How to install on a mac and get rid of OSX

Question

I would like to install ubuntu on a mac instead of running OSX. How Can I do this?

Zied R. · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-08T03:25:05.703

0

you'll need rEFIt to be able to do the dual boot.

edited Mar 08 '14 at 03:25

answered Mar 08 '14 at 00:59

Zied R.

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3

1

Your webpage says its no longer maintained and has a link to this. (http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/) is this the same thing? – user214522 Mar 08 '14 at 03:20
yes it's the same – Zied R. Mar 08 '14 at 03:25

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 13 '14 at 12:53

You do not need refit or refind to boot ubuntu from a mac if you are doing a single boot. In fact grub2 can handle booting of osx and ubuntu so it's not necessary at all.

Advice getting native ubuntu on mbp from experience:

Back up your data.
Create an OSX recovery disk/usb found here.
Boot recovery disk and use diskutility to reformat and repartition the drive. You will need a partition for the filesystem and another for a swap partition.
Reboot into live cd - select something else - make sure your installation will not touch the EFI partition. Change the option to "Do not use".
Install ubuntu but do not reboot (continue testing). You may get an error during installation about being unable to install a bootloader, ignore it for now and continue.
Run boot-repair (available here) and follow instructions to install grubEFI.

Thats it, you can now reboot and enjoy ubuntu running natively on a mbp.

NOTE: If you are wishing to have a dual boot then follow the steps above without deleting or reformatting your osx partition. Grub will detect the osx efi once you have run boot-repair.

How to install on a mac and get rid of OSX

2 Answers2