Work gave me a new Macbook 2 Ghz C2D to use, and even though the OSX is pretty to look at, it isn't Linux. I've researched and found a fair number of HOWTOs in regards to dual booting Linux and OSX, but nothing where you can take a Macbook and make Linux your only operating system. There seems to be a snag in the fact that Mactels don't have a PC BIOS, and that you need to use an OSX program with their BIOS to be able to load Linux.

My question is, is it possible to completely remove the OSX and install just Ubuntu?

AFAIK, “Mactels” use an EFI BIOS, and linux has been able to boot natively from EFI for about six years now…

IIRC, you need to use elilo as your bootloader.

It is my understanding that you need to have an EFI-aware kernel in order to properly boot in EFI mode (without using an emulated BIOS and without writing an MBR to the GPT disk.) It is, however, perfectly possible to boot Linux as the sole OS on a MacBook using only GRUB.

As part of the Intel spec for EFI, every GPT disk contains a protected MBR entry as the first block. This exists for legacy bootloaders and partitioners that don't read GPT partition tables to prevent them from messing up the whole partition table because they don't know that the GPT is there. If you completely format the disk and just do a standard Ubuntu install you shouldn't have any problems. I have Ubuntu Feisty installed as the sole OS on my MacBook Core Duo (not C2D or MacBook Pro). GRUB installs just fine to that MBR enry and boots normally.

That's great news. I have been deciding whether or not to buy a MacBook (not Pro) to install a flavour of Linux as the sole OS. Sounds like I'm good to go.

My only question now is, will Fedora Core 6 install just like that? I can try Ubuntu, too, but I've always been in the Red Hat camp and being able to stick to Fedora will get rid of the extra time I'd need to spend learning how to configure things the Ubuntu way.

Thanks!
Dai

I've not tried Fedora, but I can't imagine that you'll have any problems. The only hiccup I've come across is that when you first power on the machine the EFI scans the GPT for a good 5 seconds or so before it checks the MBR, so there is a delay before GRUB loads. Sometimes I get the folder with the ? in it (indicating that it can't find a bootable disk) and then it checks the MBR and boots grub. This isn't a problem if you have a dual-boot system because then rEFIt acts as the intermediary bootloader and it is designed to check for "legacy" bootloaders (NTLDR or GRUB/LILO) at the same time as the GPT, so there is no delay.

Thanks for the quick response. I won't have any problem with the delay as long as GRUB works. I'm not planning on dual-booting.