Difficulty Level: Tricky
What You Need:
> A distribution (or "distro") of Linux. We used Linux Mint (free, www.linuxmint.com). (See "Pick a Distro, Pick a Mac," below.)
> An Intel Mac, preferably a desktop. We used an iMac. (See "Pick a Distro, Pick a Mac," below.)
> At least 32GB of free hard drive space.
> The rEFIt boot manager (free, refit.sourceforge.net)
> A blank DVD or CD
Are you getting tired of Mac OS X or just really miss that feeling of struggling with your computer? Windows isn’t your only alternative. Linux holds the key to unleashing your inner geek, and even though installing it was daunting in the past, the new versions are easier than ever to use on your Mac. We will take you through the install process step by step.
How cool is this spinning-Desktop effect? And you thought Leopard was the only OS with eye candy...
Disclaimer: Back up your data before starting. This is always a good idea before making big changes to your computer, but it is paramount when fiddling with the configuration of the hard drive. Also, even though current versions of Linux distributions are more stable than ever, they can still be a bit buggy. For example, restarting the computer is currently impossible--you have to shut down and then turn the computer on again.
Download the rEFIt DMG, open it, and double-click the rEFIt.mpkg file inside it to install. Unfortunately, in our tests, this often did not enable rEFIt completely. Open Terminal (in Applications/Utilities) and then type:
sudo /efi/rEFIt/enable.sh
Restart your Mac to make sure you have it installed properly. You should see a screen that says “rEFIt” before Mac OS X boots. (Don’t worry, you can uninstall this later if you decide you hate it.)
Linux needs a partition on your hard drive. In Leopard, creating one is incredibly easy. Open Boot Camp Assistant (in Applications/Utilities) and create a partition that you will boot Linux from. We suggest you use at least 20GB--by the time you install the Linux OS, hardware drivers, and extra applications, you’ll have used up around 10GB, and it’s always good to leave at least 10GB of free space. Boot Camp Assistant will assume this partition is for Windows, but that doesn’t matter--just ignore it.
Why, Tiger Mac, what big hard drives you have!
In Tiger, creating the partition is done slightly differently. Open Disk Utility (also in Applications/Utilities), choose the hard drive you want to partition, and then click Split. Choose the size you want your Linux partition to be, and then click Partition.
If you already dual-boot Windows and Mac OS X, never fear, solutions are here! Boot your Mac into Windows and insert your Linux install disc (see step 3). When it auto-runs, click the Install Linux Mint Inside Windows option, and follow those instructions. Then skip to step 9.
Download the ISO file of Linux Mint 7 from www.linuxmint.com. (There’s a direct-download link, but using BitTorrent is much faster.) Then, insert a blank CD and open Disk Utility. Finally, click Burn, and choose the ISO file you just downloaded in the file browser.
With your Linux Mint disc in the optical drive, reboot your Mac while holding down the C key, which forces it to boot from the CD. After everything loads (it takes a while), you will see the Desktop of Linux Mint. We encourage you to test this system out, because if it absolutely repulses you, you probably won’t want to install it. Of course, if you want the full experience (which will be much faster), you need to proceed to step 5.
You might have some problems with screen resolution, among other things, when booting from the CD. We will fix this after the complete install.
The menu in Linux Mint has a pseudo-Spotlight built in. Click the menu (bottom-left of your screen) and type gparted in the search bar. Click the only search result, Partition Editor. Now you need to delete the partition you just created in Mac OS X. This may seem unintuitive, but it’s the only way to make sure all the partitions are in the right format.
Gparted in action: Let the filesystem wars begin.
Leave the partition labeled EFI alone, but right-click and delete the partition labeled BOOTCAMP, which should show up as /dev/sda3, unless you have multiple hard drives in your Mac. Remember to click Apply after this is finished, because gparted waits for your approval before taking its software chainsaw to your hard drive.
Linux has a number of distributions. We chose Linux Mint because it’s relatively easy to configure and comes with things like Adobe Flash out of the box. Generally, for first-timers, if a Linux distro is a variant of Ubuntu, it should be fine.
To complete the steps outlined here, you need an Intel Mac. We went with a Core 2 Duo iMac, but we also put Linux Mint on a Mac mini (a little harder, since we had to use a different driver for the mini’s Nvidia graphics card) and a unibody MacBook Pro. Using a unibody ’Book requires a few more tweaks to make the no-button trackpad work--see MacBook Aluminum for details.
Surprise, surprise, that big chunk of continuous free space is where are partition used to be.
