Hello!

Bought an old powerbook G4 PPC to see, what the animal Mac OS X are, and its looks not bad.
Thinking, maybe an an autumn or so on to buy a more modern laptop on core 2 duo cpu - macbook or macbook pro - version past 3,1 seem, to get latest macos support.

reading about their bootcamp to have dual boot to windows, but windows not interesting me at all - i interested to slackware duial boot with mac os.

anyone there have that experience? drivers, hardware, methods?

also interesting in experience and thoughts, if there is Mac users / switchers also...

Most MacBooks are Intel+Nvidia x86-64 based systems anymore, so with Bootcamp you could install any type of other OS as long as it's compatible with the hardware.

However be aware that if this is your goal, you could effectively buy any off the shelf laptop to run Slackware. MacBooks really are just choice parts to fill a specification. OSX is just an overglorified version of FreeBSD with a Gnome2/Mate based UI with Quartz for compositing (which operates similar to Wayland and Compiz), Cairo-Dock for a launcher, with a service supervisor running the whole thing. To be honest, if it wasn't for Apple's Carbon and Cocoa libs it would be just another FreeBSD clone.

Intel + Nvidia video is a cool ones.
most of that, who i look for ( 2006 - 2010 production) is intel + intel X3100 or so on

thanks for opinion, get your point.
I be exploring mac os x 10.4 / 10.5 by a week now, and i can say, i like it.
it has some drawbacks if compare with slackware, sure, and it have a some improvements, imho.
play around till end of summer, then see - but looks like i switch to mac os x in my laptops category ( be sure with slack on second partition in case of, but...

Wrong. The ability to boot off any Linux on these machines widely vary upon the model and associated firmware, so that's pretty much a hit or miss endeavor, as different models have various abilities, nowhere fully documented.

For instance most very recent Macs accept a FAT formatted ESP, but older ones only a HFS+ formatted one, that Slackware's installer doesn't provide.

So my advice is simple: before buying, check the exact model and then find out through an Internet search if someone succeeded in installing Linux on that box.

Also, I haven't heard lot of people successfully modifying a recent Mac's boot manager menu, most people rely on refind or grub. It adds a layer of complexity to put an alien menu on top of the firmware's boot menu so that may be not very elegant, but that works more often. Further more, efibootmgr has been reported to brick at least some Macs in making the firmware unusable.

PS See here for instance for reports of success and issues using Syslinux (not directly applicable though as Slackware doesn't ship Syslinux 6.03 thus doesn't rely on Syslinux for EFI booting. Anyway Syslinux 6.03 is not able to boot off an optical media in case of an EFI firmware, but I digress).

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Putting the menu bar at the top of the screen drives me batsh1t, but your mileage may vary.

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Not to point our a flaw in your statement, but in regards to your reply I did say "as long as it's compatible with the hardware", so technically there was nothing wrong with my statement Didier, which you clearly said about checking the model and researching if there is compatibility. Of course people should do research first, which is an understatement.

[QUOTE=ReaperX7;5343298 OSX is just an overglorified version of FreeBSD with a Gnome2/Mate based UI with Quartz for compositing (which operates similar to Wayland and Compiz), Cairo-Dock for a launcher, with a service supervisor running the whole thing. To be honest, if it wasn't for Apple's Carbon and Cocoa libs it would be just another FreeBSD clone.[/QUOTE]

Hello!
Looks interestingly, as icon on your information bar shows, you there use a MacOS

If not secret, why you choice that "overglorified FreeBSD" ?

I'm on my iPAD Mini so I'm using iOS. However, I have used a MacBook before and honestly, well, it's... really... not that special. Apple has a lot of software that promotes professional media, design, development, and office, but honestly, you can find similar to same software on Windows and Linux/BSD equally. I actually sold mine a few years back, and don't regret it. The money I paid for the MacBook was not really worth what I paid to be honest with you. I could have easily gotten an HP Envy with near equivalent specs for less than half the cost of my MacBook, which I bought and still use.

A top end MacBook Pro with near equal specs to something equal to or near that of an Acer, HP, Toshiba, or ASUS costs about $2500 USD compared to a normal laptop that's about $650-1500 USD depending on equipment installed. Overall, they're nice, but not worth the expense if you're using GNU/Linux.

I also got my iPAD free in a raffle.

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There is usually no hardware problem big enough to prevent installation, but there can be a firmware problem, big enough if not to completely prevent installation, at least to make it very difficult and not straightforward as a user could expect. Not everyone wants to spend hours and read a lot of docs just to have an OS installed. Just stating "hardware should be OK" (which is true) could mislead the user, making her/him assume that she/he won't encounter any issue (which is wrong). That's what I meant.

In other words the statement "with Bootcamp you could install any type of OS" is wrong.

PS Well, probably Matthew Garrett or H. Peter Anvin could. But it is very unlikely that they request help in this forum about that

I have experience setting up a triple boot (OS X, Slackware, Windows 7/8.1) on a MBP 8.3 (which I don't recommend you buy, maybe it's bad luck, but I had mine serviced multiple times during my extended warranty, it's now out of warranty now and failing again).

