[Solved] Installing on Macbook (early 2011)

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avx · Post by **avx** » Mon May 02, 2011 4:24 pm

After some weeks only having Gentoo in a VM on my Macbook, I'm finally tired and want a real install aside OS X.

But here the problem starts, since I couldn't get any Live-Linux to boot, yet.

The current setup looks like this:
- MBP13/e2011
- SSD on SATA-port 1, other hdd on -2, no "SuperDrive"
- install/Live-Environment shall go via booting from a usbstick
- disk on port 1 is splitted 40/20G (OS X/to be Gentoo)
- installed refit on disk1

a) Tried creating a stick with Ubuntu as per their homepage -> strangely doesn't even show up in refit?!

b) created a stick with Fedora 14 (x64, live) with Fedora's "Live USB creator". refit sees two ways of booting this thingy, via efi or normal. Selecting normal gives seems to boot, but gives a "non-system disk\n any key to reboot" error before even showing some output related to the linux kernel(pressing a key does not reboot, btw). Using 'efi' boots up two Fedora's GRUB-menu, but no matter the options I pass (found 'noapic irqpoll acpi=force' on the web), the light in the stick shortly flickers, then turns off and nothing happens, system freezes.

So, already tried this a month ago, than still via CD, so I guess it's not related to the stick or booting from USB.

Now I'm somewhat frustrated, since I couldn't find an up2date guide and I'd like to request some help, thanks.

PS: also removed 'rhgb quiet' from the cmdline, but no output is visible, thus I don't know how to debug any further.

Edit, just for fun, I tried with the stick I use to unlock my desktop(ie kernel+syslinux), but again I just get the "non-system disk"-error.

JROCK2004 · Post by **JROCK2004** » Wed May 04, 2011 7:57 pm

In the boot parameter you have to probably add maxcpus=1 When installing Gentoo I had to do this for the boot parameter

Code: Select all

gentoo maxcpus=1 vga=791

keet · Post by **keet** » Thu May 05, 2011 4:23 pm

I've been considering buying a Mac. For one thing, they are what my wife learned to use, and for another, I'm curious about operating systems; to me, they're somewhat like a buffet. I'll try Gnome one week, KDE another, Openbox, Awesome, et cetera. I've had Windows, Linux, and Unix, but I've never had a Mac, so they pique my curiosity. Can you tell me, one Gentoo user to another, the advantages and disadvantages of Mac computers and OSX?

avx · Post by **avx** » Thu May 05, 2011 6:49 pm

For now, I've got it to boot, currently I'm in the live-environment and preparing the stuff.

Can you tell me, one Gentoo user to another, the advantages and disadvantages of Mac computers and OSX?

Well, my personal opinion:

like:
- just works(tm). I can pass the notebook to my wife and she finds most of the stuff to be self-explaining or at least easier than on linux/windows - she mostly has to work with her Fedora-box, though, since I don't want to spend plenty of time keeping her box in shape

- brilliant software for everything media, imho espacially for videoediting. iMovie is easy and just works, while FC f.e. is the powerhouse for the advanced. I could never ever get a stable video-cutting software on linux :/

dislike:
- I can't stand that the interface is so much dependant on the mouse. I've got huge wrist-problems, so something like a tiling windowmanager would be nice, but the solutions that exist (breeze, divvy, ...) just don't compare to something like awesome/dwm/xmonad/etc. since most of my work is based in terminals and editors, easy arranging is a must for me.

- no real packagemanagement. It's complicated to keep all the stuff I need for programming up2date, say python/ruby and a few libs, etc. Yes, there are homebrew/fink/Gentoo-Prefix, but they all lack substance in regard to supported packages, so that I need to compile by hand, use CPAN, etc. That gets messy over the time.

I don't give a vote related to "everything bad", i.e. locationgate, walled garden, etc since I'm personally not really affected by that.

Generally, I like Linux/Gentoo far better, but for certain tasks, linux-apps just don't cut it(yet). And since OS X in a VM is not worth the trouble getting it to work properly and Linux in a VM hinders me in certain task, dual-boot is all I can go for now

I don't regret buying the macbook, since Mac is the only hardware OS X runs reliably on - hackintosh is too much trouble - and I got the AOC discount, there's not been really anything in the market which could compare with performance/build quality/runtime.

avx · Post by **avx** » Fri May 06, 2011 1:19 am

Finally, got it up and running. Some minor annoyances are still there, but they aren't related to being installed on a Mac, so I'll close this as solved.

One thing though, passing 'reboot=pci' on the kernel cmd-line is vital, without it the system doesn't properly restart - thanks to the ArchWiki for this info.

Audiossis · Post by **Audiossis** » Tue May 24, 2011 12:22 pm

May I ask you kindly to post your EXACT method for installing Gentoo on your MacBook?

I am a Gentoo veteran but I'm new to this whole EFI thingy and I just cant get it to boot! I've tried several installer iso's from Gentoo, Sabayon, Ubuntu etc but none will boot past the initramfs. They all loose sight of the superdrive and thus fail to mount the squashfs image.

I've also tried to make a bootable USB key with Gentoo and elilo but it just stalls after loading the initramfs and does nothing.

