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Problems installing linux onto secondary hard drive

V

VinnyVincent

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 14, 2016
32
2
Alright folks I give up, google is not helping.
All I can find are instructions that inform me that ubuntu needs something called REfind in order for the mac motherboard to boot off of that drive.
Whenever I try to install REfind in the teaminal, I get an error message saying that I have SID enabled and that I need to restart inside the command prompt and enter a code to get Unetboot to work.
The problem is I don't have a mac keyboard lol...

Surely there's a way around this? I'm not familiar with SID. Is there an easy way to disable this?
 
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I suppose you are talking about rEFInd and SIP. If yes,

1) From my memory, rEFInd is not required. As long as you have boot screen, you can select any boot volume, including Linux (even on a live CD). It can make your live easier, but not really necessary.

2) I don't think you need Mac keyboard to disable SIP. Just enter recovery partition and enter "csrutil disable" in terminal can turn SIP off.
 
h9826790 said:
I suppose you are talking about rEFInd and SIP. If yes,

1) From my memory, rEFInd is not required. As long as you have boot screen, you can select any boot volume, including Linux (even on a live CD). It can make your live easier, but not really necessary.

2) I don't think you need Mac keyboard to disable SIP. Just enter recovery partition and enter "csrutil disable" in terminal can turn SIP off.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll try it without rEFind when I get home today.
I think the bigger issue is that all the tururials I found for Mac only explain how to make a bootable USB drive, which I can't get to show up as a boot volume on the startup screen.(Pathans because it's formatted as MS DOS(FAT)?

How do I install Linux onto the second drive while I'm am booted in OS X in the primary drive? The program I used for the USB drive won't show the secondary drive as an option to install on. I'm thinking I may need a different program to install onto the second drive...
 
h9826790 said:
Try to make a bootable USB drive is probably the hardest thing you can do. Just burn a disk is much much easier on cMP.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. I'll pick up a DVD on the way home and burn the ISO to the DVD. I will report back later. Thanks!
 
Burn a Linux install DVD.
Restart computer.
While computer is starting up, hold down "C" to boot from the install DVD.
 
It's one thing after another...I'm having issues with the dvd burner now. Might be able to access a friends computer and download/burn on his.
In the meantime, is there any way to install it directly onto the blank hard drive in the bay?
 
You can "burn" a live copy of ubuntu to a USB. Then install from it if you desire. The installation will ask where to install.
 
Starting with a linux iso image that you've downloaded (let's say it's linux.iso): in a terminal window:

hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o linux.img linux.iso

gives you a linux.img.dmg. Insert your USB stick and find out which device it is:
diskutil list
let's say the USB stick is /dev/disk2. Repartition it and copy the img.dmg to it:

diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk2 1 "Free Space" "unused" "100%"
sudo dd if=linux.img.dmg of=/dev/disk2 bs=1m (you can try /dev/rdisk2 but that didn't work for me)
diskutil eject /dev/disk2

and the resulting USB stick should be bootable. I tried this with an opensuse leap 42.x image and a cMP and it worked fine.
 
Alright I made it to this part:

users-Mac-Pro:~ user$ cd ~/Desktop
users-Mac-Pro:Desktop user$ sudo dd if=linux.img.dmg of=/dev/disk4 bs=1m[
Click to expand...

and I'm not getting anything back. It's like it freezes for a while with no dialogue. At that point if I enter the eject command it will eject/will eventually eject on it's own if enter it all at once.

I tried restarting with the command button, but it didn't detect either USB(made two of them to be sure)
Something must have been burnt onto them, because when OS X boots, I'm getting a "disc not readable by this computer" message.
 
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It takes a while, since the iso image is probably 4+ Gb. On my rMBP it took maybe 10 minutes to do the dd? (I didn't time it). If you're using a USB 2.0 only stick it would take quite a while.
 
kschendel said:
It takes a while, since the iso image is probably 4+ Gb. On my rMBP it took maybe 10 minutes to do the dd? (I didn't time it). If you're using a USB 2.0 only stick it would take quite a while.
Click to expand...

So it just sat blank for roughly ten mins? It is a USB 2.0.

I must have messed something up by entering the eject command before it was finished. Since I burned them as a disk, is it not possible to erase and try again?
 
It's just a flash drive, you can try again as many times as you like. The particular USB stick I used has an LED that flashes when it's busy, so I watched the light blink for a long time. It was at least 10 minutes and might well have been longer.
 
Hey I just wanted to let you guys know that this worked(the usb command line) and I appreciate all the help everyone!
 
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