I think most x86/x86_64 Macbooks can run Linux, but each model has to be dealt with differently. If you cannot find information about a specific model, try looking at information for other Macbook models that came out at the same time if the hardware is similar, the same solution might work.

Installing Slackware wasn't too difficult, having everything work was quite a bit more challenging though since the information that I needed was everywhere but in tiny pieces.

If it interests you, here's what I remember for the MBP 8.3, some of it might apply to the other models:

BIOS mode (via Windows)
- Needs to use the hybrid GPT/MBR partition scheme. On this model, Windows works best in BIOS mode.
- Can boot Linux by editing the Windows BCD to boot LILO (Only practical with Windows 7, not practical with Windows 8/8.1).
- It uses one of the ATA SFF kernel drivers (I believe it's ata_piix).
- Intel HD graphics disabled, uses the AMD/ATI Radeon graphics card only.

EFI mode
- I don't think the partition scheme matters. For the internal HDD you should use GPT or hybrid GPT/MBR partition scheme since OS X uses the ESP partition for firmware updates.
- Recognises /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI on a FAT32 formatted partition. It does not matter whether the drive is MBR or GPT formatted. I think this applies to both external and internal drives, but I haven't confirmed if it's true for internal drives.
- Can boot Linux with an EFI stub kernel or EFI bootloader. The EFI stub kernel with builtin command line to specify root partition is recommended, the Radeon graphics card does not work properly otherwise. When using an EFI bootloader, nomodeset must be passed and the display does not work starting from when the bootloader is loaded until halfway through the kernel boot process.
- It uses the AHCI SATA kernel driver.
- Both graphics card can work. If using an external monitor, the Radeon is recommended since the mini DisplayPort port is connected to it. I compiled out support for the Intel HD graphics in my case.

Other notes
- The wireless can use either the b43 or broadcom-sta wl driver. The wl driver worked better for me.
- Other mac specific kernel drivers that are used are the hid_apple and the apple touchpad drivers. Setting /sys/module/hid_apple/parameters/fnmode to 2 is important if you want F1-F12 to work as F1-F12 without holding down the Fn key.

What I think I did for triple booting, booting Linux in EFI mode without rEFInd
1. Used Bootcamp. This creates a hybrid GPT/MBR.
2. Installed Windows 7 (and later 8.1) on NTFS partition.
3. Repartitioned HDD while in OS X (HFS+, FAT32, NTFS). An ESP is automatically added.
4. Converted FAT32 partition to ext4.
5. Installed Slackware 14.1 - I believe there was a partition detection issue, with the ext4 partition being detected twice. This might be due to the hybrid GPT/MBR partition scheme. Not a big deal. Skip any EFI stuff.
6. Created a custom EFI stub kernel with builtin command line and moved the kernel onto a FAT32 partition on a USB stick with the pathname /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI. Used the USB to boot Slackware.

What I suspect the process for booting Linux in EFI mode would have been without Windows
1. Partition HDD in OS X (HFS+, FAT32, any other partitions you want for Linux formatted as FAT32). Bootcamp is unnecessary.
2. Change Linux partition types except for first FAT32 partition.
3. Install Slackware 14.1. Skip any EFI stuff.
4. Create custom EFI stub kernel with builtin command line, place in FAT32 partition with pathname /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI and boot from that.

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It's all in the name: powerbook G4 PPC
This is an old Mac with PPC processor so not x86. To my knowledge there's no PPC Slackware?
Debian does have a PPC version.

You forget BCD and Virtual Hard Disks can be used with Windows 7 or later to boot technically any operating system as long as it has room to install to the virtual drive. This might technically bypass the firmware requirements, but you would still be limited to the hardware involved. It's... not the most... ethical way to do things... but it can work in a pinch.

sorry for bad writing, i try to write - i now buyed and experiment with G4 powerbook ( who is with old, good RISC processor), but advices about dual boots, etc, i need for never -past 2006 - macbooks based on intel hardware.

not plan put slackware on PPC.

from another side: till now all i do read and see with that old mac laptop and Mac OS X itself -it all works.
installation is very, very easy.
there is not need to install any additional drivers.
all works from box - suspend, hotkeys, etc.
programms installation and uninstall is fantastic easy way - i like that way.

yes, mac os x looks like a bit "simple" - there is only few choices in configurations, etc, but all that is good also from some another side.
when i was young, i like computers, and i like "sex" with them.
these days, i can decide to start rteinstall my computer with fresh Win95 OSR2 version in 3:00 in night, and got sleep in 09:00 in morning with happy smile.
but as i get old, and also have a work with computers problems solving too, i get lazy - i want to minimize my work with computers.
i want to it "simple work" - it is one of argument, why i abandon MS OS-es about 10 years ago and fully switched to linux at home ( and at work too, where it is possible).
and now i see even more easy and working without "sex" os. i became interesting in it...