Installation on MacBook Pro Intel (x86)

From openSUSE

This page will help you to install openSUSE on a MacBook or MacBook Pro.

This procedure puts your Mac OSX operating system and all data on your drive at risk. Back up your data. If you are not familiar with disk partitioning, this is not for you.

The original material for this page is now on the Talk page

Disk Preparation

Resize OEM Partition

Use Boot Camp to resize the original Mac OSX partition. This process is done from within OSX.

Install rEFIt

rEFIt is a boot menu program designed for the Macintosh EFI (BIOS alternative).

Installation

Install openSUSE

Reboot MacBook with openSUSE install dvd/cdrom in drive. You can either use a standard install DVD, or use the Live CD and then use the install link on the desktop.

Linux icon should appear in refit screen representative of the install cd. Select it. SuSE install CD boots.

Partitioning

Apple's EFI system allows a maximum of 4 partitions on the primary hard drive. Do not delete sda1 and sda2 unless you want to completely remove OSX.

Depending on how you used Boot Camp to re-size, Partition 3 may already be reserved for Linux. Remove third partition In most cases, the best configuration is to create two partitions: a root partition and a swap partition. Make root sda3, and format as Ext3. Make sda4 the swap partition, and size equal to your system's memory.

Double-check your setup to make sure that partitions 1 & 2 are not set to be formatted.

Boot Loader

Change the Boot Loader from GRUB (default) to LILO, and install LILO to partition sda3 (or whichever partition holds your Linux root).

Note: When prompted about any issues with your MBR, do not have the installer fix the MBR.

Update MBR in rEFIt

1. When rEFIt menu opens, select Partitioning (below the Apple and Tux boot icons). When prompted to synch the MBR with GPT, select Yes.
2. Reboot
3. Select Linux from rEFIt menu.

If openSUSE does not boot, then you may need to re-configure LILO.

Procedure to Modify LILO

If openSUSE does not boot after selecting Linux from the rEFIt boot menu, you may need to configure LILO. You can do this by booting from either the Live CD or the Install DVD and follow these steps

1. Boot using the openSUSE media.
2. Select the rescue option from menu. This will launch a rescue shell.
3. At the prompt, log in as root.

• • Mount your Linux partition with these steps, replacing /dev/sda3 with the correct partition id:

mount /dev/sda3 /mnt

• • Mount proc and dev

mount -t proc none /mnt/proc
mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev

• • Switch environment to use the hard disk

chroot /mnt /bin/bash

• • Copy the partition table info to mtab:

grep -v rootfs /proc/mounts > /etc/mtab

Now you have a Linux environment to work from.

• • Create lilo.conf script. This should reside in /etc directory. Therefore follow these steps:

cd /etc
touch lilo.conf
vi lilo.conf

• • Edit lilo.conf as follows

boot=/dev/sda3
prompt
default=Linux
timeout=5
image=/boot/vmlinuz initrd=/boot/initrd label=Linux
read-only
root=/dev/sda3

If you know the basic hot keys for using VI on a MacBook keyboard (such as Ins to enter edit mode), then please add the information here.

• • Save lilo.conf. Install lilo by simply running

lilo

This will put bootloader on to /dev/sda3. Success is indicated by something like "Added Linux *".

Configuration

Display

If the Xwindow system does not start, complete the install in text mode. After the install completes and you reboot, you might be prompted to run SaX2. If not, run it yourself. It should detect the display readily, and configure the open source driver.

Proprietary OEM Drivers

To enable Desktop Effects, you may need a 3D-accelerated driver. Most Intel-based MacBook Pro systems use ATI graphics hardware. Find info on Nvidia and ATI here.

• ATI
• NVIDIA

Nvidia Specifics

For NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics cards, initially Xwindow will not work.

• Boot into runlevel 3 at the lilo prompt
• Get the latest nvidia driver from http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_amd64_100.14.11.html
• Patch the driver with the patch from http://www.mail-archive.com/mactel-linux-users@lists.sourceforge.net/msg01501.html (->

sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-100.14.11-pkg2.run --apply-patch ./file-with-mac-patch.patch

• Run the produced -custom nvidia driver setup
• Run sax2 to build your X config file after building and installing the patched nvidia driver.
• Set Resolution is 1440x900.

Also, be sure to set your screen resolution accordingly.

Enabling Suspend to RAM with ATI drivers

The proprietary ATI driver (fglrx) breaks suspend because s2ram fails when calling VBE_POST and VBE_MODE.

Do the following to re-enable suspend:

• Edit /etc/lilo.conf, and add the following line to your main boot section:

vga=0

Here is an example:

image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22.17-0.1-default
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
   label = Linux
   initrd = /boot/initrd-2.6.22.17-0.1-default
   root = /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_Hitachi_HTS5416_SB2D04E4JJ3MSE-part3
   vga=0

• Next, edit/create a file called/etc/pm/config.d/config, and include in it the following line.

S2RAM_OPTS="-f"

Enabling DVI/SVGA Out

If you need to enable the DVI out and you're using a DVI-to-SVGA adapter, modify the Section "Device" part of /etc/X11/xorg.conf to disable crt1:

 #Option       "ForceMonitors" "auto,crt1"
 Option       "EnableMonitor" "nocrt1,lvds,crt2"   

Credit to Chris Smart for posting a how to on his blog.

Touchpad

This is an area that still needs some authoritative, well-tested information. Please add steps for whatever you work out.

• Start by setting acceleration to maximum.
• Consider turning off tap support.

The information provided [[1]] may also prove helpful.

Enabling Specific Hardware

Consult MacBook_Pro_Specials for a bunch of helpful tips.

Marvell Yukon Ethernet

For the MacBook Pro (V3) that uses the Marvell Yukon 88E8058 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller you might need to get a new(er) network card driver. Get it from http://www.marvell.com/drivers/driverDisplay.do?dId=153&pId=38 and follow the instructions in the included README file. After that set up your network with yast and then do an online update. After the online update don't forget to run 'lilo' again if the update changed the kernel.

UPDATE 2007-08-30

Atheros WLAN: Follow the instructions on http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkPad_11a/b/g/n_Wireless_LAN_Mini_Express_Adapter to checkout and compile the latest madwifi for your kernel. Follow the instructions on http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/FirstTimeHowTo section "Loading the MadWifi Module" to load the kernel module. Then use yast to set up the new network card.

If you get your Atheros wireless working, please update this section so that others can follow your fine work.