Replacing OSX with Linux? No I do not wish to Triple boot OSX, Linux and Windows.

Seph64 · 02-04-2011, 10:10 PM

I couldn't think of a better place to put this...

Anyway, since my Mac is a MacMini, it has an incridibly limiting Hard Drive space of 160GB. It does not go as far as it used to. I want to install Linux on this machine, but... I need to keep Windows for certain games (that does manage to play well on this machine), but I have no interest (at the moment) of keeping OSX installed.

I can't simply resize the Windows partition, as because I need the space for Games.

Is it possible to just remove OSX and install Linux instead?

Any help is appreciated.

And sorry if a question like this was asked before, I couldn't think of a better search line aside from "replacing OSX with Linux", and that didn't seem to turn up any good results.

Kenny_Strawn · 02-05-2011, 12:01 AM

Assuming you have Ubuntu 10.10, you can boot the CD in Live mode, launch GParted, format the whole drive in NTFS, install Windows, and then partition the drive (this time with the installer) and install Linux. Shouldn't be too hard to do, but you *MUST* install Windows before Linux, as if you install Linux first Windows will erase GRUB from your MBR.

silvyus_06 · 02-05-2011, 02:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn

Assuming you have Ubuntu 10.10, you can boot the CD in Live mode, launch GParted, format the whole drive in NTFS, install Windows, and then partition the drive (this time with the installer) and install Linux. Shouldn't be too hard to do, but you *MUST* install Windows before Linux, as if you install Linux first Windows will erase GRUB from your MBR.

i think i just don't get it... why resize the windows partition TWICE when you can give it a size from the beginning(say 50GB) and leave the free space for linux to be partitioned as ext or whatever choice of fs (btrfs??

)

also i don't think the OP wants to do that..

i think that, from gparted live cd , if he figures out what is his mac os parittion delete it then install linux on the free space ( though i have strong beliefs erasing mac os is going to screw boot camp??)

Seph64 · 02-05-2011, 02:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvyus_06

i think that, from gparted live cd , if he figures out what is his mac os parittion delete it then install linux on the free space ( though i have strong beliefs erasing mac os is going to screw boot camp??)

This is what I am afraid of. Well actually, I am afraid that if I erase the OSX Partition that the system will become unbootable until I reinstall OSX.

I use rEFIt as the Bootmanager.

FredGSanford · 02-05-2011, 10:18 AM

Check out the Mac Mini forum, these guys are pretty helpful for this type of situation. I do have a Mini but never put another OS on it since I only have a 40gb drive and it's my HTPC setup.

jefro · 02-05-2011, 05:02 PM

If you have windows you can easily run a Virtual Machine on it.

Seph64 · 02-06-2011, 10:19 AM

lol @ VM response.

Thanks, but I don't like Virtual Machines.

Anyway, I got Slackware installed and running.

I just need to get the internet working (better).

I've had Domain Lookup problems in the past, and I have them now.

It takes a real long time (a minute at the least) for the browser (or anything that has to lookup domain names) to lookup a domain when I browse the net. I have no idea why this problem exists or how to solve it. It didn't matter if it's Ubuntu, Gentoo, or well, Slackware. However, OSX and Windows have no trouble with domain lookup what so ever, so that makes me worry.

At first I thought it was because it was trying to use the router for DNS lookup (it'd go through the router then go through the ISP, etc), but I tried using the ISP's DNS lookup address directly, and it still takes forever. So there must be something else that is making the process take a long time.

The Router is actually a DSL gateway provided by QWest. It's an Actiontec GT701-WG Wireless... Whatever it is I should call it. It only has 1 wired ethernet port, which is connected to a hub which all none wireless computers are connected to.

This being a Mac Mini, I'd like to get Wireless working.

lspci reports:
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4328 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 05)

as my wireless network device.

Any help getting the DNS lookup issue resolved or configuring my system for wifi (I've setup the Wireless Network on the Actiontec device to use WEP, if that matters) will be much appreciated.

silvyus_06 · 02-06-2011, 11:49 AM

how much space left do u have in your OSX partition? you could resize it to the maxmum and levae the space to others

Seph64 · 02-06-2011, 02:20 PM

From my last response to this thread:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seph64

>>Anyway, I got Slackware installed and running.<<

Ahem...

Anyway, it is funny. After I started using Google Chrome, I hardly noticed an issue with domain lookup. I do not know what to make of that.

Although, I still would like to get wifi working. I'll try searching again.

jefro · 02-06-2011, 02:30 PM

Three ways to get wifi working. One is default kernel support, two is add on drivers and three is using windows drivers under ndiswrapper.

Seph64 · 02-06-2011, 02:35 PM

Yeah, I think I got the drivers installed. But that's where the majority of "bad tutorials" I found on the subject end. Oh well, gonna look some more.