Run Current on a MacBook

Joe Marcus Clarke marcus at marcuscom.com
Tue Dec 4 07:47:29 PST 2007


On Tue, 2007-12-04 at 09:01 +0100, Arne Schwabe wrote:
> Rui Paulo schrieb:
> > Joe Marcus Clarke wrote:
> >> On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 17:30 +0000, Rui Paulo wrote:
> >>> eculp wrote:
> >>>> I am a half step away from buying a MacBook based on the following
> >>>> assumptions:
> >>>>
> >>>>   1. I should run current and it has the SMP problem fixed.
> >>> The fix was not yet committed.
> >>>
> >>>>   2. It can be dual booted between OSX and FreeBSD?
> >>>>      a. The handbook only mentions that it can be run as a guest OS.
> >>> The handbook doesn't mention anything about running FreeBSD on a
> >>> MacBook. You probably want to read http://wiki.freebsd.org/AppleMacbook
> >>>
> >>>>      b. Is there a short list to run both OS's I've done this with
> >>>>         windows many times over the years but I have on idea where to
> >>>>         start with Mac.  Example: Clean the disk and start with FBSD
> >>>>         or somehow compress the MacOSX file system and use the rest
> >>>>         for BSD, etc. etc.
> >>> * Partition your drive witht Bootcamp
> >>> * Install rEFIt. http://refit.sf.net/
> >>> * Boot FreeBSD install CD and install it to the desired partition.
> >>> Don't install an MBR boot manager.
> >>> * Sync your MBR with the GPT by using the refit tool (available in
> >>> the refit boot menu).
> >>
> >> I've tried this procedure twice now, and the results are the same: even
> >> after selecting "None" for the boot manager, by GPT gets overridden with
> >> an MBR.  Almost everything works fine after that.  rEFIt allows me to
> >> boot into MacOS X or FreeBSD, but the gptsync tool does not work, and I
> >> couldn't upgrade to Leopard until I re-partitioned my drive (which I
> >> did, and ended up right back with an MBR after installing FreeBSD).
> >>
> >> If there's some trick to this I'm missing, I'd love to know before
> >> "Puma" comes out.
> >
> Puma is 10.1 ;)

I knew I should have thought harder about cat names.  Maybe Lynx?

> > Well, I think that if you restore your MBR to a PMBR* (a GPT MBR) you
> > lose the ability to boot FreeBSD beecause rEFIt seems to expect a
> > FreeBSD MBR, IIRC. But on the other hand, you probably need a PMBR
> > (i.e. have your disk with operating systems that can boot from GPT) to
> > upgrade Mac OS X.
> >
> > Yes, I know, it's horrible. :-(
> >
> I my case creating the "FreeBSD" parition with the disk utility and
> simply use that parition for FreeBSD worked fine for me.

I should have tried that.  Thanks for the tip.

Joe

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