Hello
I just want to post a success story. I was able to install Server 16.04.1 onto a Macpro2,1 (eight core) last week.
For reference, these links were a huge help:
https://blog.christophersmart.com/20...-only-machine/
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFIBooting
http://blog.sergem.net/how-to-instal...efi-boot-mode/
http://heeris.id.au/2014/ubuntu-plus-mac-pure-efi-boot/
Tools Used:
- Macbook Pro with VMware Fusion. Ubuntu 16 desktop as a guest
- 8Gb Lexar USB2 stick
I tried to document everything I did, so here we go:
1. Build i386-efi bootloader using latest grub2 code (I pulled the source from git. At the time, the version of grub2 was 2.02~beta3)
2. Prepare USB stick for booting (obviously my USB stick was at /dev/sdb, this may not be the same in your system. use
to verify)
3. Create the grub.cfg (placed in /media/usb/efi/boot/grub.cfg)
I add to add the kernel option "nomodeset" because the system would crash. My macpro has an ATI Radeon based video card and I found this link:
http://apple.stackexchange.com/quest...b-from-efi-vga
The linux and initrd.gz images were taken from the Ubuntu Server 16.04.1 netinstall image. I just used wget to download them directly.
At this point the USB stick is ready to boot, so I can just umount it and put it into the macpro. The guided partitioning automatically created a ESP "EFI System Partiion" for me, so I didn't have to worry about making it myself (previous howto articles discussed having to do this)
I installed base packages and completed the install. So far so good...
4. At this point, Ubuntu is installed but the macpro will not boot into Ubuntu. This is because the ESP created during install is a VFAT partiion. Apple's EFI architecture looks for a HFS partition. Using the USB stick, I booted back into grub and booted Ubuntu manually:
Now, in order to complete this, I needed get the UUID of the “root” partition. Within grub “ls -l” is supposed to show that, but it didn’t work for me. I don't know if this is a bug, but “ls -l” seemed to be broken.
However, the command would boot Ubuntu but since it couldn't find the boot partition, it dropped me into a initramfs BusyBox shell. Here I could use
to get the UUID of the root partition to properly boot.
Now I could complete the “fixing the EFI partition" steps from http://heeris.id.au/2014/ubuntu-plus-mac-pure-efi-boot/
5. Fini! The macpro would now boot into Ubuntu with a text based boot. This machine is going to be a headless machine, so technically it didn't matter. But I figured that I might eventually need to access the console, so having video at the console would probably be a good idea.
6. The macpro is now running plexmediaserver, sonarr, sabnzbdplus and transmission and samba as my home media server/downloading box with a 1TB drive and 2TB drive for storage. The boot drive is 500GB. I just dropped in 16GB of RAM as well (I bought it with the default 2GB)
I hope this helps someone else in the future!
I just want to post a success story. I was able to install Server 16.04.1 onto a Macpro2,1 (eight core) last week.
For reference, these links were a huge help:
https://blog.christophersmart.com/20...-only-machine/
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFIBooting
http://blog.sergem.net/how-to-instal...efi-boot-mode/
http://heeris.id.au/2014/ubuntu-plus-mac-pure-efi-boot/
Tools Used:
- Macbook Pro with VMware Fusion. Ubuntu 16 desktop as a guest
- 8Gb Lexar USB2 stick
I tried to document everything I did, so here we go:
1. Build i386-efi bootloader using latest grub2 code (I pulled the source from git. At the time, the version of grub2 was 2.02~beta3)
Code:
#./autogen.sh
#export EFI_ARCH=i386
#./configure --with-platform=efi --target=${EFI_ARCH} --program-prefix=“"
#make
#cd grub-core
#../grub-mkimage -O ${EFI_ARCH}-efi -d . -o bootia32.efi -p "" part_gpt part_msdos ntfs ntfscomp hfsplus fat ext2 normal chain boot configfile linux multiboot loadbios reboot appleldr halt search gfxterm gfxmenu efi_uga efi_gop font2. Prepare USB stick for booting (obviously my USB stick was at /dev/sdb, this may not be the same in your system. use
Code:
dmesgCode:
#sudo parted -s /dev/sdb mklabel gpt mkpart EFI fat32 0% 100% toggle 1 boot
#mount /dev/sdb /media/usb
#mkdir -p /media/usb/efi/boot
#cp ~/grub/grub-core/bootia32.efi /media/usb/efi/boot3. Create the grub.cfg (placed in /media/usb/efi/boot/grub.cfg)
Code:
insmod efi_gop
insmod efi_uga
insmod font
if loadfont ${prefix}/unicode.pf2
then
insmod gfxterm
set gfxmode=auto
set gfxpayload=keep
terminal_output gfxterm
fi
linux /efi/boot/linux nomodeset
initrd /efi/boot/initrd.gzI add to add the kernel option "nomodeset" because the system would crash. My macpro has an ATI Radeon based video card and I found this link:
http://apple.stackexchange.com/quest...b-from-efi-vga
The linux and initrd.gz images were taken from the Ubuntu Server 16.04.1 netinstall image. I just used wget to download them directly.