After gparted has finished erasing the partition, it’ll show a block of free space where the partition used to be. This is the signal that you can start the install by double-clicking the Install icon on the Desktop. Go through the dialogs until you get to the partitioner. You’ll see a fancy colored slider with a set of options for where to install Linux. Choose Largest Continuous Free Space. Essentially, this allows the Linux installer to format the free space into swap space (which increases the amount of virtual memory you have) and an EXT3-formatted Linux partition.
After you set your user information, you’ll see a screen that says, “Ready to install.” However, you’re most definitely not ready to install. There’s one last thing to do. Click the Advanced tab in the bottom-right of the window, and change the “Device for bootloader installation” drop-down menu to whatever partition you are going to have Linux on. Choose the same ID as the partition you erased with gparted in step 5--for most computers, that’s /dev/sda3.
It's funny how a drop-down menu can completely make or break an OS install. Poetic justice?
This is incredibly important, because the Linux bootloader, called Grub, is notorious for messing with the way Mac OS X boots. So when you tell the installer to install Grub to your Linux partition, you allow your Mac to select which partition to boot and then go through Grub to your Linux partition.
After you finish this step, click OK to accept the changes, and then click Install.
You can access the files on your OS X partition with the Linux file browser. Open the volume labeled Macintosh HD (or equivalent), and type in your password when it prompts you. If a folder is marked with an “x,” you have to right-click it, then “Open it as root” to gain access.
After the install is finished, you can’t click Restart. Instead, click Continue Testing, click the menu button, and then click Exit. From there, you can choose to shut the computer down. And then the fun/hell of configuration starts. The first thing you need to do when you start your computer is sync your partitions. Luckily, rEFIt makes this really easy. At the rEFIt screen, navigate to Start Partitioning Tool and press Enter. If your partitions are not in sync, it will prompt you to sync them, and if they are in sync, you don’t have to do anything.
We definitely have a soft spot for penguins.
You should probably boot into Mac OS X, just to check that order has been maintained in your absence. At this point, you have a few options for how to boot. If you feel like rEFIt is too obtrusive, and you have no wish to see it before Mac OS X starts as the default OS, you can delete the /efi folder (in Macintosh HD), which removes rEFIt. Then, go to System Preferences > Startup Disk, and make sure Mac OS X is selected.
Now, to boot into Linux, you have to hold the Option key at boot, and when the drives pop up, choose Windows. (Unfortunately, because Boot Camp decided to name the drive Windows back in step 2, there’s nothing you can do about the misnomer.)
Back in Linux Mint, the first thing you need to do is fix your seemingly broken drivers. To do this, open the menu, search for hardware drivers, and click the corresponding result. You should see a dialog about the proprietary drivers available for your system. Select all of them and activate each. This will boost graphics performance, enable Wi-Fi, and do a lot of other magical things that are so secret, we don’t even know about them. Then log out (Menu > Logout) and log back in.
In the open-source community, proprietary is a synonym for Eeeevilll.
To get a trippy rotating Desktop like the one shown at the top of this post, go to the Compiz Config Manager (Menu > Preferences > Compiz Config Manager) and activate the Cube plug-in.
Even though you’ve technically enabled Wi-Fi, it most likely won’t work without some coaxing. To enable it for good, you need to create a new network connection. Open Network Connections (Menu > search for network connections), then click the wireless tab, and click Add. Now you can either fill in your network information or put in random information and choose different networks later. Click Apply, and a Wi-Fi applet will pop up in the menubar. Now you can click it to pick different networks and connect to them manually.
It's OK to fake the new network connection info.
There you have it: a Mac running Linux. For optimal results, after your configuration, you should run mintUpdate (Menu > search for update) and then shut down and power up your computer again. If you have problems after this generic installation, chances are they are driver issues, and you can check the Ubuntu reference guide for Macs (help.ubuntu.com/community/Intel_iMac) for fixes. Happy geeking!
If you want Linux on your Mac but don’t want to dedicate an entire partition to it or go through the hassle of configuration, you can always install it in a virtual machine, or VM. VirtualBox, developed by Sun Microsystems, is generally the most reliable when it comes to virtualizing Linux desktops. Simply download the VirtualBox disk image at www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads, open the application, create a new VM, and follow the step-by-step instructions.
Linux inside a Mac OS X window! Whoa!
You don’t even have to burn the Linux .iso to a CD, because VirtualBox supports booting from the .iso file itself. The drawback to running an OS in a virtual machine, however, is that it will eat up your system resources and will generally run substantially slower than if it had its own partition.
