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Linux: CrunchBang Linux 10 on a MacBook Pro

I tried CrunchBang Linux 10 on a MacBook Pro. Previously, I had a lot of trouble dual booting with OS X, so I did the same thing I did for Ubuntu--I told it to use the entire disk. This turned out to be a big mistake.

I put GRUB on the MBR since I wasn't dual booting. I also set up an encrypted LVM. The system wouldn't boot. I just got a flashing folder with a "?" icon. I think this is a known problem with Debian right now.

I also wanted to try MEPIS. It's based on Debian as well. It even has a utility that you run from within OS X that sets stuff up for dual booting. Unfortunately, since I wiped OS X, that wasn't available.

I was doing all this on my company's spare Macbook Pro (while my Macbook Pro was in the shop). Unfortunately, the DVD for my Macbook Pro wouldn't boot on the other Macbook Pro (which was just a few months newer). Hence, I couldn't reinstall OS X.

My solution was to install Ubuntu. I gave it the whole disk, and everything worked out okay. I was a little bummed since I wanted to try a new distro (either CrunchBang or MEPIS), but it's hard to argue with a working system ;)
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Comments

Tropical Swim said…
I had exactly the same experience as yours, save for a few small details: I inherited a MacBook 2.1 (you know, the earlier white MacBook from 2007).
It ran OSX 10.4, obsolete OS, that sucks mainly, so I dual-booted for a while, but couldn't keep on loosing half of my 80GB hdd space, so I wiped & installed...
Tried Debian, no luck... Tried Mint Debian ed, no luck... tried Mint 10, worked fine, but bad sound...
Installed Ubuntu 10.04 64bit, worked perfect, have it since November 10... It is now my main computer... Everything works, webcam, & so on...
I tweaked Gnome on a single toolbar, with the Mint Menu, have to say it looks a bit like winxp, but it saves a lot of real estate...
I use an external bluetooth mouse, so I am not so bothered by the "no right-click" issue (2 finger tap works fine on the trackpad)
As much as I wanted to have a Debian Stable or CentOS MacBook, I have to stick with Ubuntu LTS... Won't upgrade until next LTS(if this laptop survives, tat is !!!)
10:04 AM
jjinux said…
Interesting. Thanks for the comment :)
1:14 PM
Unknown said…
That's weird. Crunchbang is based on Ubuntu.

Just curious, did you try XUbuntu or KUbuntu?
5:12 PM
jjinux said…
The newest CrunchBang is based on Debian, not Ubuntu. Sorry, I didn't try Xubuntu or Kubuntu, but I assume they would work.
5:13 PM
Anonymous said…
Did you install bootCamp, and rEFit? And then shrink the OS X parition to 1G? You're supposed to.

The procedure is listed here.
http://wiki.debian.org/MacBook#ProsandconsofaMacBookforLinuxusers
1:38 PM
jjinux said…
> Did you install bootCamp, and rEFit? And then shrink the OS X parition to 1G? You're supposed to.

Ubuntu used to have a bug where it wouldn't behave properly if you tried to use a hybrid MBR and GPT partition. Since I didn't need to dual boot, I completely wiped the disk and used an MBR. That works really well in Ubuntu but not at all in Debian. Oh well. Thanks for the link.
2:34 PM
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