Linux on External Disk

[kmand]

What I really want is to leave OSX partitioned as is on the internal disk, and boot Linux off a n external USB drive. Is this possible?

Failing that, I would like OSX to share the internal disk with Linux, with no Windows. This would seem to be easier than triple boot, since OSX and Linux both can deal with EFI/GPT and no MBR for Windows would be needed. Has anyone managed this?

[chrisp]

What I really want is to leave OSX partitioned as is on the internal disk, and boot Linux off a n external USB drive. Is this possible?
It is possible, but I'm not sure what the actual success rates in practice are. I've had several reports from people that had problems booting Linux or Windows from external hard disks.

If you run into problems, you could try putting LILO and the kernel on the EFI System Partition on the internal disk. Once the kernel is loaded, accessing the external disk shouldn't be a problem.

Failing that, I would like OSX to share the internal disk with Linux, with no Windows. This would seem to be easier than triple boot, since OSX and Linux both can deal with EFI/GPT and no MBR for Windows would be needed. Has anyone managed this?
It is possible and there have been people that got it working. But you may want to read http://refit.sourceforge.net/myths/ first. Short summary: It's possible to use plain GPT with Linux, but you don't want to.

[stguitar]

i have a mac book pro, and i have used a ubuntu live cd to load ubuntu to a connected external USB drive. that all went ok, except when i boot up the mac with the option key to select that drive to boot, its not a choice. all i have is the live cd and my internal hard drive.

anyone know a way to fix this? -> been searching various forums and not getting really anywhere....

[tattrat]

i have a mac book pro, and i have used a ubuntu live cd to load ubuntu to a connected external USB drive. that all went ok, except when i boot up the mac with the option key to select that drive to boot, its not a choice. all i have is the live cd and my internal hard drive.

anyone know a way to fix this? -> been searching various forums and not getting really anywhere....


The solution is to install rEFIt.

[stguitar]

well, i tried that but never got it to load from there. i see the penguin as a boot option, but it seems to just freeze and do nothing when i select that choice.

[cjsveningsson]

I'm failing to do this (and some more and different) in this thread (http://forum.onmac.net/showthread.php?p=13184), please comment if you have any realizations. I think I have the latest firmware and everything, why isn't rEFIt working? :(