Dear Readers of this question
I'm a beginning learner in the wonderful of Linux. Its great, but I got to solve the problem by myserlf so please help me!
Setup:
Macbook Pro 8,1, rEFit, GRUB2,
Lion,
Ubuntu 04.12
Problem: My boot takes too long because I have to go through two bootloaders. rEFit >> GRUB >> then finally Ubuntu! Also, when I try to boot another OS from USB for test (elementary OS Luna), rEFit recoganize it, I select Penguin mark with USB, and GRUB loads and shows only Ubuntu, not OS. My guess is having two bootloader is somehow making computer confuse, Sooooo, do I really need two step bootloader?
One more thing related to booting process. At login screen, I can select desktop environment. I have Unify and Genome desktop both with Cairo dock. When I change desktop environment, it does not correctly load the setting. Its almost like all the themes got mixed up under the hood.
Here is how I end up with my dual-boot setting (which is my main question)
I set up dual-boot machine on MacbookPro 8,1 originally running Lion. I followed the instruction from online article and setup dual boot machine with Lion and Ubuntu 04.12.
The instruction I had made me install rEFit, then install Ubuntu which installed GRUB2 automcally. At very least I did not configure intentionally.
My boot process goes, turn the swith on, select OS from rEFit, then wait, press return at GRUB menu, then wait and enter password at login.
Idealy, I want to get rid of one. I want to keep GRUB for features and avaialble themes, but I know GRUB has issues with Macbookpro 8,1 so I guess I am keeping rEFit unless someone fixed those issues.
How exactly do I proceed?
Best Regard,
Best Answer
The answer is "it depends."
If your GRUB is an EFI version of GRUB, then in theory it can replace rEFIt. Doing so on a Mac is a bit tricky, though, and I don't have step-by-step instructions for doing the job.
Most Ubuntu installations on Macs install Ubuntu in BIOS mode, though, and therefore use a BIOS version of GRUB. In this configuration, both boot loaders are (more-or-less) necessary; rEFIt is unable to boot a Linux kernel directly without jumping through awkward hoops, and the BIOS version of GRUB can't boot OS X.
An alternative you might want to consider is replacing rEFIt, which is no longer being developed, with its fork rEFInd, which is. Unlike rEFIt, rEFInd can boot a Linux (3.3.0 or later) kernel directly, so by installing rEFInd, you can bypass GRUB. The procedure to do this would be:
install.sh
script./boot
partition, or on the root (/
) partition if you don't have a separate/boot
partition. See the rEFInd documentation for details on its drivers. (You'll just need to copy one file.)mkrlconf.sh
script that comes with rEFInd and run it withsudo
. This creates a configuration file that helps boot the kernel directly.refind.conf
file (on the ESP or the OS X/
partition, depending on how you installed rEFInd), uncomment thescanfor
line, and remove thehdbios
option from that line. Note that if you also boot Windows, though, this will remove Windows from the boot options, so you probably don't want to do this if you're triple-booting with Windows./boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu
) or use thedont_scan_files
ordont_scan_dirs
option inrefind.conf
to restrict scanning for GRUB.