OSX Ubuntu Dualboot
Dualbooting OSX and Ubuntu
This is tested on OSX 10.9 Maverick on an MacBook Pro Retina 11,1 (Late 2013) and Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander), all 64 bit.
- Make room for Ubuntu by shrinking OSX partition using Disk Utility.
- Download Ubuntu 13.10 amd64
+macfrom here (Note: the mac-image didn’t work, instead the normal amd64 image gave two menu-entries in refind - one for bios and one for efi mode). - Make a bootable usb drive.
- Download rEFInd.
- Install refind using
install.sh --alldrivers. - Restart twice to verify the rEFInd menu appears.
- Boot from the Ubuntu USB by holding “alt” during boot.
- Choose “Try Ubuntu” from the boot menu.
- Run
ubiquity -bfrom a terminal and install. DON’T restart yet. - Find the UUID of the root partition of the newly install Ubuntu with
sudo blkid /dev/sda*, or from /etc/fstab` in the new root partition.. -
Add a file
refind_linux.confto the boot partition of the new install and add this (replacing uuid and dev):"Boot with standard options" "root=/dev/sda3 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7" "Boot to single-user mode" "root=UUID=1cd95082-bce0-494c-a290-d2e642dd82b7 ro single" "Boot with minimal options" "root=UUID=1cd95082-bce0-494c-a290-d2e642dd82b7 ro"Alternatively try the
mkrlconf.shscript that comes with refind. - Now restart.
Note: The MacBook Pro 11,1 (and probably later ones), seems to now support dual bios uefi boot images, eliminating the need for the “amd64+mac” ubuntu image. This may very well mean I could drop rEFInd and just use GRUB2, but then I’d have to delete the existing EFI-partition, which I dare not do before I find a report from someone else successfully doing it.
Restoring rEFInd
The refind menu can disappear after an osx update. If this happens, just run:
sudo bless --setBoot --folder /efi/refind --file /efi/refind/refind_x64.efi
and it should reappear on next boot. (source)
Troubleshooting
After sucessfully installing and booting Ubuntu, I installed the latest updates and then trouble started:
- Booting only worked with minimal options(?) and took for ages.
- The built-in Broadcom wifi-card didn’t work, and I couldn’t install the proprietary drivers.
- I finally managed to install the wifi-drivers when using a d-link usb wifi card but it was terribly unstable.
-
The syslog was filled with lines like:
Feb 19 22:02:18 macwonko kernel: [ 96.937102] ata1.00: status: { DRDY } Feb 19 22:02:18 macwonko kernel: [ 96.937117] ata1.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED Feb 19 22:02:18 macwonko kernel: [ 96.937137] ata1.00: cmd 60/08:28:70:77:c3/00:00:0d:00:00/40 tag 5 ncq 4096 in Feb 19 22:02:18 macwonko kernel: [ 96.937137] res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
After googling a while, I found this article, which says to add libata.force=1:noncq (where 1 is the harddrive number??) to boot parameters (grub / refind). This fixed all of the above issues!
Still, the audio doesn’t work and the touchpad is terrible :(
Sources:
The best instructions I could find are on this blog (which, again is based on this blog). A lot of usefull info on ubuntu wiki.
Other sources:
