[SOLVED] Arch Linux on Macbook Pro 4.1

Hey There,
I'm a 2 years old Arch Linux guy and due to the problems I've had with my HP Pavilion PC, I've bought a Macbook Pro 3-4 months ago.. Because that it's a pain in the ass to install, upgrade and remove software on Mac OS X, especially development software such as Python and its bindings, I'm thinking of migrating to Arch Linux. Any way, I've just installed Arch Linux and dual boot..
I've installed X, GNOME, NVIDIA so far and when I try to open GNOME (via startx), it opens up a 800x600 or 1024x768 resolution X and shows GNOME.. But I can't move the mouse and no matter what I type no menus show up.. So I'm stuck after GNOME starts.. I can't drop back into the terminal so I hold the power button to shutdown and start the machine...
It seems that this is the only problem I have for now.. Anyone had this problem before? I've tried it with and without xorg.conf and the result is the same..
Last edited by T-u-N-i-X (2008-11-30 16:17:11)

CTRL + ALT + Backspace
That should close startx. Also, the user manual has a couple of alternative methods of setting up your xorg.conf file. I'd try those next.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beg … phic_Cards
Last edited by sharpie (2008-11-30 14:05:39)

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[SOLVED] Arch Linux on Macbook - Can't fix Screen Resolution

I just installed Arch Linux as a dual-boot on my Macbook. I really like it so far. However, I came across a problem that is really bothering me. It may seem simple, but no matter what I try, I only get "1024x768" and "800x600" resolution options. What I need is "1280x800." Here is my xorg.conf file right now:
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "glx"
Load "dri2"
Load "extmod"
Load "dbe"
Load "dri"
Load "record"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "Monitor Model"
EndSection
Section "Device"
### Available Driver options are:-
### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
### [arg]: arg optional
#Option "ShadowFB" # [<bool>]
#Option "DefaultRefresh" # [<bool>]
#Option "ModeSetClearScreen" # [<bool>]
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "vesa"
VendorName "Intel Corporation"
BoardName "Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Modes "1280x800"
Depth 1
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Modes "1280x800"
Depth 4
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Modes "1280x800"
Depth 8
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Modes "1280x800"
Depth 15
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Modes "1280x800"
Depth 16
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Modes "1280x800"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
I just followed the instruction on the Arch Linux - Macbook Wiki page, and everything worked perfectly, except the resolution question. The only thing I added to the file is the 'Modes "1280x800"' lines. This is exactly what I've always done with linux, and it has always worked. So I'm perplexed, and I can't find any solutions that actually work by googling it. Has anyone else come across this problem, and even more important, does anyone know what is wrong?
Thanks.
Last edited by meolson (2009-09-23 04:44:23)

Ok. I figured it out. I found this forum:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=56899
I found it before, but I had done everything, or so I thought. At the end, he mentions two things that are important to fix the resolution. I've repeated them here, and adapted them to what I had before:
pacman -S xf86-video-intel
edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf, and change video card driver from 'vesa' to 'intel'
I thought I had installed xf86-video-intel already, but apparently I hadn't. So, I followed those two steps, and now, it looks so much better! Thanks to anyone who tried to looked for a solution.

Clarification required as to installing Arch Linux onto Macbook Pro

I own a 13 inch Mid 2010 Macbook Pro with the base configuration. When partitioning my hard drive what hexadecimal flag should the 100 MiB boot partition be given and what format should it be formatted to? Also upon running iwconfig wlan0 does not appear how can I get wifi to work? Thanks in advance.

Unless you're installing a new hard drive, I would recommend reusing the factory formatted ESP. (You'll definitely want to do this if you're dual booting with OS X.)
In regards to wifi (and other installation and configuration issues), I would recommend (re)reading the MacBook Wiki. Most of the MacBook specific installation issues have been worked out and documented there.
Good luck.

