Background
I've successfully installed Ubuntu 64bit 14.04.03 Desktop on my old White Core 2 Duo iMac
Linux is a second OS, with OS X 10.7.5 still in place and usable.
The only install recipe I found to work was amd64+mac option from an external CD drive - internal is broken, USB didn't work
"Try Ubuntu" from Live CD works fine
refind 0.10.2
- I selected install grub to the specific partition during installation
Problem
Refind boot menu with a Linux boot option shown. However selecting it causes a black screen for 10 seconds approx and then rapid flashing white cursor in top left hand corner, caps lock unresponsive, CTRL-alt-Delete has no effect
Things I've tried
- using live CD to adjust default grub linux params to include nomodeset noapic acpi=off
- complete power off instead of reboot
- searching google for many hours
- holding down option key during boot - only existing OS X + recovery are shown
- putting the nomodeset noapic acpi=off options in the refind boot parameters via the F2 editor
Conclusions
- My older iMac will only boot Linux in Legacy aka BIOS mode. This is how the live CD works, I checked /sys/firmware/efi and its not present
- I don't believe Refind is even trying to do a legacy boot, it is using a EFI boot
- There is this thing called hybrid MBR which the author of Refind hates with a passion, however this might be the only way forward
Questions
- Is it possible to force legacy BIOS boot from refind?
- Do I even need grub? Does Refind bypass this and boot the kernel itself?
- will I have to resort to this hybrid MBR thing?
- Is it possible to put refind into some kind of debug mode so I can see exactly what is happening, whether Ubuntu is even starting?
- Should I even need Refind - is it possible to get partition to show up in Boot+Hold option key startup?