Ubuntu – Installing ubuntu 14.04 on macbook pro 4,1

Well, I spent a second whole day on it and now I've cracked it.

I sincerely hope some other poor soul gets some value out of this.

Here's a recipe that works (at least, on my iMac with Ubuntu 14.04):

• Boot with bootable USB, install Ubuntu
• Partition your USB as follows:
  • 200MB EFI boot partition
  • 200MB ext2, mount to /boot
  • Swap space if you want it
  • One or more other partitions to hold Ubuntu proper (e. g. ext4 on /)
• Complete the install, reboot to OS X
• Get gdisk (pkg installer for OS X) and rEFInd binaries
• execute "diskutil list" from the console and note the device name, and the EFI partition (e. g. /dev/disk3, /dev/disk3s1)
• Follow the gdisk recipe at http://www.rodsbooks.com/ubuntu-efi/ under "Fixing the installation" point 6

• Install rEFInd on your USB's EFI partition. From the refind directory:

  ./refind-install -–usedefault /dev/disk3s1
  

  (you can drag the file into command prompt to get full path)

Then when you reboot, you can "EFI Boot" to rEFInd, and there should be an option to boot GRUB/linux.

I have documented this in more detail here: http://coljac.net/2014/stuff/installing-ubuntu-onto-a-bootable-usb-stick-or-other-device-on-a-mac/

The problem lies in the fact that your mac has a 32 bit efi boot loader and is unable to address 64 bit boot schemes. This means that any 64 bit os will have a 64bit boot loader and so your mac won't be able to see it.

There are two options that I have discovered for my mac pro 1.1. The first is to use unetbootin to put ubuntu on to a usb stick and then head over to plopboot and grab the bootloader iso and burn that to a cd. Place the cd in the drive and then reboot your mac. You will then be given the choice to boot from usb. Select this and then leave the live system to boot, and then install. Note that as of writing Ubuntu 15.10 has a bug, so unetbootin,usb-creator and similar do not successfully work to create the pendrive install. To overcome this, try using gnome-disk-utility and choose to restore an image to the pendrive. I haven't tried this myself (I'm about to now) but there are reports of it working.

The second option is to edit the cd image to change the boot loader files, which I have done with a windows 7 image but haven't yet tried with a ubuntu image. Instructions are here - http://www.jowie.com/select-cd-rom-boot-type.

A third idea springs to mind, which you may have described above - to install from the harddrive, via grub. You might need to install grub first using super grub cd or similar. There is a good article here Install Ubuntu from ISO image directly from hard disk of a system running Linux?

One thing that you will need to watch when ubuntu is installed, is system temperature. Install macfanctld and then edit the config file (/etc/macfanctl.conf) and increase the minimum fan speed to 1200. This consumes more energy but is a safe operating speed for all conditions. Enjoy!