Installing Arch on a MacBook Pro Retina

I've spent many hours trying to install Arch on my macbook pro to no avail (over 14 times I've tried), I've learned a lot through this process, but apparently not enough. I get the system installed and blessed (in OSX), but when I try to boot into it I get stuck on "loading initial ram disk." (Previous errors were a read-only file system, but this one is latest) My hunch tells me it has something to do with the mkinitcpio.conf (I was told to add "ahci" to MODULES and "keyboard" after "autodetect" in "HOOKS") and I know the mkinitcpio -p linux command creates the initial ram disk environment (thanks to the docs).
Here are my steps, the bash scripts I created to do all this. Does anything look out of the ordinary to anyone?
cgdisk /dev/sda #(setup partitions as below, sda1-3 not shown)
#partitions: (sda4 == 128MB Hfs+, sda5 == 256MB Linux (boot), sda6 == 30GB Linux (root), sda7 == 70GB #Linux Home)
#first script
mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda5
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda6
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda7
mount /dev/sda6 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot && mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/home && mount /dev/sda7 /mnt/home
pacstrap /mnt base base-devel
genfstab -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
#second script
#install wifi (dmesg | grep firmware still says no firmware tho...)
pacman -S wget b43-fwcutter
wget https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/b4/b … are.tar.gz
tar -zxf b43-firmware.tar.gz
cd b43-firmware
makepkg -si --asroot #kosher?
rmmod b43 && modprobe b43
echo arch > /etc/hostname
ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Central /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc --utc
useradd -m -g users -G wheel -s /bin/bash dmj && passwd dmj
sudo pacman -S sudo
nano /etc/sudoers #comment out wheel portion
sudo nano /etc/locale.gen #pick locale
locale-gen
echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
mkinitcpio -p linux #someone said i need "ahci" in modules?
#make boot loader, copy to usb
pacman -S grub-efi-x86_64
grub-mkconfig -o boot/grub/grub.cfg
grub-mkstandalone -o boot.efi -d usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi -O x86_64-efi -C xz boot/grub/grub.cfg
mkdir /mnt/usbdisk && mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usbdisk
cp boot.efi /mnt/usbdisk/
umount /mnt/usbdisk/
sudo pacman -S dialog wpa_supplicant iw
exit
umount /mnt/home
umount /mnt/root
umount /mnt/
sudo reboot
I finally got a descriptive error message and am very excited to show everyone.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10021156/arch.jpg
Moderator Edit: Converted over sized in-line picture to link - ewaller
Last edited by dmj (2013-06-25 02:59:00)

Ok, so I managed to boot into arch. The issue was my fstab. The custom settings I was using were incorrect. Going with the defaults helped. Also, the version of grub I was using was broken. See this link for the fix: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=164101
So after I tar -xvJf xxx.tar.xz the fixed version I was able to generate a boot.efi, copy it onto the 128MB HFS+ on OSX and then bless and boot.
A whole new slew of errors occurred.
First, the video mode error occurs "No suitable video mode" (and something about a font).
I found a fix for it here: (but it didn't work) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … d.22_error
I added
cp /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ${GRUB_PREFIX_DIR}
Then add:
UEFI systems:
insmod efi_gop
insmod efi_uga
After that add the following code (common to both BIOS and UEFI):
insmod font
if loadfont ${prefix}/fonts/unicode.pf2
then
insmod gfxterm
set gfxmode=auto
set gfxpayload=keep
terminal_output gfxterm
fi
Gist: Add these few lines to your grub.cfg, result: no luck still this error
What I'm not sure is if if this is affecting my ability to start the xorg-server.
Then after that the network became unreachable (which is strange because the ethernet worked ootb on install)
systemctl enable dhcpcd@enp0s10
systemctl start dhcpcd@enp0s10
allows me to ping -c 3 google.com
Lastly, I cannot start the xorg server. Says the nvidia module is bad. I installed bumblebee, and ran startx (not from root) and I get a black screen. This is after installing: xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-server-utils xf86-input-synaptics nvidia acpid
Then running: systemctl enable acpid nvidia-xconfig
My graphics card is a Geforce 650M and I've read I should be using the nvidia module, not the open source noveau module.
startx just boots into a blank screen now and I'm unsure why.
Any speculations, ideas, or thoughts would be gladly welcome.
Thanks ahead of time!
Last edited by dmj (2013-06-26 03:05:26)

HT1349 hi ,i just got a Parallels desktop 7 and i try to install it but the cd doesn't start when its inserted.how can i solve this? the macbook pro i just got it few days back so its the last version..thx

hi ,i just got a Parallels desktop 7 and i try to install it but the cd doesn't start when its inserted.how can i solve this? the macbook pro i just got it few days back so its the last version..thx

Hi,just now i open it with finder and it started downloading!!!
Thank you,very new to mac:)

[SOLVED, mostly] Arch on Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch with Retina Display

I've been looking into the Apple MacBook Pro. Of course, I would want to get rid of Mac OS X and load up Arch. Please tell me if the following will work out-of-the-box or have workarounds:
WiFi
Ethernet
Sound
Touchpad
Keyboard
Charging
Bluetooth
Graphics Card
Webcam
Microphones
USB 3.0 Ports
HDMI Port
SDX Card Reader
I know the high DPI display shouldn't be a problem since GNOME Shell now supports those, but I want to be able to use all of the above things. Also, please let me know if there are any other problems to look out for. Thanks.
Last edited by JohnSmithLinux (2013-12-02 01:50:36)

