[gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo on a Macbook Air

[gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo on a Macbook Air

[Moshe Kamensky]

Hi,

I don't have a Macbook Air, but I have two iMac desktops and one macbook 
pro laptop. The two imacs run Gentoo without any problems. I installed 
refit to switch between Gentoo and osx.

For the laptop, I had trouble booting from the installation cd. A few 
days ago someone on this list suggested that I run Gentoo within a 
virtual machine running on osx. This turned out to be a very good 
solution, since it is very easy and works perfectly (I do have a small 
network problem, but not serious), and allows me to use the Mac software 
as well. I use virtualbox for the VM software.

Best,
Moshe

* Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com> [14/09/11 16:33]:
> My wife can't stand the OS on her Macbook Air any more and has asked
> me to install Gentoo.  I did some research and it looks like there are
> some hidden pitfalls.  It seems to depend on which version of the
> Macbook Air you have (my wife's is the version right before the new
> backlit keyboard version) but at least some versions require that you
> first boot into Mac OSX and then reboot into Linux, and there appear
> to be a myriad of other gotchas.  Does anyone know more about this?
> 
> - Grant
> 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo on a Macbook Air

[Grant]

> Hi,
>
> I don't have a Macbook Air, but I have two iMac desktops and one macbook
> pro laptop. The two imacs run Gentoo without any problems. I installed
> refit to switch between Gentoo and osx.
>
> For the laptop, I had trouble booting from the installation cd. A few
> days ago someone on this list suggested that I run Gentoo within a
> virtual machine running on osx. This turned out to be a very good
> solution, since it is very easy and works perfectly (I do have a small
> network problem, but not serious), and allows me to use the Mac software
> as well. I use virtualbox for the VM software.
>
> Best,
> Moshe

Thanks Moshe.  Maybe the best thing for me to do is just install
Gentoo on the thing and see what happens.  Restoring OSX should be
easy with the included USB key.  I think that's the best way to figure
out if there are any quirks.  Just follow the regular install method,
right?

- Grant


>> My wife can't stand the OS on her Macbook Air any more and has asked
>> me to install Gentoo.  I did some research and it looks like there are
>> some hidden pitfalls.  It seems to depend on which version of the
>> Macbook Air you have (my wife's is the version right before the new
>> backlit keyboard version) but at least some versions require that you
>> first boot into Mac OSX and then reboot into Linux, and there appear
>> to be a myriad of other gotchas.  Does anyone know more about this?
>>
>> - Grant

[gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo on a Macbook Air

[Moshe Kamensky]

* Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com> [16/09/11 13:21]:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I don't have a Macbook Air, but I have two iMac desktops and one macbook
> > pro laptop. The two imacs run Gentoo without any problems. I installed
> > refit to switch between Gentoo and osx.
> >
> > For the laptop, I had trouble booting from the installation cd. A few
> > days ago someone on this list suggested that I run Gentoo within a
> > virtual machine running on osx. This turned out to be a very good
> > solution, since it is very easy and works perfectly (I do have a small
> > network problem, but not serious), and allows me to use the Mac software
> > as well. I use virtualbox for the VM software.
> >
> > Best,
> > Moshe
> 
> Thanks Moshe.  Maybe the best thing for me to do is just install
> Gentoo on the thing and see what happens.  Restoring OSX should be
> easy with the included USB key.  I think that's the best way to figure
> out if there are any quirks.  Just follow the regular install method,
> right?
> 

Yes, except you should install refit (http://refit.sf.net) first. refit 
is a boot loader for mac. Maybe there is a way to avoid it, but 
installing refit is very easy, and I had no problems with it. Also, I 
was planning in advance to make the computers dual boot, so I 
partitioned accordingly. If you have just one partition, I think it is 
best to re-partition using osx.

Best,
Moshe

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo on a Macbook Air

[Grant]

>> > I don't have a Macbook Air, but I have two iMac desktops and one macbook
>> > pro laptop. The two imacs run Gentoo without any problems. I installed
>> > refit to switch between Gentoo and osx.
>> >
>> > For the laptop, I had trouble booting from the installation cd. A few
>> > days ago someone on this list suggested that I run Gentoo within a
>> > virtual machine running on osx. This turned out to be a very good
>> > solution, since it is very easy and works perfectly (I do have a small
>> > network problem, but not serious), and allows me to use the Mac software
>> > as well. I use virtualbox for the VM software.
>> >
>> > Best,
>> > Moshe
>>
>> Thanks Moshe.  Maybe the best thing for me to do is just install
>> Gentoo on the thing and see what happens.  Restoring OSX should be
>> easy with the included USB key.  I think that's the best way to figure
>> out if there are any quirks.  Just follow the regular install method,
>> right?
>>
>
> Yes, except you should install refit (http://refit.sf.net) first. refit
> is a boot loader for mac. Maybe there is a way to avoid it, but
> installing refit is very easy, and I had no problems with it. Also, I
> was planning in advance to make the computers dual boot, so I
> partitioned accordingly. If you have just one partition, I think it is
> best to re-partition using osx.
>
> Best,
> Moshe

Thanks for your help with this guys.  I've finally convinced her to
return the Macbook Air.  My life just got easier.

- Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo on a Macbook Air

[Mick]

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On Saturday 24 Sep 2011 17:30:54 Grant wrote:
> >> > I don't have a Macbook Air, but I have two iMac desktops and one
> >> > macbook pro laptop. The two imacs run Gentoo without any problems. I
> >> > installed refit to switch between Gentoo and osx.
> >> > 
> >> > For the laptop, I had trouble booting from the installation cd. A few
> >> > days ago someone on this list suggested that I run Gentoo within a
> >> > virtual machine running on osx. This turned out to be a very good
> >> > solution, since it is very easy and works perfectly (I do have a small
> >> > network problem, but not serious), and allows me to use the Mac
> >> > software as well. I use virtualbox for the VM software.
> >> > 
> >> > Best,
> >> > Moshe
> >> 
> >> Thanks Moshe.  Maybe the best thing for me to do is just install
> >> Gentoo on the thing and see what happens.  Restoring OSX should be
> >> easy with the included USB key.  I think that's the best way to figure
> >> out if there are any quirks.  Just follow the regular install method,
> >> right?
> > 
> > Yes, except you should install refit (http://refit.sf.net) first. refit
> > is a boot loader for mac. Maybe there is a way to avoid it, but
> > installing refit is very easy, and I had no problems with it. Also, I
> > was planning in advance to make the computers dual boot, so I
> > partitioned accordingly. If you have just one partition, I think it is
> > best to re-partition using osx.
> > 
> > Best,
> > Moshe
> 
> Thanks for your help with this guys.  I've finally convinced her to
> return the Macbook Air.  My life just got easier.

You can always install Hackintosh or similar in a VM if she's pining for an 
applemac.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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[gentoo-user] Re: gentoo on a macbook air

[William Kenworthy]

On Mon, 2012-08-06 at 19:03 +0800, William Kenworthy wrote:
> The boss just told me my beloved 2007 sony vaio has got to go (and
> 600Mhz just doesnt cut it anymore when trying to run more than 1 vm !)
> 
> He is offering a new 11" macbook air which I have never even had a look
> at, or be able to identify if I saw one - well he got me to say at least
> I should look at it rather than a Dell :)
> 
> Googling seems to imply that I can get rid of the apple stuff and
> install linux but I have not found any up to date gentoo info yet
> (except these are UEFI, and the gentoo live media wont work) - does
> anyone have any idea if gentoo  is doable on these, and no real problems
> exist?
> 
> They do seem a bit feature "free" (no CD drive etc) which reduces the
> options when trying to install.
> 
> BillK
> 
> 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: gentoo on a macbook air

[Alan McKinnon]

On Mon, 06 Aug 2012 20:14:27 +0800
William Kenworthy <billk@iinet.net.au> wrote:

> On Mon, 2012-08-06 at 19:03 +0800, William Kenworthy wrote:
> > The boss just told me my beloved 2007 sony vaio has got to go (and
> > 600Mhz just doesnt cut it anymore when trying to run more than 1
> > vm !)
> > 
> > He is offering a new 11" macbook air which I have never even had a
> > look at, or be able to identify if I saw one - well he got me to
> > say at least I should look at it rather than a Dell :)

I can give you some feedback on working with those ultra-notebooks.
Sure, this is based on a Samsung Series 9 but that is a blatant ripoff
of the Air anyway (right now to the funky Apple touchpad)

As a portable device, they are awesome. As a backup device, they are
uber-awesome. As a primary workstation for tech types, they are not so
awesome.

The screen display is limited to around 1300x800 or so which is fine if
you run most apps maximized anyway. Adding a second monitor usually
requires a dongle as does an RJ45 wired connection (there just isn't
enough thickness to the machine to put the connectors), and there's no
such thing as a docking station. USB is limited, usually to just two
ports and on the Samsung you can only boot off one of them - the USB
2.0 one.

Battery life is excellent. Keyboards are awesome. Video cards tend to
be crap (something has to give to extend the battery life and the video
card is by far the easiest to turn down and reduce power usage). The
SSDs are awesome, if you have never used one before you *will* be
pleasantly surprised.

Linus has a Mac Air (was reading a blog post from him just this
morning) and he got OpenSUSE installed on it. So as long as you can get
it to boot from a USB device, you should be OK. Gentoo supports all the
fancy disk tools you need to get UEFI and GPT working.

> > 
> > Googling seems to imply that I can get rid of the apple stuff and
> > install linux but I have not found any up to date gentoo info yet
> > (except these are UEFI, and the gentoo live media wont work) - does
> > anyone have any idea if gentoo  is doable on these, and no real
> > problems exist?
> > 
> > They do seem a bit feature "free" (no CD drive etc) which reduces
> > the options when trying to install.
> > 
> > BillK
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> 



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com