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Linux On MacPro?

bayz

By bayz,
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bayz
bayz
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Has anyone been able to get linux running on a mac pro yet?

 

I have been trying to get linux on mine for the past 5 days, but I get all sorts of different errors (depending on the distro I use).

 

If anyone has been able to get linux on their macpro please write a howto...

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bayz
bayz
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Yesterdays release of Sabayon Linux has some fixes for Intel Macs. http://www.lxnaydesign.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1027

I was able to get it to install and boot once.

 

The installer took over 3 hours to install the single cd release (I blame the stupid sony drive, though it was probably EFI related like everything else) but it completed an reported no errors.

When it restarted I held the option key to select the linux partition (rEFIt doesn't seam to work properly) and everything worked fine. After a reboot into OSX, then back to linux, it no longer boots. The boot process freezes at several different spots.

 

So at least I was able to get linux installed, now I just need to find out how to make it to boot properly.

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bayz
bayz
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This isn't meant as a Linux bash, so I apologize if you take it that way:

 

Why install Linux when a lot of Linuxy goodness has already been ported over to OS X?

 

Several reasons (in no particular order):

 

open source EVERYTHING

xgl/compiz

wine/cedega

its (legally) free!

I can have the same OS on all my computers (not just my mac)

almost everything is customizable

I don't have stupid programs forced upon me like expose, spotlight, and dashboard

and I like the extra work that comes along with it. I hate when u click on something, and it just works! :D

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  • 2 weeks later...
daedius
daedius
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So, I am kinda tired of seeing this thread stagnate, being so popular it is. So, theres some problems getting linux to work with mac pro.

 

A ) If your macpro came with a sony dw-d150A cdrom drive, you should have no problem booting up linux through the normal bootcamp route. At least, i've heard reports of this being successful.

 

B ) If you are unfortunate like me and recieved a Pioneer dvr-111d, you are screwed. The efi CSM (bios emulation) driver of this is crappy and does not work for any distro out there. I.e. your cd will not boot. To make matters even worse, at this moment you cannot buy the sony dw-d150

 

C ) Theres a chance you might be able to boot from USB, but thus far I haven't had much success (but admitedly I have little knowledge in this area)

 

D ) The most recent version of parallels allows you to boot linux. Its all emulated yes, but it works, and is pretty fast I might add. There are other problems that seem apparent though. There are reports of the parallels solution not working, and for some reason MacPro does not have its vt-x enabled. There are fixes for macmini for this problem, but i'm not sure if the same apply to mac pro. I do know one way to turn vt-x on during an osx session is to put your machine in sleep for 10-20 seconds and turn it back on with a click, etc.

 

 

Gah... so as you can see, the picture is unclear. Apple still has alot of work to do to get its BootCamp right ( though i'm not sure if linux is in the big picture or not anytime soon ).

 

Thats all the news from the frontline.

 

Be Vigilant,

- Daedius

:)

 

 

P.S. Please post your experiences here!

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bayz
bayz
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I was able to get linux to install using the newest sabayon miniedition RC ( http://www.sabayonlinux.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1027 ).

I had to use "legacy irqpoll" to get the cd to boot.

I also had to change the xorg.conf file to include 1024x768 then restart the x-server, because the installer was to big to fit in the 800x600 size screen.

The installer worked fine after that, just make sure you manually partition and install grub on the partition (instead of the MBR).

 

BTW, my macpro came with the stupid Sony drive. The install took about 4 long hours to install one cd.

After that I installed a Pioneer 110D that I had laying around. Every time I installed after that it only took about 30 minutes. (It also takes a ridicously long time to rip a DVD with the sony drive)

So if you happen to have a pioneer drive like I did (or wanna buy one for $20), I suggest that you change the sony drive to the second position.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
OSXtasy
OSXtasy
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Nothing wrong with that answer really, as i bought my MBP when i already had(and still have) a Hackintosh zd8000 that runs like a champ, but just wanted to "own" a real Intel Mac, and I like the way it looked. In addition, I am now looking at Mac Pro's, again for this same reason. I just really like playing with new hardare to be honest, and learning all i can about different combinations of software and hardware. I guess thats why I chose IT as a profession. By the way, I would be interested in knowing if mandriva 2007 (with GLX built in) will run on a MacPro(I downloaded last night), if anyone knows.......

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  • 1 month later...
stryder
stryder
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Not to start a flame war, but why did you buy the Mac then?

 

I'm bumping this thread to the top...

 

Now to answer the question: it may be threefold.

 

1. Price. A MacPro similarily configured to a HP or Dell offering costs less.

2. Compatibility.

3. Speed. More about 2 and 3 below.

 

I use a developer environment called "Runtime Revolution". It uses a GUI-based environment for developing GUI applications. They recently announced Intel OS X Universal Binary support. However, they also have a product that runs via command-line and enables CGIs and other nice command-line goodness. However, their engine isn't a UniBin, and talking and pleading with them several times has gotten nowhere. They don't seem to care when or if they port their Darwin PPC engine to x86. As such, performance is bad under Rosetta.

