Ubuntu’ed

This is the end, my only friend: me, the Mac die-hard, no longer uses Mac OS X. LOLWUT? Yeah, it’s true. After having closely followed the development on the open road for a while, I have seen that there are in fact superior applications out there. For free. I always had an eye on Ubuntu, I think it’s one of the best Linuxes around (what’s the plural of Linux? Linii? Linae? Linuxes?).

After having seen the programs listed on the page for Mac switchers, I came to the conclusion that it is time at last, to adopt Tux full-time. So I backed up all my data to another drive, and started installing Kubuntu, as I don’t really like GNOME which ships with Ubuntu. 8.10 Intrepid Ibex is the version I got obviously.

The default appearance of KDE 4’s Plasma, its new desktop engine

Install was smooth, no issues whatsoever. BUT: there is a problem when it comes to booting an Intel iMac which no longer has Mac OS X installed. You see the Mac Bootloader is ‘blessed’ during the install of Apple’s system, which means it is certified and readable by EFI – which is the equivalent to the BIOS in all Macintoshes. However, most of the time an Ubuntu is not installed on a Mac – and this proposes an interesting problem.

The machine will not boot when it doesn’t have a blessed bootloader on either the MBR of the drive, or on one of the partitions. That results in a big folder icon with a question mark, telling you it has nothing to work with. However if you boot with the Kubuntu CD, and choose ‘Boot from first hard drive’, it will work.

Obviously I don’t wanna boot with the CD all the time, so what’s there to do? Well I remembered this tool called ‘rEFIt’ for OS X, which lets you boot as many systems as you want on a Mac. So I checked if there is something like this available for Ubuntu, and of course, there is – in the Universe tree.

So what you have to do if you want to use a Mac without OS X and Ubuntu instead, is this:

1) Install Ubuntu or Kubuntu (or Edubuntu, or Xubuntu) – whatever you are fancy

2) Use the entire drive, wipe OS X

3) After the install, re-insert the CD and choose ‘boot from first hard drive’ in the boot menu

4) Log in, open a web browser, and go here:

rEFIt for Intrepid Ibex 8.10
http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/i386/refit/download – and choose a location near you.
This will download a .deb file at the location you choose.

5) Open a file browser, navigate to the .deb file, open it – the package installer will come up and you will have to enter your administrative password

6) Once installed, open a terminal and enter this command:

#> sudo /sbin/gptsync /dev/sda

It will also ask you for your administrative password. Also, it will tell you that the bootloader needs to be updated – CONFIRM THIS!! Your non-Apple bootloader is now in fact ‘blessed’ and will let the Mac ’see’ the install in EFI.

7) Reboot and remove the CD. The machine will boot normally at this stage

I write this down so that if anyone ever runs into this, here is the solution. Note that this is for the 32-bit version – there is no rEFIt tool for Ubuntu in 64-bit yet!!!

Now you can go ahead and install anything you like or want. Compiz for example and so on. Or proprietary drivers (helps for Compiz =D).

Kinda cool eh?

Related posts:

1. Adium message styles in Pidgin (Ubuntu Karmic) I always liked Adium on OS X a lot, it’s...
2. Hackbook Air Alright so I bought myself a new toy, a little...
3. Looking for a new music player? Try Exaile Songbird is pretty nice alright. It’s built on Mozilla’s code...
4. laststep Build 1A110 boots in under 20 seconds I am still working on the boot up routine which...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.