the live cd installed on the usb key using Luke's script above, but the macbook 
still refuses to boot from it (see below).

> 2) so, i take the alternate approach and then install f8 onto the usb
> key while running the f8 installer directly on the mac mini. This
> succeeds, and when I reboot the mac I get the new fedora insall on
> the usb key listed in the boot menu. Score! 
> 
> But, when I select this and boot, I get
> 
> "Missing Operating System" 
> 
> and a hang on an otherwise blank screen. Whoops. 

Yes, I get a similar problem on my macbook but also a message that says Apple 
EFI based systems firmware does not handle booting from legacy devices well 
(something about poor support for legacy boot devices).  I have not yet tried 
but it may be possible to do a combined GPT/MBR partitioning scheme on a usb 
flash drive to do this better.  It may then recognize the partition to install 
the live image on, but also make the mac firmware more happy to boot from it.

There is some info around for partitioning in both schemes and keeping them in 
sync using rEFIt, mostly around the ubuntu and gentoo forums, see [1].  Although 
my harddrive is setup this way I have no idea about whether GPT/MBR together 
will work on the usb key or if this will actually provide any benefit for the 
firmware's displeasure in booting from MBR partitioned usb key.

> I try to follow the directions in the redhat magazine article, but
> there is no way in anaconda to specify a 1MB "Apple Bootstrap" 
> partition in the installer. Is this still necessary? If so, how do I do
> this?

The Apple Bootstrap is for EFI (the intel) based mac firmware updates.  The 
bootstrap is not necessary to do the updates, but it makes the online (download 
it and install while the machine is running) updates much simpler from within 
osx.  As I understand it, you can do without this just fine if you're not even 
using osx.  You'll have to handle firmware updates another way (specifics of 
that I don't know).  If you want this in place then the best way to have it done 
correctly would be installing osx again if you've removed it.  Then you could 
use bootstrap to split your partition and give you the free space to mess with.

Still if the goal is installing, why did you go from the DVD to flash?

Some pages that have useful info about linux with intel macs which may help you 
sort this out.
[1] https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook
[2] http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Triple_Boot_via_BootCamp
[3] http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Apple_MacBook

There are more pages linked from those too.

-- 
Andrew Farris <lordmorgul at gmail.com> www.lordmorgul.net
  gpg 0xC99B1DF3 fingerprint CDEC 6FAD BA27 40DF 707E A2E0 F0F6 E622 C99B 1DF3
No one now has, and no one will ever again get, the big picture. - Daniel Geer
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