Ubuntu partitioner problem on mac
 

Hey, i have a macbook pro with a 2.0 ghz processer, 2 GB of ram, and a 100GB HD running at 5400 RPM. I set up a dual boot with xp and os x, and attempting to set up a tri-boot with xp, os x, and ubuntu. I was trying to setup ubuntu 6.06, the disk booted perfectly, but when i tried to partition my drive, it said that my macintosh HD was unreadable, and my xp HD (fat32) was unreadable. It said i needed a "plugin" in order to read/write it. Where can i get this plugin, if it exists, and what can i do?
Thank You for helping me

I don't know if anyone has replied to your question, but I'm doing the same thing you are. I resized my partitions in OSX to have an OSX partiton, linux partition and windows partition. I later installed bootcamp and OSX.

Then I put in the ubuntu live cd and started copying files to /dev/sda3 after it was mounted and formatted. So partitioning wasn't a problem for me. I'm trying to figure out how to get a working installation of ubuntu on the linux partition with lilo as the bootloader. --;;

i solved my problem... here is what i did, even if it is not the most efficient way to run the tri boot, it worked
1. Installed bootcamp
2. Installed Windows (this is where i was before hearing about the wonders of ubuntu, then i did the following)
3. Create a disk image of your windows drive, this way, you will not lose your files that are located within hidden files, ie the registry. Make sure that you make a disk image, and do not just copy the folders from your windows partition. Name the disk image something like windows whore.
4. Put windows whore onto an external volume or drive
5. Run bootcamp, and resize the os x drive to be 10 GB bigger by restoring to single os x partition, than re-partitioning
6. IMPORTANT, after partitioning, do NOT tell bootcamp to install windows
7. Back up your os x drive onto another external drive.
8. Start up from mac os x disk one and partition your os x disk to abide for ubuntu, make sure you make the data in FAT 32, or some other ubuntu readable file. P.S. Disk utility will wipe your drive, so make sure that you back up your os x drive.
9. Run ubuntu
10. Choose your new "unallocated" space and install ubuntu upon it
11.Install windows
12.Place the image "windows whore" from your external drive onto your hd.
13.Open your windows whore image
14.Take the files from your image and put them onto your drive
15.RUN ALL THREE OPERATING SYSTEMS

If this works for you as well, tell me. If it doesn't, ill try to find an alternative

I ended up having a successful installation of Ubuntu 6.06 along with my Dual boot XP and OSX, but I acidentally forgot to backup my MBR, so when I installed Ubuntu, (which uses the utility "parted" to format partitions and is also infamous for overwriting the MBR to its liking) Windows would no longer boot.

I've since reinstalled OSX and Windows and started from scratch. As soon as I have free time, I will be reinstalling Ubuntu and making sure to backup my MBR.

Upon your installation of Ubuntu, did you have any problems starting the xserver (X11) due to any configuration problems with the ATI drivers?

graphics within ubuntu are bad, but linux doesnt base its entire base upon how it looks... cough "vista"... cough "vista"

Hey, _mercury. I have a single question, if you partition your drive with disk utility, does it erase your drive, spread out the previous contents, or what. Thnx for all of your help.

-dave

P.s. the post on how i did my triboot is constantly being updated to be more and more user friendly, etc, so check it out!

CHEERS!

I don't remember off the top of my head. I'll get back to you. I have two tests in school to prepare for right now and my brain feels like scrambled eggs.

about the bootstrapping process
 

Hi everyone, it seems most of you have had success with the bootup process of ubuntu which is where I am stuck.

I have spent alot of time seeing which way works for me but have had no luck. The setup I have atm is dual boot OSX, XP. I have tried installing either ubuntu-alternate or ubuntu-live with no positive results (both being 6.06).

Here are my circumstances

Macbook Pro 15" 2GHz

paritions seem ok

lilo config seems ok

and in case your wondering I didnt forget

I get as far as having the boot linux from HD in efi bootloader. But I get an error message of something like "cannot boot from device" or "no boot record" ill post that later since im typing in ubuntu live atm.

There is one thing that I think might be the problem and that is when refit bootloader begins I can see a Linux icon showing to boot efi partition, something like /Volumes/efi.


while some of you may not a solution to my specific problem I am hoping you can answer some questions when I was going through some of these guides.

1) First of all which Macbook do you have?

2) Which Ubuntu did you use? alternate or the Live disc or other?

3) Could you post the guide you followed and any adjustments needed for bootstrapping process?

4) Should it matter if the partitions are laid out in the order above? ie HFS, ext3, NTFS

5) when you use the live disc did you use lilo/elilo and did you receive some errors and perhaps ignored them?

6) Are there any changes to make in osx to anything in efi?

7) Was it ever necessary for you to compile elilo? Im hoping to avoid this process on mactel-linux

8) Help me?


I dont know what to expect from everyone, but in my experience im always cursed with computers so these things never go smoothly.

I had similar problems
 

I actually did ignore said warnings, and it did work... for awhile. Then i had big problems, lost lots of data, etc, until i was unable to startup. not miuch fun. (it was a good thing i backed up my drive) So i wouldnt suggest you ignore those warnings, unless you want to spend a lot of time fixing your drive. I spent a couple hours talking to my buddy (computer guru) and we formulated some instructions... and then found that someone else on the internet had already figured it out, almost identical to what we spent hours trying to do. The link is right here.
http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Trip...t_via_BootCamp
CHEERS!

very grateful
 

Hey thanks mate, this site worked for me. And on top of that I found out my previous problem of non bootable device. It was because I didnt resynchronise the MBR...arrrrgh!

Doesnt matter I got it all working now so im happy. For anyone else, when in doubt type the error message into google with a few keywords about your situation, you might not literally kick yourself later.