[SOLVED] Arch,Debian,XP,OSX w/ Grub2?

[FrozenFox]

Hello

 

I've been trying to get this working for days, googling around and trial-and-error to no avail. So before I kidnap a baby and punt it out the window of a very tall hospital, I figured it's time to ask for help.

 

Btw, if I've confused a term or done something stupid or overlooked a topic with the correct answer, please tell me. I'm very new at the osx scene, and have tried quite a few things and done a lot of searching to get this to work without the annoyance of screwing with the bios or typing in a command -every time- i want to reboot into osx. Some people say that it just won't work on grub2, others say they've managed it. I don't know, but I've gotten it to get very close (see notes)..

 

Setup & Problems:

 

MOBO: P4S800D-X

 

PROC: 3.2 Ghz P4 SC

 

HD1: Maxtor

* SATA (160g)

* Grub2 MBR

* Contains Windows XP, Arch Linux, Debian Linux, swap, /home

* Due to SiS 655Fx chipset, this cannot be read, apparently, in OSX. Annoying, but fine.

 

HD2: Seagate

* IDE (40g)

* MBR installation (iirc)

* Contains iPC leopard 10.5.6 (iirc again) and an ext3 partition with boot_v8

 

GRUB2 Relevant Parts:

#Entry 6 - OSX Leopard

menuentry "OSX" {

set root=(hd1,2)

#chainloader /usr/standalone/i386/boot.efi

multiboot /boot/boot_v8

}

 

NOTES:

1) I can't/won't dump grub2 for legacy or another boot loader.

* It would be a disheartening pain with everything I have set up and the work i've done below.

* http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=56576

2) I can't install it on the sata drive. Not enough space and osx wont pick it up.

3) If I switch the hard drive BIOS order so the OSX drive boots, it works and boots fine.

4) If I use the boot_v8 deal, it DOES get to chameleon.

* ...however, after the timer ends, my pc abruptly reboots prior to the aple loading screen. /grumble

5) I can't seem to get any manner of chainloader lines to work, as commented in the grub2 piece.

6) I suspect I've done something wrong with the boot_v8 deal or just don't understand it at all. Correct me if so..

 

Thanks all.

[FrozenFox]

Yay! I solved this little problem like this (Note: some steps may be unnecessary, but I'm noting everything I can remember doing).

 

(Note again that this is using 2 hard drives, with linux distros and win xp on one, osx leopard on the other).

 

Tedious step-by-step:

 

1) OSX doesn't detect my SATA drive on P4S800D-X mobo with SiS 655FX chip, so I set up another HD as the Master on an IDE ribbon.

2) Downloaded, burned, booted up iDeneb osx w/ leopard 10.5.5.

3) Set up an HFS+ W/ Journaling partition taking up the entire drive in the osx installer. In options, set it to MBR mode.

4) Installed, and set the corresponding drivers in "Customize" before clicking install the 2nd time.

5) Switched BIOS hard drive boot order to load the OSX drive first

6) Tested, installed drivers, etc

7) Switched BIOS boot order back, loaded Arch Linux

8) Command in console to change the OSX drive id: sudo sfdisk --change-id /dev/sda 1 af

9) Loaded gparted via the usual sudo gparted, resized the osx drive down by about 400 mb just to be safe, and then changed the newly freed space after the hfs+ partition to an ext3 partition.

10) Command: sudo mkdir /media/mymount

11) Command: sudo mkdir /media/mymount/boot

12) Command: sudo mount /dev/sda2 /media/mymount (NOTE: needs hfsprogs, hfsplus, etc)

13) Downloaded 'boot' from http://www.mediafire.com/?rdonkiqyzlz to desktop, renamed to boot_v9

14) Command: sudo cp ~/Desktop/boot_v9 /media/mymount/boot then sudo umounted /dev/sda2

15) Edited /boot/grub/grub.cfg accordingly:

# Entry 6 - OSX Leopard

menuentry "OSX" {

set root=(hd1,2)

multiboot (hd1,2)/boot/boot_v9

}

 

Voila! It worked, booted correctly all the way to the desktop without screwing with the bios. Yay! I'm pretty sure I didn't miss any steps here, but it's possible that I did.