I can't comment on your specific model, but IMHO, getting a Mac (especially a Mac laptop) to run Linux exclusively doesn't make much sense, for the following reasons:
Apple's EFI implementation is weird, and some features (most notably the ability to upgrade the firmware) can be done only with the help of OS X. As a practical matter, this means that you'll either have to use exotic tools like the Linux version of "bless" or boot the computer in BIOS/CSM/legacy mode -- and even then, upgrading the firmware will be a hassle, should that become necessary. Booting in BIOS/CSM/legacy mode is the easier path, and there's nothing wrong with doing it that way, but as the industry is moving away from BIOS and toward EFI, it means that either you'll be going in the other direction or you'll need to struggle with a Linux-only EFI-mode installation on the Mac.
Hardware support in Linux for Macs is a bit weird, in part because of the preceding issue (the weird Apple firmware). I realize your question is aimed at uncovering specific answers about this topic, but as a general rule, Apple hardware seems more trouble-prone under Linux than standard PC hardware. Also, note that hardware support can vary depending on the mode you use (BIOS/CSM/legacy vs. EFI). Video hardware can be particularly troublesome on some models, with BIOS/CSM/legacy sometimes working better.
Mac mice (including laptop trackpads) are 1-button devices, but Linux works best with 3-button mice. A 2-button mouse can do in a pinch. Using a 1-button mouse with X requires applying unusual workarounds involving the use of keyboard keys while clicking the mouse button. Although this can be done, it's an extra hassle, both to set up and to use. On a desktop computer, of course, you can just replace the mouse, but this isn't always practical with a laptop.
I haven't checked pricing recently, but Apple hardware tends to carry a price premium compared to similar hardware from other manufacturers.
Although most of these issues (with the possible exception of price, if you're on a tight budget) aren't really critical by themselves, they combine to create a rather unpleasant combination, at least when considering a Mac exclusively as a platform for running Linux. If you wanted to dual-boot with OS X, things would be different, of course, but personally, I wouldn't buy a Mac as a Linux-only computer.
If you've got specific reasons for wanting a Mac, perhaps you could post them here. Although I personally haven't shopped for a laptop for a while and so can't offer specific suggestions, somebody else might be able to suggest alternatives that would do what you want.

[Solved] Triple Boot on MacBook Pro

Hi all,
I'm trying to install archlinux with Mac OS X and Windows, even following this guide (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBook).
I partitioned the disk as recommended by the guide so now I have the following partitions:
-Boot partition Mac
-Macintosh HD
-Partition in which I am trying to install Arch
-Partition in which I successfully installed Windows
I followed the installation step by step, until the bootloader installation. I reboot to sync the partition tables in rEFIt, but it's written that I don't have to synchronize and shows dev/sda3 in HPS+ despite is in ext4.
The problem then is that I can't install Grub as suggested in the guide (the only option that shows me is installed in dev / sda in which the partition boot the Mac), so refit doesn't recognize the partition of linux and shows only mac and windows.
Thanks in advance.
Last edited by User0 (2012-02-06 00:06:24)

How did you "solve" this? I recently acquired a new Macbook Pro as well, and want to dual boot with Arch, so I am curious as to what steps you did to make it work.

