So I'm trying to install Ubuntu as a single boot on a pretty old macbook (circa late 2006). I downloaded the ubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso and DD'd it to a flash drive, but my old macbook wouldn't read it (no valid filesystem sort of thing). I tried burning it to a DVD, same issue; if I tried to boot it while holding down the option key, the laptop would literally spit out the DVD before even booting up, and then show just its own disk.
Naturally I did some googling, and found http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2094075. Basically, the .iso is packaged weirdly and mac doesn't like it. So I tried the instructions mentioned on that page (dd if=/disk/rdiskNs1 of=./ubuntu-reg_iso.iso bs=1m); that resulted in an image with one small partition that I can mount, which contains /efi/boot/bootx64.efi,grubx64.efi. Assuming the other partition was simply hidden and would be available to the EFI bootloader, I burned this to a DVD. (BTW I'm doing all these things on a mid 2010 macbook pro running OS X.8.5, not on the old machine.) But when I restart the macbook holding down the option key, it doesn't give me the option to boot off of the DVD.
I also followed the instructions here: Why can't I mount the Ubuntu 12.04 installer ISOs in Mac OS X? and used Keka to extract the original .iso, so I have its contents:
EFI/
Master.cdr
README.diskdefines
[BOOT]/
autorun.inf
boot/
casper/
dists/
install/
isolinux/
md5sum.txt
pics/
pool/
preseed/
wubi.exe
But I assume I can't just stick all those in a new .iso and burn that; there's some formatting that has to be done. Right?
