[SOLVED] Mac boot entry

Hi,

I know during installation and in the documentation, it says that adding a boot entry on an Intel Mac using EFI can damage it. I'm wondering though, is this still the case?

I've installed many other distros on my 2013 Macbook Air and 2013 Mac Pro, and both seem to use efibootmgr to add entries without issue This allows me to select it just by holding option on my keyboard during boot. This also does not require rEFInd or any other third party boot menu.

Has anyone tried allowing it to add a boot menu entry on a recent Intel Mac with the latest Apple EFI, or is it still dangerous to do so?

I don't know if it's still the case. If you have time do some searching to try to get clarification on that.

However our Guru yancek might know and chime in.

During the installation and documentation of what? Your Linux system? Not sure what your question is as you seem to have answered it yourself by stating that you have used efibootmgr successfully? Why do you need to hold the Option key, don't you get a boot menu? I've never used a Mac so...?

Originally Posted by yancek During the installation and documentation of what? Your Linux system? Not sure what your question is as you seem to have answered it yourself by stating that you have used efibootmgr successfully? Why do you need to hold the Option key, don't you get a boot menu? I've never used a Mac so...?

I am referring to the installation of Slackware64 14.2 or current. In the UEFI Readme, https://mirror.slackbuilds.org/slack...EADME_UEFI.TXT, it says, "If you are using an Apple Intel Mac, DO NOT TRY TO INSTALL A MENU ENTRY! It would probably brick your firmware requiring Apple
to service the machine to reflash the firmware." However, other distros seem to use efibootmgr during their installs, and it hasn't bricked my Macs.

You can hold option during boot to show bootable partitions, however without a boot entry, the partition containing elilo doesn't show.

Hi.
I ended up using http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/ as boot manager for my MacBook 2011.

It's ( quite ) esay to install and I can now use several partition on it.

Maybe it could be usefull for you ?

Pigi

Right, I hear that rEFInd is good for things like this. Right now as I'm dual booting Fedora on my Mac Pro with Slackware64 -current I'm using GRUB to handle booting, and on my Macbook Air I found a thread where you use bless from macOS as I'm dual booting it with Slackware64 14.2.

Are you able to boot into Slackware now?

Originally Posted by Ztcoracat Are you able to boot into Slackware now?

By using bless on my Macbook Air, it does make the ELILO EFI partition the main boot device, which does load Slackware. However, it doesn't show up as a bootable device when I hold option to show the bootable device list. On my Mac Pro I just use GRUB to boot Slackware as I am dual booting with Fedora.

So, yes, I can boot Slackware fine on both devices, although I wish there was a way to have it listed as a bootable device when I hold option.

Originally Posted by The_Dark_Passenger By using bless on my Macbook Air, it does make the ELILO EFI partition the main boot device, which does load Slackware. However, it doesn't show up as a bootable device when I hold option to show the bootable device list. On my Mac Pro I just use GRUB to boot Slackware as I am dual booting with Fedora. So, yes, I can boot Slackware fine on both devices, although I wish there was a way to have it listed as a bootable device when I hold option.

Glad to hear Slackware boots for you.

Sorry I don't know a way to make it list as a device like you would like.
Maybe try looking in a Mac Forum.
http://www.mac-forums.com/

Have a good week ahead-

Originally Posted by Ztcoracat Glad to hear Slackware boots for you. Sorry I don't know a way to make it list as a device like you would like. Maybe try looking in a Mac Forum. http://www.mac-forums.com/ Have a good week ahead-

No worries! Slackware64's working very well on these machines.

And thank you! Have a great week too!

Originally Posted by The_Dark_Passenger No worries! Slackware64's working very well on these machines. And thank you! Have a great week too!

You're Welcome.

Don't forget to mark your thread SOLVED.