[clug] Installing debian on a macpro - grub failed

[Logan Ryan McLintock]

On 17/12/2013, at 6:33 PM, Logan Ryan McLintock <u4955237 at anu.edu.au> wrote:

> Hi my friends,
> 
> Thank you sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much for the help. I have learnt a lot from the various comments - you don't know what you don't know, and it is hard to research 'horse with a horn' when you don't know they are called unicorns lol. Merry Christmas Clugian genii gangsters =)
> 
> I will work through Paul's instructions and see how I go. Thanks team,
> 
> Regards,
> Logan
> 
> On 17/12/2013, at 11:05 AM, Paul Warren <pwarren at pwarren.id.au> wrote:
> 
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>> On 16/12/13 22:56, Logan Ryan McLintock wrote:
>>> Hi Guys,
>>> 
>>> I have a MacPro 5,5 (the box one, not the macbook pro laptop) and I
>>> am trying to install Debian. I booted a Partition Magic DVD and use
>>> GParted to make all the three hard drives and single SSD ext4 (i.e.
>>> erasing the terrible mountain lion).
>>> 
>>> Then I did the firmware nonfree netinst whilst connected to the
>>> internet (behind a net gear router). Every thing went fine until
>>> the Grub failed. I was using
>>> 
>>> debian firmware 7.2.0 amd64 netinst
>>> 
>>> and I checked sums before burning it.
>>> 
>>> I am trying to install debian as the only operating system (no os
>>> x, no rEFIt), booting naturally using efi, not bios emulation.
>>> Maybe the grub in the Debian is too old?
>>> 
>>> I would really appreciate any help as I am quite unsure what to do.
>>> I could probably use ubuntu as I think the installer can do the
>>> whole efi grub 2 thing, but I would prefer debian.
>>> 
>>> I am willing to pay for help.
>>> 
>>> PS. Don't but macs
>>> 
>>> Regards, Logan -) cyclops
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Here's what I had to do for my MACs:
>> 
>> EFI needs its own smallish partition with a fat32 filesystem
>> 
>> here's my layout with just one disk:
>> 
>> (parted) print
>> Model: ATA Hitachi HTS54503 (scsi)
>> Disk /dev/sda: 320GB
>> Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
>> Partition Table: gpt
>> 
>> Number  Start   End    Size    File system     Name  Flags
>> 1      1049kB  512MB  511MB   fat32                 boot
>> 2      512MB   316GB  316GB   ext4
>> 3      316GB   320GB  4023MB  linux-swap(v1)
>> 
>> 
>> Now, debian does sort of support UEFI booting with the 7.2 install
>> discs (haven't tried 7.3 yet but should be good), but there was some
>> extra mucking about I had to do.
>> 
>> Once you've installed, and it boots the flashing folder icon (or
>> question mark, I forget which). Boot into rescue mode, and let debian
>> find the right root partition, and execute a shell in that partition.
>> 
>> You may have to:
>> 
>> mount /boot/efi
>> 
>> then:
>> 
>> apt-get install grub-efi-amd64
>> 
>> The installer for grub-efi-amd64 puts the boot executable in
>> /efi/EFI/debian/grub64x64.efi
>> 
>> And we need to put that in the right place for EFI to load it:
>> 
>> mkdir /boot/efi/EFI/boot
>> cp /boot/efi/EFI/debian/grubx64.efi /boot/efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi
>> 
>> then run:
>> 
>> update-grub
>> 
>> To make sure all the configs are in the right place.
>> 
>> Then reboot! and you should eventually get into debian :)
>> 
>> If you have a white screen for ~30s after the boot chime, and you want
>> to get rid of the wait, you'll have to boot an OS X disk and run:
>> 
>> bless --device /dev/disk0s1 --setBoot --verbose
>> 
>> substituting the proper device node for your efi partition.
>> 
>> 
>> Also, if you have a relatively recent mac, it's a good idea to install
>> OS X to a USB disk so you can run the firmware updates.
>> 
>> Hope that helps
>> 
>> - --
>> Paul.
>> 
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