[SOLVED] Arch Linux Duke (2007) Fails to Boot

Folks, I have a unique and challenging problem that has exhausted my Arch Linux skills, and so I am now turning to you.
I have a vintage Pentium Pro 200 system (that’s 200 MHz folks! – 200 MHz 686 architecture – the original 686!), two CPUs, running a dual boot between Windows NT 4.0 and Arch Linux Duke (2007). It has 512 MB of RAM and a 120 GB hard drive, partitioned up between Windows NT and Linux. I built this system new in 2007, hence the dated version of Arch. It has run like a charm all these years, granted not getting that much use. After about a year of no use at all, I fired the system up last week to help with a little research for a blog post I was writing on networking Windows NT 4.0 and Mac OS 8.6. Windows NT 4.0 fired right up with no issue, and after I was done testing what needed to be tested I tried to boot over to Arch.
After a year of disuse, Arch unexpectedly and stubbornly refused to boot. The boot process started up just fine, but towards the end, it declared that it could not mount the root file system on the root device and took a kernel panic and stopped. My Arch skills have gotten a bit rusty in the last few years, but I dusted them off and went to work. My guess was a file system or superblock error. Arch wouldn’t boot, but I dragged out my trusty RIPLinux 2.9 Rescue Live CD and fired it up. It came right up and ran, and I was able to mount the Arch partition and view all the files… everything seemed to be there; it just wouldn’t boot. Windows NT 4.0 AND RIPLinux both boot and run on the machine, so the hardware is fine as well.
A little information on the disk layout. Windows NT 4.0 is in the first partition on the hard drive. The extended partition has a second Windows NT 4.0 partition (sort of a /home partition for Windows NT 4.0), followed by the main Arch partition (the one I am trying to boot), followed by a swap partition and then the largest partition, which I use to share data between Arch and Windows NT 4.0 (I have loaded an ext2/3 driver into Windows NT 4.0 and it happily accesses the Linux partitions on the box).
RIPLinux’s e2fsck did find some issues with the Arch partition and I had it repair them all. I checked again afterwards that all the files were still there, and they were. With the partition now known to be clean, and the superblock repaired from one of the backups, all should have been well. However, Arch still wouldn’t (and still won’t) boot.
RIPLinux has a kind of a chain loader function, so I had it attempt to start up Arch for me. However, this was flummoxed by the fact that Arch addresses all my hard drive partitions as /dev/sdax and RIPLinux addresses them as /dev/hdax. Hence, without a common language, it was hard to get the one to start the other. Still, using this function, I have been able to get a crippled version of Arch running on the machine again. No modules had been loaded, and so it couldn’t do almost anything, but there it was (and is), Arch Linux Duke, at the CLI level. From there, I can see all the files, I can move freely in and out of my user account and the root account, but I can’t make the thing actually boot properly.
If you have read this far, you are a trooper. Summarizing what I know, the hardware is good, the file system is clean, the superblock is good, I can mount it cleanly from a live CD and I can chain load a crippled version of Arch. Here is the boot process blow-by-blow. When I try to do a normal boot, the Windows NT 4.0 loader passes control to the Lilo boot sector I have placed on hda1 (sda1 in Duke’s parlance). Lilo takes over, present a menu and when I select Duke, takes off. Arch Linux Duke starts to boot. It gets a good long way along, all the way along to:
:: Loading udev events [Pass]
:: Mount root Read-only
:: Checking file systems
This is where it stops.
The next thing I see is:
/dev/sda6
The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else) then the superblock is corrupt and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
E2fsck –b 8193 <device>
I then get a sort of character based splash screen that says
**********FILE SYSTEM CHECK FAILED ****************************
* Please repair manually and reboot. Note that the root file system
* is currently mounted read-only. To remount it read-write, type:
* mount –n –o remount,rw /. When you exit the maintenance
* shell, the system will reboot automatically
Give root password for maintenance
At this point, I give the root password and enter the maintenance shell as root. I typed in “mount” and the first entry I got back is
/dev/sda6 on / type ext3 (rw)
This is exactly the root partition that the start up complains about. It is clearly there. I can see it, I can walk around it… it is clearly there. Why won’t it boot? Despite the message, the superblock is fine – it passes every test e2fsck can throw at it.
At this point, I did a “e2fsck /dev/hda6 (which is how RIPLinux would have passed it into Arch” and it says it is “clean”. I suspect that the Superblock message is because Arch sees root as sda6, while RIP passed it in as hda6...
Deciding to see what Arch would be seeing as it tried to set things up in the boot sequence, I tried the following next:
# mknod “/dev/root2” b 3 6
(“3” because RIPLinux refers to my hard drive as IDE, while Arch refers to it by major number “8”, which is SCSI. By the way, it IS an IDE drive – not sure why Arch insists on using the sdx nomenclature instead of hdx)
Then I entered “mount /dev/root2 /mnt/hda6” and “ls /mnt/hda6”
All was well. I can make the node, I can mount it, and I can see the contents. All is clearly well, but something is clearly wrong enough that Arch can’t boot.
I am totally out of ideas. I have tried every trick I know and am out of tricks. I would welcome any insights as to what I could try to get this venerable Arch installation back on its legs.
By the way, the key section of the /etc/lilo.conf file (lest anyone want to know) is:
image = /boot/vmlinuz26
root = /dev/sda6
label = ArchLinux-Duke
initrd = /boot/kernel26.img
read-only
I am stumped. Thanks in advance for any and all pointers you may be able to offer.
Last edited by mac57 (2014-06-02 17:42:21)

