Booting MacBook Air via USB

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uyduruq
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Booting MacBook Air via USB

Post#1 by uyduruq » 30 Sep 2012, 20:04

Hello, I hope this is right place for this topic.
I am trying to boot my MacBook Air using Porteus x64. There must be some additional tasks because of UEFI system but I could not find what to do. It seems GRUB has an EFI support, but I don't have detailed information about loaders so I could not find a solution for this. What can I do about this?

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Re: Booting MacBook Air via USB

Post#2 by wread » 30 Sep 2012, 21:05

Hi uyduruq, welcome an board!

Porteus is a potable operating system for the PC, although we have made it work in a Mac laptop too. The Mac can be started with an .iso CD, so you can try starting Porteus 64 bit from CD. You must choose "Copy to ram" option. When the system is up and running you can take the CD away. You are running Porteus! Try it.

Regards!
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uyduruq
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Re: Booting MacBook Air via USB

Post#3 by uyduruq » 30 Sep 2012, 22:17

Hello, I don't have cd rom with my macbook, so I have to find a way to use usb boot with efi support.

cchuang
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Re: Booting MacBook Air via USB

Post#4 by cchuang » 01 Oct 2012, 08:19

I also use Macbook Air with USB stick and it runs well with Porteus-1.2 64/32.
However, there are some facts I could not explain, for example, some USB sticks can boot but some can not boot.


After making porteus Linux bootable USB stick, you can try like my way:

Plug USB stick into MBA, press "option" key and power on, you should see the boot menu include USB stick there.

Good luck,

uyduruq
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Re: Booting MacBook Air via USB

Post#5 by uyduruq » 01 Oct 2012, 16:45

cchuang wrote:I also use Macbook Air with USB stick and it runs well with Porteus-1.2 64/32.
However, there are some facts I could not explain, for example, some USB sticks can boot but some can not boot.


After making porteus Linux bootable USB stick, you can try like my way:

Plug USB stick into MBA, press "option" key and power on, you should see the boot menu include USB stick there.

Good luck,
I have an usb stick which can be used on other laptops, i mean not mac.
When I press option during startup, I see only local hardrive as a boot device on my mac. Did you installed Refit or anything similar to this?

uyduruq
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Re: Booting MacBook Air via USB

Post#6 by uyduruq » 01 Oct 2012, 16:50

Also, I have tested it with Toshiba Trans Memory, Kingston DTI G2, G3, Transcend (any), and Kingston MicroSD with reader. All of these works with other pc's but do not on MBA.

cchuang
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Re: Booting MacBook Air via USB

Post#7 by cchuang » 01 Oct 2012, 23:42

The problem about boot ability, you can try such the way:

Plug the USB stick or SD card into the system. If it is recognized as "/dev/sdc: sdc1" (note the number 1 at the end), it should be not bootable (on MBA) by copying all porteus files on it. Instead, you might format the device (stick or SD card) by cfdisk: delete, new and change the the partition to Linux format. Save it and format by "mkfs". Repeat the process of making Porteus Linux. Try again.

Hope this help for you.

uyduruq
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Re: Booting MacBook Air via USB

Post#8 by uyduruq » 20 Jan 2013, 18:29

cchuang wrote:The problem about boot ability, you can try such the way:

Plug the USB stick or SD card into the system. If it is recognized as "/dev/sdc: sdc1" (note the number 1 at the end), it should be not bootable (on MBA) by copying all porteus files on it. Instead, you might format the device (stick or SD card) by cfdisk: delete, new and change the the partition to Linux format. Save it and format by "mkfs". Repeat the process of making Porteus Linux. Try again.

Hope this help for you.
Hi, Can you explain it a bit detailed? I have created ext2 partition, but still cannot boot MBA.

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