I have read plenty of threads on here of installing Slack on a Macbook Pro with OSX and Windows using boot camp. My question is, can I just have a nice clean install of Slackware? Is there anything I need to be aware of when installing Slackware on a macbook pro? Drivers? Bios? Any hidden partitions?

I haven't tried this, but it looks nice. This guy's approach is

- install osx on an external hdd
- boot from a linux live cd and repartition the internal hdd for linux
- while repartitioning create a tiny partition (~20MB) to install rEFIt
- boot from osx extrnal hdd installation and format this partition as HFS+
- copy rEFIt to the partition
- reboot from linux cd
- install linux

Whichever approach you choose to go with, let me know how it went, cause I'm really interested in this subject ;-)

I have a mid-2006 MacBook Pro 2.16, with a broken superdrive (it reads but doesn't eject), and I suspect it'll be challenging...

A "slackbook pro," I guess you can call it.

you read my mind :-)

Do I need rEFIt if I'm not going to dual boot? OS X is going in the trash bin and I'm sure as heck not going to install windows.
One other thing I have been meaning to ask for years is when you are nearing the end of installation of Slackware and it asks about which services you would like running (Apache, Bind,...) which ones does a person not running a server need?

I think that with grub you can manage without rEFIt, but lilo (Slackware's default) needs it. Have a look at Arch's wiki (always a good resource).

Right now I'm waiting for an IDE/SATA-to-USB adapter. When it arrives I'll try the external hdd solution and report back.

As for the services, for my desktop I have cups (for my printer), fuse, hal, dbus, syslog.

Thanks guys. Time to get this party started. I'll let you know how it goes.

How do I mount the internal drive when I am running from the external drive? Mac OS X Lion did not mount it automagically on boot up and I'm not familiar enough with macs to figure out how to mount it, I tried the Linux standby's mount/dev/sda, mount/dev/hda. Also, every live Linux CD I tried failed to find the CD/DVD drive after booting from the CD/DVD drive. I are not as smrt as I thought I is.

Lion:

Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility

from there you can format/mount devices. You must format a partition to a format Mac OS understands to mount it.

When I go to create and format partitions with disk utility, it will ask me the number of partitions. If I select one, it makes that partition the whole drive no matter what I select the size to be. If I select more than one partition, it divides the drive up evenly among whatever number I select.
I was able to create a HFS+ partition with Slackware's installation disk but I can't figure out how to mount it from Mac OSX Lion running from an external drive. When I am running OSX from an external drive I can get refit to run but it will not list the internal drive as an installation option, what am I doing wrong or not doing?

Why not create the refit partition using the linux cd, then format and mount it from the osx installation?

rEFIt's purpose is to boot linux's partition. Also, I hope you installed refit on the HFS+ partition of the internal drive you created, and not the external hdd?

Also, have a look at this. http://refit.sourceforge.net/myths/

excerpt:
as you can see, there is a way to use LILO without Bootcamp. Do as much reading as you can. In case you missed the link in my post above here it is. That guy uses grub, but the steps should be mostly the same.

hey mate, Macs don't use a BIOS, they use an efi. instead, which is why you need refit; to kind of emulate a BIOS to my understanding. grub is a BIOS based boot loader, which is why this is required. refit installs itself on the os x partition, not on one of its own. I never installed slack on my MacBook pro 7.1 but all Linux distros follow the same basic steps and there are some good guides for installing Ubuntu that I recomend to assist you. the most important step is you install Lilo or any other boot loader to the root not mbr

I have a macbook pro 5,5 running slackware-current with LILO, and no refit.

I think you only need refit, if you planning on dual booting OS X, since it needs a GPT partition table.

If you don't need OS X:

This is what I did.
1. Boot up a gparted cd, or any live cd that has gparted and reformat the drive using the "msdos" partition table.
2. Now, install Slackware with lilo or grub.
3. You may notice that it takes almost 30 seconds to get from POST to the bootloader. To fix this, boot up with the Mac OS X install dvd. Fire up Terminal and type in "bless --device /dev/disk0s2 --setBoot --legacy --verbose ". Replace disk0s2, with the appropriate boot partition. Now, if you reboot it should take less than 3 seconds to get to the bootloader.

That's it.

I found the easiest way to get Slackware 13.37 is to use an openSUSE and select the autopartition thing with BTRFS scheme, and select the minimal stuff to install. Once you have a working openSUSE, then begin your Slackware install.

When you get to the part to partition, let it see the BTRFS (which the latest Slackware supports), and install on that. It goes fast. I do the Full Install, all the default easy things, and work it all out later removing stuff after the fact. So far I have been lucky this way.

If for some ungodly reason you want to go back to OS X, be warned, LILO plays hell on things with my machine. There should be no reason to go back, but know its tough.

About the only way I can get things to take OS X again is to use an old Ubuntu DVD with the 1st Grub, and attempt to find the whole HD again. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get it all back. Once you do, set an ext4 partition and run with it. The OS X will usually find this, and hook up, then get into the Disk Utility and erase like crazy, and go from there. 99/100 times the EFI kicks in and all go well again, except you miss Linux more.

Best bet is to sell or trade the Mac for a Think Pad, and do not look back.

But Slackware goes great on the BTRFS laid down by openSUSE automatically. If you can do it by hand, your a better man than I am!

I should add, when messing with a MacBook and F/OSS, always keep a copy of Porteus 1.2rc or later, which will boot and keep you online with WIFI or other to research what to do next. Saved me a couple times. You grow to hate Apple after all this. Good luck, and may Slackware be with you for years to come!

Doing it this way, I found no need for rEFIt. I do type in at the boot selection 'nomodeset nvidia' for what its worth. If you keep having issues, Porteus will always help you through. To install it to the HD is a trick, it only hooks up to one "slice" currently. I managed to get the whole 320 Gig HD, and loved it as my OS for a while, but I did something wrong somewhere fiddling, and lost all audio output. I panicked and reinstalled OS X, and hated myself since.

Personally, I am shopping for a Think Pad, and not buying another Apple again.

Peace.

Georg