I'm tearing my hair out here. I was given this Macbook for work, but I HATE Mac OS! It's every bit as restrictive as Windows.

Please help me get back my beloved Gentoo!

Macbook 8,2 (2011)
4GB Ram
Intel i7

avx · Post by **avx** » Tue May 24, 2011 2:15 pm

Sure, but give me a few hours till I get home and fetch something to eat first, please

Edit, well, quickly hacked it together. Worked for me(tm). Yeah, it's not nicely formatted, maybe sometime, but you should get it anyway

http://phorcix.org/proj/g_mbp8/gentoo_mbp8.txt

Audiossis · Post by **Audiossis** » Tue May 24, 2011 9:19 pm

Thanks for the effort avx, but I can't use the link you posted. It appears that my DNS server doesn't recognize that address. I can't even ping http://phorcix.org.

Would you mind using http://pastebin.com/?

avx · Post by **avx** » Tue May 24, 2011 9:50 pm

Strange, works here and I couldn't find a downtime in the logs... Anyway, http://pastebin.com/gzpX9kjL

Audiossis · Post by **Audiossis** » Tue May 24, 2011 11:08 pm

Thanks mate, that got it!

I'll work my way through it later on today and I'll let you know how it goes. Interesting that you were able to install from the LiveDVD. I've tried various minimal iso images and they all fail to boot.

I take it that you didn't need the mactel kernel patches? you didn't need to do anything special in your make.conf file?

Your method looks so simple I feel kind of foolish for not finding it myself....

avx · Post by **avx** » Tue May 24, 2011 11:51 pm

I also had trouble booting LiveMedia, but after some google-fu and common sense, I tried the given kernel-options and they worked.

Besides, I didn't use anything special, standard gentoo-sources-2.6.38, now .39. I don't have every built-in hardware working just yet, but that's because I didn't need it, yet. Keyboard/Touchpad, graphics, sound, sdcard reader and wired network are working fine, as is suspend2ram and cpufreq. Most special keys work fine either by using pommed or directly echoing values to /sys/foo.

If you want, I can try to 'pimp' the guide and try getting the other stuff to work, but that would be a task for tomorrow, since it's already quite late here.

If you should encounter some problems of your own, I'd suggest opening a new thread and (if needed/wanted) give me a link to it

Audiossis · Post by **Audiossis** » Wed May 25, 2011 12:03 am

Thank you for the offer but please don't put yourself out. I'm just grateful of the fact that you are willing to share your experience.

Your Google-fu is stronger than mine.

I sifted through about 20 pages of crap from 2006 and earlier that just didn't work for me.

Audiossis · Post by **Audiossis** » Wed May 25, 2011 11:55 am

Thanks for all your effort avx, but sadly your method didn't work for me. It appears that Apple has changed something fundamental in the hardware in the few months between your Macbook Pro and mine. I just keep getting the same error, "Can't find CD root".

Luckily I've managed to find another way. Although I've tried (and failed) to make a bootable USB installer that works on the Mac, I've found that if I copied the contents of the DVD to a USB stick and plugged it in while the computer was switched off, I could boot the kernel from the DVD and simply point it to the USB key to find the squashfs file system.

I did use the kernel options you mentioned though. I don't know what effect they've had but they work.

At least now I have a terminal!

Even the ethernet adapter works!

avx · Post by **avx** » Wed May 25, 2011 12:57 pm

Audiossis wrote:It appears that Apple has changed something fundamental in the hardware in the few months between your Macbook Pro and mine.

What do you mean by that? Both we're released the same day.

Anyway, good luck

Audiossis · Post by **Audiossis** » Mon May 30, 2011 1:26 pm

What do you mean by that? Both we're released the same day.

It's the only explanation I can come up with that could explain why your method worked for you and not me. My Macbook is literally only three weeks old, though I don't know how long it sat in the warehouse prior to sale. You said yours was "early 2011", which I took to mean January/February or maybe early March. Given my experience in the electronics industry, I can tell you confidently that manufacturers can make design changes very quickly after a new model launch. It often happens when they find a bug in the design, or discover that they haven't ordered enough parts and can't build enough devices to meet demand.

Anyway. I've managed to install Gentoo (actually Sabayon) by tricking the Macbook and using both the internal DVD drive, an external USB unit and two copies of the Sabayon 5.5 Live DVD. The machine booted and loaded the kernel from the internal drive and then mounted the squashfs file system from the external drive. I first tested this method with two Gentoo stage3 CDs and it worked just the same.

Thanks for your suggestions anyway. I do appreciate the effort.

avx · Post by **avx** » Mon May 30, 2011 2:57 pm

"Early 2011" is more or less Apple's official term for the Macbook Pros released at the end of february, ie the first ones with Thunderbolt - I bought mine at march 25th.

Audiossis · Post by **Audiossis** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 3:04 am

Ok, so that means that there is something else preventing my internal super drive from being detected.

