F11 + mactel = ~\_fail_/~

[Jeremy Katz]

On Saturday, June 13 2009, Luke Macken said:
> So I've had no luck getting F11 installed on my intel iMac.
> I've tried a few things.

Which machine model?  Sadly, each one has its own firmware quirks :/
 
>     o livecd-iso-to-disk.sh --mactel
>         Doesn't even appear in the boot menu as an EFI bootable device.

You're holding down alt while booting and not seeing it?  Is it the
32bit or the 64bit livecd?

>     o dd'ing the efidisk.img to my USB key
>         Showed up as an EFI device in the boot menu.
>         GRUB appears, but never disappears when I click on a kernel.

Sounds like either firmware or kernel bug.  Which video chip is in the
machine in question?
 
>     o boot.iso on CD
>         i386 disk drops me to a black screen with a blinking cursor.
>         x86_64 disk drops me to GRUB, but that's as far as it'll go
>         (same symptom as the efidisk + USB).

If you're on a box with 64bit EFI, you have to use a 64bit distro to
boot via EFI at present.  The x86_64 boot mode probably falls into the
same case as the above. 

You'll end up getting EFI booting with boot.iso, but not with disc1 or the
DVD.  Unfortunately, as Debarshi points out, the new partitioning code
in anaconda lost the support needed for intel Macs in non-EFI mode --
the workarounds in the bug mentioned look right to do by hand.

Jeremy