Since this forum is about alternative systems, I'd like to drop in a tip about getting Linux to co-exist peacefully with OS X on the same box. My experience primarily resides with
Ubuntu, but the steps for installing Linux is the same.
For those who want to take the plunge into Linux, be advised that you will have to backup your important files to perhaps an external drive. Hopefully you also have a secondary boot of OS X somewhere handy. But if that's not the case, no need to worry. Your OS X install CD/DVD will do the trick.
I. Deciding how to partition.
When partitioning your disk, be mindful of the following:
- OS X requires 8-16+ GB of disk space. YMMV. If you install heavy apps and all of the iLife goodies, you will certainly want to set aside more. For example, I have 35 GB of 100 GB set aside for OS X Tiger.
- Ubuntu needs ~5 GB, but Disk Utility won't let you go any lower than a certain size. For example, I was only allowed to go as low as 7.24 GB. Your Ubuntu partition
must be marked as free space. Make sure to set aside about 1-2 GB for your /home. So about ~7 GB all together.
- You should have a third partition where your important data (such as movies, music, and photos) resides should you ever hose OS X or Linux. Of course, it should go without saying that whenever you decide to use something that edits your master partition table (especially when installing Linux), you should always back up.
- OS X must occupy the first partition and
must be installed
first. The free space partition should preferably be second.
II. Installing your systems.
Install OS X first. When you arrive at your first dialog box, select your main language and instead of proceeding with the install, go to Disk Utility (from the Utilities menu). Select your hard drive and first erase it. Be sure to
zero all data as this option maps out any bad blocks on your hard drive. This could take roughly 30 minutes-1 h depending on the size. Then partition your drive by selecting how many partitions you want to split your drive into (I recommend 3 at the minimum) with OS X formatted as HFS+ journaled, Ubuntu as free space, and your third as HFS+ (without journaling - otherwise in Ubuntu your partition won't be writable).
The beauty of Ubuntu's install CD is in its simplicity in guiding you through the process. While it doesn't win any pageants with the Terminal/DOS like appearance, it is simple enough for anyone to understand. When you get to the partitioner, select the option that will automatically partition the largest contingent of free space. However,
don't commit to the changes quite yet. Go back and manually edit the partition table. It might appear scary at first, but pay no attention to the Apple-formatted partitions as you don't need to worry about those. You'll see that your free space has been divided into boot, swap, and / (ext3). You'll want to edit the / partition. If you don't want a separate /home or are scared of the process, don't worry about doing this. Just commit to the original automatic resizing and be on your way. For those who do want to make a /home, resize / to ~5 GB (or whatever floats your boat). Now select the newly created free space and create a new partition out of it. Ubuntu will automatically assign it as /home. Having /home (or /Users in OS X speak) is important because should you screw up your Ubuntu install, you'll still have all of your data and settings intact and will only need to reformat the / portion in the future. Commit to the changes and you'll be on your way. (Now if Apple can do the same by keeping /Users away from the rest of their crud...sigh...but that's for another thread).
Whenever you start up, you'll now be presented with a menu for Linux, OS X, or CD-ROM. Be careful not to use the Startup Disk in OS X's System Prefs or you'll lose the menu. If that happens, simply hold down Option on startup, select the Ubuntu partition, and when logged in, enter
sudo ybin in a Terminal window.
Remember the third partition you created? In Ubuntu, head over to System->Administration->Disks. Locate your partition (designated as /dev/hdaX where X is a number). In a terminal window, type
sudo pico /etc/fstab (or use your favorite text editor).
Add the following:
/dev/hdaX /mnt/nameofhd hfsplus defaults 0 0
and save.
Now cd your way to /mnt and create a new folder called nameofhd. Of course, you can change the appearance of its name once you bookmark it in Nautilus. Go back to Disks and you'll see that the partition now has a mounting location! Enable it and browse away! Caveat: Permissions could be a little flaky as your UID might be 501 in OS X (first user and most likely an admin as is standard) while in Ubuntu it is almost certainly 1000 (first user - admin privs).
III. Thoughts
For an alpha, Ubuntu "Dapper Drake" Flight 6 is rock solid. I finally got wireless networking to work once I found the secret of WEP (the hint is in the installer itself: a passphrase must be preceded with 's:' (without the quotes). I can't wait for the 6.06 final to be out. To be able to boot back and forth between OS X and Linux AND have wireless networking for both is a godsend. While codec hunting might be tedious for a noob, the Ubuntu community rocks and more than likely your question will already have an answer. I'm envious of the Intel owners being able to potentially triple boot or have a native solution like Parallels. If the guys behind WINE and especially DarWINE will step up to the plate next with mind-blowing improvements it could get real interesting on the Mac platform (choice is good).
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