I don't know why but, even with the noapic, nolapic and acpi=force kernel options, I still get the following output in dmesg:

ata4.00: ATAPI: MATSHITADVD-R UJ-898, HE13, max UDMA/100

---SNIP---

ata4.00: TEST_UNIT_READY failed _err_mask=0x4)
ata4.00: disabled
ata4.00: hardresetting link

---SNIP---

ata4.00: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 310)

However loading sr_mod doesn't create the /dev/sr0 device node for a CD/DVD unit.
I'm struggling to understand why. the modules ata_piix and ahci are loaded from the initramfs and clearly the kernel can see the super drive as indicated by the dmesg output. I would also read this as meaning that the drive is available for use, but, no device node.......

What kernel are you using?
Would you mind posting your .config in pastebin?

avx · Post by **avx** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 1:11 pm

I'm using 2.6.39-gentoo. Sure, I could post my .config, but it won't really help you, since there's no cd/dvd stuff in there. I replaced the dvd-drive with a 2nd hdd and only used it while installing from the LiveDVD.

avx · Post by **avx** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 8:49 pm

From what I found on Google, that behaviour may be related to Apple's rather aggressive powersaving, turning off the power to the optical drive if it isn't used. Try putting in a medium, watch dmesg and maybe issue `udevadm trigger`.

pzasso · Post by **pzasso** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 5:41 pm

I just picked up a new Macbook Pro (Late 2011) and no matter what I try, I can't get it to recognize the cdrom. I can get the Gentoo DVD to boot and I pass the commands you reference in this thread, but it bombs out with the following messages.

Looking for the cdrom
Attempting to mount media:=/dev/sda1
Attempting to mount media:=/dev/sda2

This continues through /dev/sda4 and then the following

!!Media not found
!!Could not find CD to boot, something else is needed!
>>Determining root device...
!!Could not find the root block device in .

Plese specify another value or : press Enter for the same, type "shell" for a shell, or "q" to skip...
root block device () ::

I am using the latest AMD64 minimal image to boot from. I have also tried to boot from the latest System Rescue and Arch Linux cds with similar results.

Assuming that this hardware is just not supported yet due to it being brand new, is there any other way I can get this thing booted? I tried attaching a USB cdrom, but that just hangs early on in the boot process.

Thanks for the help in advance.

--Paul

pzasso · Post by **pzasso** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 8:49 pm

Followed this guide and I am in business.

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/liveusb.xml

Arthanis · Post by **Arthanis** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 6:34 am

pzasso wrote:I just picked up a new Macbook Pro (Late 2011) and no matter what I try, I can't get it to recognize the cdrom. I can get the Gentoo DVD to boot and I pass the commands you reference in this thread, but it bombs out with the following messages.

Looking for the cdrom
Attempting to mount media:=/dev/sda1
Attempting to mount media:=/dev/sda2

This continues through /dev/sda4 and then the following

!!Media not found
!!Could not find CD to boot, something else is needed!
>>Determining root device...
!!Could not find the root block device in .

Plese specify another value or : press Enter for the same, type "shell" for a shell, or "q" to skip...
root block device () ::

I am using the latest AMD64 minimal image to boot from. I have also tried to boot from the latest System Rescue and Arch Linux cds with similar results.

Assuming that this hardware is just not supported yet due to it being brand new, is there any other way I can get this thing booted? I tried attaching a USB cdrom, but that just hangs early on in the boot process.

Thanks for the help in advance.

--Paul

I had a similar problem with mine. Try to put in grub the folowing option: all-generic-ide=1

During install gentoo will recognize all your discis as ide (/dev/hdx) but then you can compile your new kernel and fix it =]

pzasso · Post by **pzasso** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 8:11 am

I tried your suggestion, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

Here is what I can tell you about the controller and the drive.

00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation Cougar Point 4 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 05)

I had to boot OSX to get the actual drive info:

Matshita DVD-R UJ-8A8

Firmware revision HB14

I can't seem to find any info on this drive when searching around.

Thanks again for your help.

--Paul

alien · Post by **alien** » Wed Dec 28, 2011 8:56 am

Using a cd and an usb stick simultaneously was the solution in my case. After initial booting from the cd gentoo finds the image on the usb stick and completes the booting process properly. Tested with the install-amd64-minimal-20111208.iso. For the usb stick creation dd the image to the usb stick.

ryker · Post by **ryker** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 8:15 pm

I thought I would post in this thread since it's the same model as the original post but I'm using the new 2012 install media that just came out.
I just downloaded the shiny new livedvd-amd64-multilib-2012.iso and trying to get the live dvd to run on my macbook pro (early 2011). As suggested in this thread, I selected the 'nofb' option in the boot menu, hit tab and added the following boot options 'noapic nolapic acpi=force reboot=pci irqpoll' and hit enter. It gets through most of the boot process but hangs when launching X11. I hit F1 to go to a terminal and I ran /etc/init.d/xdm stop and /etc/init.d/xdm start, and eventually a KDM login popped up and I was able to hit enter to launch KDE. It took a very long time to finish launching KDE and when it was finished, my trackpad didn't work, so I had no mouse.
Anyone know if there's some other boot options I can pass to get it to detect my hardware properly so I get a usable desktop with a working mouse? It didn't detect the wireless card either, but I figured I would worry about that later.