I cannot get this to work. I tried with an SD card, and it did not work. i tried with an external optical drive, and it did not work. Now I got a hold of a USB stick, and it does not work. I am EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED, so I am really sorry if I sound petulant or rude.

Only 2 things happen:
- Booting hangs forever
- I get an error "Missing operating system..."

Here is the steps I took to put Arch Linux on a USB stick.
- Installed rEFIt
- Downloaded core install .iso
- Inserted USB stick
- Partitoned USB stick as free space with Disk Utlity
- ran diskutil list in the Terminal to find out the disk ID (dev/disk1)
- ran diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1
- ran sudo dd if=~/Downloads/archlinux-2010.05-core-x86_64.img of=/dev/disk1 bs=1m
- Restarted computer
- Selected USB stick in menu
- "Missing operating system..."
- ???
- WTF

Why does STEVE JOBS make it so hard to USE A USB STICK?
-> I never ever want a MAC again.

Try with bs=8192 and without sudo

Thanks for the help, I appreciate it.

However, this did not work, resulting in the same error:-
Damn.

Down at the very bottom of the archwiki page

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...SB_flash_drive

There is a Old Method from ISO, deprecated method that refers to your error. I have never had to do any such thing, but it doesn't hurt to try.

I don't really have access to LILO or SYSLINUX since I am using OS X, unfortunately...

Yeah lupusarcanus I know exactly what you mean. I've registered here just so I can join you in your frustration.
I've been trying to install Fedora off a usb stick on my MacBook 13'' for two days now to no success.
My dvd drive is bust, so I can't do it off a live cd unfortunately (the laptop is out of the warranty, and I never use the drive anyway, like ever).
I've tried all the steps you've mentioned, plus:

• creating the bootable usb in Windows and Linux (on another computer) - failed.

• using UNetbootin - failed.

• doing some magic with BootCamp (it supposed to modify the booting sequence to allow for bios) - failed.

This is ridiculous, it's the 21st century and stuff can't be booted off a usb drive! This is seriously beyond me. Thanks Steve.

Does anyone know of a way of making this work? Pretty please?

See these for ideas maybe.

http://superuser.com/questions/23689...tel-64-bit-cpu

http://superuser.com/questions/27794...e-usb-on-a-mac

have you ever a tried CD burn to boot on your mac?

Thanks, but as I said the DVD drive is bust (not working). So no, not really.

I've tried the second link before to no success. But haven't tried the first one, I'll give it a go when I get home. Thank you!

We're you able to resolve this issue? I am hitting the same problem.

Some observations:

A. Steve Jobs is dead.
B. Steve Jobs did not design or program the Mac boot ROMS.
C. Macs are designed to only boot the MacOS, or the correct bootloader to Multiboot MacOS and Windows. (Linux should theoretically work, I've run it on the older models).
D. Running non-Apple software on their hardware is a TOS violation as far as they are concerned, so they have zero interest in supporting it.
E. Get a new DVD. They are like $20.

I have a single observation:

is not an observation.

My bad. I should have said, "It would be more efficient to spend $20 for a new DVD burner, than waste any more time."

More efficient perhaps, but then the puzzle would remain unsolved. I always prefer a fix to a work around. Much more educational, and therefore more efficient in the long term.