Installing Fedora on an Intel-based Mac

The latest Apple computers feature Intel-based computer architecture. The Fedora project has enhanced Fedora Core 6 so that it can be installed (either by itself or dual booting with Mac OS X) on this new Apple hardware. Reasons you might want to install Fedora on one of these "Mactel" computers include:

• Dual booting - You might like the Mac OS X desktop (Aqua) and proprietary applications (such as iPhoto or iTunes) for yourself or family members some of the time. However, you might sometimes want access to server applications, administration tools, development environment, or thousands of free applications you can get with Fedora.

• Fedora only - Although you pay a bit of a premium for Apple hardware (though not as much as you used to), you might like the form and features of those cute Apple Mac computers enough to pay a bit extra to have it as your primary desktop Fedora computer.

This section describes how to start with an Intel-based Apple Mac computer (I used a Mac Mini for this example) and configure it to either dual boot with Mac OS X or run Fedora alone.

Caution 

Installing Fedora on Intel-based hardware is still a technology that is experimental in the Fedora community. Some hardware components still require extra tweaking or won't work at all. I recommend that you don't do this procedure if you can't afford the possibility that your disk may be blown away and have to be reinstalled from scratch.

Before Installing Fedora on Your Mac

Let's start with a reminder that this procedure is only for Apple Mac computers that are based on Intel architecture. I ran this procedure on a new Mac Mini 1.1 (Intel Core Duo CPU, 512MB RAM). However, the same procedure should work for Intel-based iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, or Mac Pro computers.

This procedure is not for Macs with PowerPC architectures. Fedora does support that configuration, but you need to download the ppc installation media from Fedora instead of using the DVD that comes with this book. (Get the media for installing on PowerPCs from http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Distribution/Download .)

When you purchase your Mac, the entire hard disk is devoted to Mac OS X. To keep your Mac OS X installation on the computer (so you can boot either Mac OS X or Fedora), you need to reduce the amount of space devoted to Mac OS X. Then you need to use that space to create one or more partitions for installing Fedora.

Although the procedure for resizing and repartitioning your disk is fairly safe, there is some risk that you could corrupt your Mac OS X partition or make the machine (temporarily) unbootable. For that reason, before starting the procedure below, please …

… BACK UP ANY IMPORTANT DATA!

Installing Fedora

Apple offers a software package called Boot Camp (currently available in public beta) that can be used to resize Mac hard disks (using the default HFS+ file system type). To use Boot Camp, you probably need to update your computer's firmware. The following procedure describes how to update your firmware, resize your disk, and install Fedora.

1. Check for firmware updates - Update your Mac OS X system to the latest firmware. Refer to the Mac OS X Firmware Updates page for information on how to do that ( http://docs. info .apple.com/article.html?artnum=303880 ). Then go to Apple Downloads ( www.apple.com/support/downloads ) to get the firmware update, if necessary.

2. Download Boot Camp - Go to the Boot Camp site and download the Boot Camp software ( www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp ). Open the Read Before You Install file and make sure your Mac meets the system requirements.

3. Install Boot Camp - Open the Install Boot Camp Assistant icon and install Boot Camp as instructed. A Boot Camp icon will appear on the desktop.

4. Run Boot Camp - Start Boot Camp Assistant (it's located in the Utilities folder). Because your interest in Boot Camp is to resize the Mac disk partition, skip the request to burn a Mac CD. Then move the divider to choose how much disk space will be devoted to Mac OS X and how much to Windows XP (you're going to be reusing the Windows area). Select the Partition button when each operating system has the disk space you want. (I chose to create a 10GB Windows partition.)

5. Insert Fedora DVD - When partitioning is done, instead of inserting a Windows XP Installation CD as requested , insert a Fedora installation CD or DVD and click Restart Mac OS X or Install Windows to reboot the computer. When the computer reboots, you should see the Fedora installer boot screen.

6. Install Fedora - Begin a normal Fedora install (as described in Chapter 2), with just a couple of notes:

   • Partitioning - Default partitioning by the Fedora installer should work properly (leaving your Mac HFS+ partition alone and creating a Fedora /boot and LVM partition using the rest of the space).

   • Boot loader - Again, the installer should do the correct thing and configure the boot loader to be installed on a Fedora partition and not in the master boot record, as would normally be the case. (The boot loader must not be installed in the master boot record of the whole disk or the disk will becore unbootable.)

7. Reboot and Alt key - When Fedora installation is completed, reboot as instructed. Hold the Alt key as the machine reboots. When you see the Boot Camp menu, select Windows and the computer will boot to Fedora. Just use the default boot entry for Fedora, because trying to change GRUB boot labels will probably cause the computer to lock up.

Remember that installing Fedora on an Intel-based MAC is still considered to be experimental. The less you stray from the defaults (partitioning, boot loaders, and so on), the better chance of getting a workable Fedora system running on your Mac.

If you run into problems, I recommend you refer to the Fedora Project's Fedora On Mactel page ( http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraOnMactel ). There are also resources available from other Linux projects to get Linux to boot on Intel Mac architecture.