Public bug reported: I recently installed Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS (Trusty) on my Mac Mini 6,1 using the server installer. First I tried the "+mac" variant, which gave me a system that booted in legacy BIOS mode, and then then I tried the normal variant, which gave me an unbootable system.
I eventually got the EFI installation working, resulting in an Ubuntu installation that boots directly from the Mac bootloader firmware (ie. no rEFInd/rEFIt). The basic steps are to use an HFS+ filesystem instead of VFAT for the EFI partition, to "bless" the EFI boot image, and to create a couple of files that the Mac bootloader requires. I wrote the full procedure up as a guide: http://heeris.id.au/2014/ubuntu-plus-mac-pure-efi-boot/ While my guide only covers single-boot into Ubuntu on a Mac Mini, I hope there's enough detail there to illustrate what's needed for a more general case. Note that grub-efi-amd64 already does the right thing (except for Debian bug #716927 [1]). The only tool that isn't already in the repos is the mactel-boot utility (aka. hfsbless), which I've made available in my PPA[2] (see also the Github repo[3], which has the Ubuntu packaging metadata in various branches, and is git-buildpackage friendly). So it should be possible to install Ubuntu in EFI mode on Macs. This would reduce the options presented to a user when downloading the installer, and result in a more consistent experience for users across Windows and Mac. [1] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=716927#20 [2] https://launchpad.net/~detly/+archive/ubuntu/mactel-utils [3] https://github.com/detly/mactel-boot ** Affects: debian-installer (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1369187 Title: Installation on Macs could use EFI booting instead of legacy BIOS To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/debian-installer/+bug/1369187/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
