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asherman13

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 31, 2005
914
0
SF Bay Area, CA
Although I see myself as a Mac purist, a friend of mine has Mac-envy yet "needs" to use Windows for gaming and enjoys Linux on the side. For him and those of you who are similar, how can we put Windows and/or Linux on an Intel Mac? I'm sure nearly everybody has either an opinion or technical input on this matter, so feel free to post your ideas here!

Could you partition the drive while running OSX and then boot from a Windows/Linux CD and install the OS's into the empty partition(s)?

EDIT ok ok, it's unofficial:p
 

generik

macrumors 601
Aug 5, 2005
4,116
1
Minitrue
It's still too early to tell, wait till someone actually get their paws on one of these first. For all we know it might be Pheonix BIOS :D
 

asherman13

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 31, 2005
914
0
SF Bay Area, CA
generik said:
It's still too early to tell, wait till someone actually get their paws on one of these first. For all we know it might be Pheonix BIOS :D

It's never too early to start sharing ideas, IMHO.
 

asherman13

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 31, 2005
914
0
SF Bay Area, CA
Engadget said:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/11/no-xp-on-intel-macs-but-vista-is-good-to-go/

If you've been counting on being able to run Windows on those new Intel-based Macs, Apple's not about to make it easy for you -- at least not if you're attached to Windows XP. According to Apple SVP Phil Schiller, the new Macs announced yesterday (those being the Intel iMac and MacBook Pro) may not be able to run current versions of Windows due to the fact that the computers will boot using the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI), rather than a traditional BIOS (current Power PC Macs use Open Firmware). EFI was developed by Intel and allows a number of advanced features, including the ability to connect to the Internet from a command shell before the OS is loaded. Since EFI was developed after the rollout of Windows XP, it's not supported by the current or earlier version of Windows (it is, however, supported by 64-bit versions, but the new Macs are 32-bit, so it's back to square one). However, all is not lost: Windows Vista will support EFI, and Apple has said it has no plans to directly block Windows from working on the new boxes. So, if you're a Vista beta tester and have ordered a new iMac or MacBookPro, get those install CDs out; the rest of you will have to wait for the official Vista release, or find a way to hack XP to boot using EFI (which we're sure is about to become a major priority of some of you at this very moment).

Not bad, eh?
 

balamw

Moderator emeritus
Aug 16, 2005
19,365
979
New England
After G said:
What exactly about EFI makes it yucky for BIOS-using OSes?
The lack of a Basic I/O System that allows them to load the rest of the bootloader/OS. :p

Supposedly EFI allows for Compatibility Support Modules (CSMs) that allow for BIOS compatibility, but these are not mandatory. Remains to be seen if the iBook has an XP compatible CSM or not.

B
 
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