Eric D. Schabell: Undo a Macbook Linux dual boot setup

Friday, July 6, 2007

Undo a Macbook Linux dual boot setup

I have been running my macbook with a bootcamp and rEFIt enabled dual boot. Ubuntu Linux and osX on two seperate partions. I decided to undo this and put Linux in a virtual machine setup with Parallels. Here is what I had to do:

First off I needed to win back the partion I had created with bootcamp, so I started the assistant you can find in Applications -> Utilities and choose the option to reclaim my extra partition. A restart was needed which still shows me the rEFIt menu with osX and Linux as choices.

To remove this menu you can follow the instructions at the rEFIt project:

Removal when using rEFItBlesser

While booted into Mac OS X, rename or remove the “efi” folder. For a 100% clean
de-installation, also remove the folder “rEFItBlesser” inside “Library/StartupItems”.

Removal for manual installs

First, open the “Startup Disk” preference pane and select “Mac OS X” as the operating system to boot. This will re-bless your Mac OS X volume and instruct the firmware to boot from it. After this, rename or remove the “efi” folder.

Troubleshooting

If Mac OS X no longer starts up after removing rEFIt, boot from the Mac OS X Install Disc (hold down the ‘C’ key while booting) and run “Startup Disk” from the “Utilities” menu. There, select “Mac OS X” on your hard disk as the operating system to boot.


After this I installed Parallels and put Kubuntu 7.04 on that. There were a couple of hitches to the process so here are my tips:

  • memory must be <= 512MB
  • at the boot prompt enter live vga=790
A good detailed step-by-step for the installation can be found at SimpleHelp. Good luck!


1 comment:

  1. Hello !

    Pour ceux que ca intérèsse on a publié un article récemment sur du dual boot Mac + Ubuntu 10.04 !

    ( http://www.geckogeek.fr/double-boot-mac-os-x-et-ubuntu-10-04-avec-refit-et-bootcamp.html )

    Bonne semaine !
    Vincent

    ReplyDelete

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