My Mac is soon to have its fourth birthday, which in computer life means it is on the far side of being new. While it still runs fast enough for my needs, it does suffer from one nagging problem that will never go away in its lifetime.
When you buy a Mac, you must be willing to make a trade off. You are trading easy access to thousands of programs for a rock solid, good looking, easy to use Operating System including life without virus, and little maintenance. The downside is an obvious lack of software outside of mainstream usage. As long as you are a general user, life is good, all the software you may wish to use is available, an it all works very well.
Make an excursion out of the main stream of computing, and the choices of software for your Mac becomes one, and if it is your lucky day, two or three software choices. Whether by design or default, with the advent of intel processor based Macs, a whole new world opened for Mac users. Suddenly, Macs had the ability to boot and run more than one operating system.
Windows was the big win in operating systems gaining a foothold on Intel Macs. Linux was only only one or two steps behind in the port. Apple either chose to, or felt obligated to make it easier, and provided an Apple based means to make it easier to put Windows on your Mac. Why one would want to run Windows on a Mac is another topic. For myself, after deliberating for some time, I decided the one or two Windows programs I would use were not worth all the things I do not enjoy about Windows.
I do like Linux though! Linux was the driving force behind my buying a Mac in the first place. Linux using a graphical desktop was always a love hate relationship. Linux had a few good choices in desktops, but when it came down to the program level, the program interfaces were a hodgepodge of what the programmer wanted. Each program had their own menu system, and ways of working. I went to Mac because while the scope of software was smaller, the consistency across programs was very integrated.
In the interim, Linux has caught up in the interface usability department. Most common programs have been absorbed by the desktop, and programs that were not are more likely to have an interface that is for the most part intuitive and usable.
I decided to install Linux on my Mac and dual boot Mac style. If you want to try it out, here is a quick explanation of what you need to do. It is written n a high level, so if you are not comfortable with tinkering with your software, you may want to pass on this article and find a more in depth explanation of the process. I can’t stress enough this is not a tried and true how to, only general overview. There are links below you should read before attempting this on your Mac.
I downloaded and installed a program named rEFIt, and had one Linux iso cd before starting. I can not suggest strongly enough to make a backup before starting. I used Rsync which is simple and works well. You can boot off your Rsync back up, and Rsync does not care if the hard drives are not the same size which is important as the Mac portion of your hard drive will shrink to make space for Linux. Once you install rEFIt and create a partition for Linux to reside on, the Linux install is the same as a Linux install on a Windows based computer.
Booting into Linux is a little round about due to the way a Mac boots up. There is a difference between the way a computer made for Windows and an Intel Mac boot up. Mac uses a system called EFI which sort of convolutes the boot process when dual booting on a Mac. Instead of using Grub as a boot loader, you need rEFIt, as Grub is pretty helpless as a boot loader on a Mac based hard drive and will likely cause you to run off your Rsync backup while you pull your hair out patching up your hard drive to do a reinstall.
The first task needing tending was downloading and installing rEFIt. rEFIt is a slick dynamic and versatile boot manager made for Macs and other computers using EFI.
The next task was to make a partition available for Linux to use. Using Bootcamp Assistant makes the process simple, with an exception. There is a minimum size and a maximum size for the Linux partition and the partition is named Windows. Boot Camp Assistant use is pretty straight forward as long as you ignore the syntax, and create a windows partition and stop before the actual Windows install portion.
Once my partition was created and I slid my Linux cd into my Mac, I did a shutdown. rEFIt needs a complete shutdown to activate itself and start working. If it does not work the first startup, it will on a second. The boot up sequence will seemed like it was hanging, but giving it a few more seconds and rEFIt does its magic. You will notice how dynamic rEFIt is once it becomes your boot manager. You will see an icon where you can select your Linux cd to boot from.
From here on the Linux installation is what it is depending on your distribution of choice. I took care not to install to my Mac partition by mistake, and installed to the Windows partition. I used Ubuntu, and manually created my partitions as I did not like the choices Ubuntu used. One important item was the Grub install. I installed Grub to the Windows (Linux) partition.
The boot up process is a little convoluted but it works. rEFIt will run, showing you your options. You may choose Mac, the Penguin, or a few maintenance type icon choices. Pick the Penguin and you are sent to Grub. On my Mac at least, the only real choice in Grub is choosing Linux. This can be edited out, but it is not a problem to leave it as is either. Once I choose Linux, my Mac becomes a Linux Machine.
It is important you get down to the nuts and bolts level of what goes on to complete the install. Here are a some links for you to read and understand if and before you start the process on your Mac:
If what you have read sounds hazy, and the links make little sense for you, you might look into one of the virtual machine software programs and use them. Virtual machine software runs other Operating Systems inside a program running on a Mac, and not as a separate Operating System. If this sounds like a better option for you, here is a link for a program called a Virtual Box.
One final disclaimer, as with any major changes to your computer, Mac or not, do your home work and verify that what you read and think you understand is correct. This is a high level overview, and probably wrong in important areas, as I wrote it from memory, and we all know how bad memory is. If you have read the links, and you are uncomfortable, let this slide by as something others have done to their Mac’s, but you won’t do with your Mac.
