well... if you read my previous email again (which is still quoted) i
did say i agreed with you. putting too much emphasis on boot camp
threw you off. and i probably should clarify that it takes too much
effort to boot linux on mac hardware with a return that doesn't give
added value, even if you follow these excellent methods: http://
www.mactel-linux.org/wiki/Dual_Booting which tells us that you can:
1) use the built-in chooser, 2) rEFIt, 3) elilo, or 4)
bootcamp ...the incentive just isn't there because my point was: why
bother booting linux on a relatively new mac hardware beyond it being
an academic exercise?
1) plenty of great and far cheaper hardware to run linux on. the
value of the mac is its integrated hardware and software that
delivers exceptional user experience, kinda ruins it if you run any
other os than os x on that hardware (with the exception of a
virtualized os).
2) there are arguably, cheaper, and less time consuming ways of
running linux on mac hardware than dual booting/booting on the mac
like virtualization. install the vm, install linux and you're done.
no formating, no googling, no digging through forums and preparing
backup disks of data. take for instance parallels' technology
wherein you could run, a fedora core linux along side gentoo, along
side debian, along side suse, and they all see each other as if on a
single network at the same time and you're only limited by the system
resources you've got. when one thinks about it... virtualization
actually makes greater sense after spending a lot of money on mac
hardware and os x.
dual-booting just doesn't cut it in this day and age anymore.
you can test a product on your virtualized linux on your laptop
without having to run it by a real server. US$80 (cost of parallels,
sorry i don't know the cost of vmware) versus the cost of a real
server+electrical consumption+physical real-estate versus time spent
reading how-tos, backing up data and implementing them= a lot of
savings.
3) most linux apps can with minimum effort be ran on the mac just
like any variant of bsd.
so in conclusion, i emphasized that yes 1) there are myriad ways of
booting linux on the mac and what you said are perfectly valid
points, but more importantly 2) why bother to boot linux on mac
hardware beyond the academic exercise?
On 03 8, 07, at 5:34 PM, JM Ibanez wrote:
Cocoy Dayao <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
what you said is true. booting linux on an intel mac... never said it
couldn't be done or hasn't been done ;) it takes a bit more effort to
do it... you have to have bootcamp. EFI is already supported by the
linux kernel but there hasn't been any "explosion" in booting mac
hardware using linux. whats the point other than it being an academic
exercise? both are "cousins," tech-wise--- you can port just about
any app between them... and you could run linux on cheaper hardware.
hehehe. running linux on a mac makes more sense using a vm than going
through the trouble of bootcamping.
Ummm... my point was that you don't *need* bootcamp to boot on an
EFI-based machine.
Let me repeat:
You don't need bootcamp to boot Linux on an EFI-based Intel Mac.
See http://refit.sourceforge.net/myths/ for more info. To quote:
Here are some facts about Boot Camp to get a picture of what is
involved
in making it work. See the following sections on what is actually
needed/recommended for booting Windows or Linux.
When Apple released the first Boot Camp Beta in April 2006, they
actually released three separate pieces that were all required to
make
it work:
1. The Mac OS X 10.4.6 Update added several capabilities to the
OS and its tools:
□ Online resizing of HFS+ volumes (kernel and diskutil)
□ Hybrid GPT/MBR partition table support (diskutil and
Disk Utility)
□ Ability to select Windows partitions and CDs as boot
volumes (Startup Disk and bless)
2. Firmware updates for the iMac, Mac mini and MacBook Pro added
a BIOS compatibility module, including detection
of BIOS-bootable disks and CDs in the built-in boot volume
chooser. This has been part of Intel Mac firmwares
ever since.
3. The actual “Boot Camp” download containing the “Boot
Camp Assistant”. The Boot Camp Assistant has exactly two
functions. It provides a nice user interface to resize the
Mac OS X partition and create/remove a Windows
partition, and it contains a CD image with Windows XP drivers
for Intel Mac hardware (including a Startup Disk
control panel for Windows).
Summary: You don’t need the actual Boot Camp package to install
Windows or Linux, but it usually helps.
Again. No bootcamp needed (although it helps).
There are of course parts of the Linux system that *do* depend on the
BIOS (but mostly this is the X11 server, Xorg, and its drivers).
--
JM Ibanez
Senior Software Engineer
Orange & Bronze Software Labs, Ltd. Co.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://software.orangeandbronze.com/
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