[SoaS] CD helper for v3 Mirabelle

[Matt Wronkiewicz]

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 8:58 PM, Matt Wronkiewicz <matt at wronkiewicz.net> wrote:
> Peter Robinson wrote:
>> You don't need a Mac to test it. You shouldn't need it for a Mac (you
>> just need to use the 64 bit version of it)
>
> A MBR-partitioned USB stick will boot on an Intel Mac with an EFI
> firmware? The Wiki made it sound like that was not possible. I guess I
> should try it.

Results of my testing on a MacBook Pro:

Attempt 1:
Boot helper CD (soas-3-boot-test) in drive
USB stick partitioned MBR, formatted FAT, labeled FEDORA, loaded with
Fedora-13-i686-Live-SoaS, plugged in
"option" key held down at power-on
EFI boot menu comes up, double-click CD icon
Automatic boot
Boots USB stick successfully

Attempt 2:
No CD in drive
USB stick partitioned MBR, formatted FAT, labeled FEDORA, loaded with
Fedora-13-x86_64-Live-SoaS, plugged in
"option" key held down at power-on
EFI boot menu comes up, shows USB drive (!), double-click USB stick
labeled "EFI boot"
Automatic boot
Stuck at screen "Booting Fedora-13-x86_64-Live-SoaS in 0 seconds..."

Attempt 3:
No CD in drive
USB stick partitioned MBR, formatted FAT, labeled FEDORA, loaded with
Fedora-13-x86_64-Live-SoaS, plugged in
"option" key held down at power-on
EFI boot menu comes up, shows USB drive, double-click USB stick
labeled "EFI boot"
Tab to enter GRUB boot menu
Press "a" to enter command line mode
Change disk label from "Fedora-13-x86_86-Live-SoaS" to "FEDORA"
Text disappears, stuck at blue boot screen

Attempt 4:
No CD in drive
USB stick partitioned MBR, formatted FAT, labeled FEDORA, loaded with
Fedora-13-i686-Live-SoaS, plugged in
"option" key held down at power-on
EFI boot menu comes up, shows USB drive, double-click USB stick
labeled "EFI boot"
Automatic boot
Fedora starts to boot with a garbled screen
Eventually gets stuck on a black screen with a flashing cursor, but I
was not able to read the error message because the text was garbled

Attempt 5:
No CD in drive
USB stick partitioned MBR, formatted FAT, labeled FEDORA, loaded with
Fedora-13-i686-Live-SoaS, plugged in
"option" key held down at power-on
Boot menu comes up, shows USB drive, double-click USB stick labeled "EFI boot"
Tab to enter GRUB boot menu
Press "a" to enter command line mode
Change disk label from "Fedora-13-i686-Live-SoaS" to "FEDORA"
Fedora starts to boot with a garbled screen
Eventually gets stuck on a black screen with a flashing cursor, but I
was not able to read the error message because the text was garbled

Attempt 6:
No CD in drive
USB stick partitioned MBR, formatted FAT, labeled FEDORA, loaded with
Fedora-13-i686-Live-SoaS, plugged in
"option" key held down at power-on
Boot menu comes up, shows USB drive, double-click USB stick labeled "EFI boot"
Tab to enter GRUB boot menu
Press "a" to enter command line mode
Change "quiet" to "nomodeset xdriver=vesa"
Fedora starts to boot with a better but still garbled screen
Eventually gets stuck on a black screen with a flashing cursor, but I
was not able to read the error message because the text was garbled

Summary:
- MacBook Pro will boot a USB stick created with the standard 32-bit
Windows/Linux instructions, with a helper CD
- MBR-partitioned USB sticks can probably be made to boot the MacBook
Pro without a helper CD, but I couldn't get it to work
- Without a helper CD, the 32-bit stick definitely got further along
than a 64-bit one

Matt