[clug] Installing debian on a macpro - grub failed

[Adam Baxter]

On 17 December 2013 10:15, Hal Ashburner <hal at ashburner.info> wrote:

> Hi Logan, Adam, Clug,
>
> EFI ?
>
> iirc macs use (U)EFI rather than bios and don't have a bios compatibility
> mode that's much use for installations. Recent fedora works with EFI,
> recent ubu too. Not sure about debian
> This:
> http://dentifrice.poivron.org/laptops/macbookpro8,2/
>
> Suggests it can be done but not with the standard installer. And with a
> fair bit of mucking about - caveat I only skimmed it in 10 seconds.
>
> I'd go with the most recent Fedora myself as it's probably what  Matt
> Garrett uses nowadays and it's a very solid distro with a large userbase
> which maximises your chances of someone else having hit and written
> problems they've had and solutions when you hit them.
> http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/
>
> As always YMMV. Good luck.
>
>
 I'd rather give Debian a good go first, but yes, Fedora may work too.
Without seeing the logs from GRUB there are two options I can think of:

* GRUB thinks it's installing in BIOS emulation mode and dies

* GRUB is installing in UEFI mode and dies

My understanding is that debian-installer as of 7.1 onwards works with UEFI
just fine (I did a netinstall of 7.3 recently in UEFI mode on a PC)
That said, I know Ubuntu still has a Mac custom version.


--Adam