 

Compare that to their Linux version, which runs happily along on Intel Xeons with Linux. I have a project running on a dual-core G5 2.something GHz machine, utilizing RAID 10, and a project running on a shared hosting provider utilizing dual-processor Intel Xeon 2.8. The one running at the shared host provides a boost in performance by as much as 10x. It's unclear if this is due to Linux vs. OS X, the way the engine is ported to different platforms, or the processor architecture itself.

 

It would be nice to test the performance on the same hardware, using an Intel-native engine for both platforms, but alas, that's not possible.

 

I'm in the process of starting a large corporation for a project that looks financially promising, and leaving my current employer. Right now I'm using a shared-host provider, but as we sign up clients, we would need our own hardware. My experience with Macintosh since 1990 leads me to purchase a MacPro for our server needs. However, my experience with the performance would (at least at first) require the installation of Linux to fully utilize the MacPro's Xeon processors.

 

Once Runtime Revolution is ported to x86 Darwin, one would have the opportunity to test the operating systems on the same machine.

 

Now, you're going to ask why I use a development environment with such limitations. I'm a veteran HyperCard programmer. I'm not a general programmer, and have never been able to grasp C, and the like. However, I can do many wonderful things with HyperCard. As you may know, HyperCard is dead, and has been for some time. However, Runtime Revolution's Transcript is a full implementation (and more) of HyperCard's HyperTalk. I was able to develop and deploy a successful eBay-like auction website (except that the site only allows selling of this company's goods instead of other people's goods) using this software. The company I work for has been using HyperCard since 1997, when it was popular, and many already-proven pieces of code can simply be copy-pasted into a CGI environment and run in any web browser.

 

To summerize, I would buy MacPros for Linux initially, then deploy back to OS X if and when the performance allowed. The MacPro allows you the flexability to switch OSes that no other hardware platform provides. And it costs less, too.

 

;)

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brbo
brbo
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Fedora Core 6 Supports Boot Camp... Everything worked great for me... No problems..

 

can you tell me on what Mac did you install FC6? I'm ready to go back to linux (nothing wrong with OSX), well dual boot for now, but i'm a little hesitant because of touchpad, iSight, sleep etc. support in FC6. i have MacBook (CoreDuo 1).

 

because if it doesn't work "out-of-the-box" in FC6 i might as well install my preferred linux distro - gentoo and get it working "manually".

 

Thanks!

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Adrian Fogge
Adrian Fogge
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For the most part, everything in a Macbook will work just fine...

You will have some minor issues with Wireless Networking if you want to use the native driver rather than ndiswrapper.

You will also not have the multi-finger scrolling, however you will get multi-finger tapping.

 

I absolutely love mouse button for "left click", two fingers for "right click" and three fingers for "middle click".

 

The only thing that you really need to worry about is if you have one of the new systems with the Atheros 802.11n wireless network card as it does not currently work in Madwifi or ndiswrapper at the moment. Both of these are being resolved, but nothing working at the moment.

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  • 11 months later...
nikitavfx
nikitavfx
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This is an old post, sorry for reviving it.

 

There's a huge difference between getting a Macbook running Linux and a Mac Pro. The MacPro has very specific issues. Read these articles how to get Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy running on a Mac Pro:

 

http://macprolinux.blogspot.com

 

Installation HowTo: http://macprolinux.blogspot.com/2007/10/in...on-mac-pro.html

 

Compiling a 2.6.23 kernel on a Mac Pro: http://macprolinux.blogspot.com/2007/10/ho...or-mac-pro.html

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  • 1 year later...
trapper1204
trapper1204
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I was able to get CentOS 5.3 on my MacPro.

 

I first installed on a PC. Raid 1.. created my partitions, and installed.

 

Then I just pulled drives from the PC and dropped them in the MacPro.

 

The only down side is I have to boot with the option key pressed.

 

 

 

 

But it works.. and its fast

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ludacrisvp
ludacrisvp
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I was able to get CentOS 5.3 on my MacPro.

I first installed on a PC. Raid 1.. created my partitions, and installed.

Then I just pulled drives from the PC and dropped them in the MacPro.

The only down side is I have to boot with the option key pressed.

But it works.. and its fast

Well you brought up a really really old thread that is way outdated.

But the easy way to solve your option key thing would to use rEFIt and that will let you choose between all the OSs on your Mac.

You can have it come up at every boot with a 20 second time out defaulted to OSX.

You may also want to look into the GRUB boot loader method of enabling AHCI that I have posted in this section.

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