At this point the USB stick is ready to boot, so I can just umount it and put it into the macpro. The guided partitioning automatically created a ESP "EFI System Partiion" for me, so I didn't have to worry about making it myself (previous howto articles discussed having to do this)
I installed base packages and completed the install. So far so good...
4. At this point, Ubuntu is installed but the macpro will not boot into Ubuntu. This is because the ESP created during install is a VFAT partiion. Apple's EFI architecture looks for a HFS partition. Using the USB stick, I booted back into grub and booted Ubuntu manually:
Code:
linux /boot/vmlinuz-4.4.0-34-generic.efi.signed root=UUID=some_UUID nomodeset
initrd /boot/initrd.img-4.4.0-34-generic
bootNow, in order to complete this, I needed get the UUID of the “root” partition. Within grub “ls -l” is supposed to show that, but it didn’t work for me. I don't know if this is a bug, but “ls -l” seemed to be broken.
However, the command would boot Ubuntu but since it couldn't find the boot partition, it dropped me into a initramfs BusyBox shell. Here I could use
Code:
blkidNow I could complete the “fixing the EFI partition" steps from http://heeris.id.au/2014/ubuntu-plus-mac-pure-efi-boot/
Some notes from changing the ESP partition:
Since the Mac Pro has a 32bit EFI, I installed these packages instead:
sudo apt-get install mactel-boot hfsprogs gdisk grub-efi-ia32
only to find out that grub-efi-ia32 is already installed
In order to update /etc/fstab, I had to modify the command to this:
This was because the “blkid -o export -s UUID /dev/sda1” command gave me both DEVNAME and UUID in the output, and we only need the UUID (probably due to changes in blkid since the article was first written)
When updating/installing grub, I had to refect a 32bit EFI and not a 64bit:
After "blessing" the bootloader, the macpro would boot into Ubuntu but I had no video on my monitor. I could ping the box from my LAN, so thats good. But no SSH because I didnt install it. OOPS!
I had to use the USB stick to manually boot so that I could then modify the grub.cfg for a text based boot:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=“nomodeset”
Because the ESP partition is HFS based, the grub os_prober also added MAC OS boot options. This is no good. So I disabled the grub os_prober:
GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=“true”
Since the Mac Pro has a 32bit EFI, I installed these packages instead:
sudo apt-get install mactel-boot hfsprogs gdisk grub-efi-ia32
only to find out that grub-efi-ia32 is already installed
In order to update /etc/fstab, I had to modify the command to this:
Code:
sudo bash -c 'echo $(blkid -o export -s UUID /dev/sda1 | grep UUID -A 1) /boot/efi auto defaults 0 0 >> /etc/fstab'When updating/installing grub, I had to refect a 32bit EFI and not a 64bit:
Code:
sudo grub-install —target i386-efi —boot-directory=/boot —efi-directory=/boot/efi —bootloader-id=“$(lsb_release -ds)”I had to use the USB stick to manually boot so that I could then modify the grub.cfg for a text based boot:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=“nomodeset”
Because the ESP partition is HFS based, the grub os_prober also added MAC OS boot options. This is no good. So I disabled the grub os_prober:
GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=“true”
5. Fini! The macpro would now boot into Ubuntu with a text based boot. This machine is going to be a headless machine, so technically it didn't matter. But I figured that I might eventually need to access the console, so having video at the console would probably be a good idea.
6. The macpro is now running plexmediaserver, sonarr, sabnzbdplus and transmission and samba as my home media server/downloading box with a 1TB drive and 2TB drive for storage. The boot drive is 500GB. I just dropped in 16GB of RAM as well (I bought it with the default 2GB)
I hope this helps someone else in the future!