Folks, thanks for all your helpful comments, and I wanted to report back to you that I finally overcame the issue, and ArchLinux-Duke (2007) is once again executing flawlessly on my old Pentium Pro 200 system. I won't bother reporting here all the blind allies I went down as I tried to figure out what was wrong, but in the end, literally moments before I was about to give up and overwrite my Arch installation with a new Linux variant (antiX seemed well suited for such old and low power hardware), my attention was drawn to a note I had made in my files back in 2007 about a problem with similar symptoms. In that case, I had just deleted ZenWalk Linux from the hard drive (both Arch and Zen had been on the drive), and merged several partitions to make use of the newly free space. This had changed Arch's view of the drive lettering, and what had been its /dev/sddx root device was now /dev/sdcx. Arch failed to boot, throwing off the same errors I was seeing now. I wish I had recalled that note a month or so ago! It would have saved me a lot of work and a lot of frustration.
At any rate, as a last step, and testing the idea that maybe the drive lettering had changed for some reason, I repeatedly manually booted Arch, specifying root=/dev/sda6, then /dev/sdb6, then /dev/sdd6, and finally, /dev/sdc6. Eureka! Arch now considered itself to be on /dev/sdc6 whereas previously it had been on /dev/sda6. This got me part way there, but the boot failed at the filesystem check stage and threw me into root. I disabled the file system check in /etc/rc.sysinit and got farther. Then I cleaned up /etc/fstab to agree with the new sdc naming, and I was back on the air fully.
So, what had happened was that Arch had changed its view of the drive it was on from sda6 to sdc6. While I could not understand why this "sudden" change had occurred, at least I had a solution, and had Arch back up and running.
Trolling through the rest of my notes, I found the answer. In 2012, the Tekram SCSI card in the machine failed, and I ultimately replaced it with an Adaptec card. The Tekram card did not have a BIOS segment on it. The Adaptec card did. My guess is that this caused the two internal SCSI devices I have built into the system (Iomega ZIP and Jaz respectively) to be enumerated first, claiming the "sda" and "sdb". device names. That left "sdc" for the root device, and that is where Arch went next. This is my guess anyway.
I should have caught this issue back in 2012, at the time, but from my notes, I can see that I tested the new card thoroughly using the Windows NT 4.0 side of the machine, but never thought to bring up Arch as well. Hence, this problem lay dormant for two years, before I attempted to fire up Arch last month and blundered right into it.
It has not all been bad. I have learned more about the ext2 and ext3 file systems and superblocks in the intervening time than I will ever need to use. I have learned how to manually boot Linux on a machine whose BIOS is so old that it cannot address the disk cylinder that the kernel is on and I have completely refreshed the many general Linux skills that used to just flow from my finger tips. It has been a frustrating experience, but ultimately a successful and useful one.
Just wanted to let everyone know that this is now [SOLVED]. I would mark the post as such, but I don't see any obvious way to do that. Thanks again everyone.

[solved] Arch linux access point with multiple interfaces for the NAT

Hi, I have a router running Arch linux. It is connected via LAN (let's call it eth0) to the internet. It has a second LAN interface, eth1, and a wireless interface in master mode, wlan0.
Now, Everything works perfectly except providing network connectivity on eth1 and wlan0 simultaneously. I followed the guide in the "Internet share" wiki article and use dnsmasq/hostapd for the AP. It appears as if all traffic from the router is sent to the wlan0 interface, even if it came in through eth1 (for example, dhcp requests). I cannot really find information how to solve this. The words "bonding" and "iptables" are floating around, but there is not really an easy to understand tutorial for this.
What do I need to do to use both the eth1 and wlan0 interface (for different clients!) on my router?
Best regards, and thank you in advance
Jan Oliver
/e: This seems to be my problem: http://www.novell.com/support/kb/doc.php?id=7000318 How do I solve this using the usual iptables? (The way described in the article doesn't work: "RTNETLINK answers: No such process" errors.)
Last edited by janoliver (2013-09-25 22:24:53)

Or you could bridge eth1 and wlan0, and make dnsmasq bind/listen on that bridge...

How to triple boot (MacOSX / Win7 / Linux) a MacBook Pro (Retina, late 2013) with Refind

ok it's not a question, it's an howto.
You do it at your own risk. No failure reported so far, but I'm not responsible for anything.
If you try to multiboot your MacBook Pro (MBP hereafter) you may face a new complexity. With on partition, Bootcamp does a pretty amazing job installing windows. But when you want to partition your disk in your own way, Bootcamp may fail to install windows and another third OS. You may also want to have a share partition between your OSes, hence have multiple partitions. Most of this tuto should also work for Windows 8 and for other Macbooks.
Problem 1 : Bootcamp does it with one partition that it divides in two and allow to setup Win7. Not all time though since some user reportidely have problems to get USB 3 support and the keyboard and mouse are non working during the install / setup phase.
Problem 2 : Windows 7 is not able to install itself to a GPT partition and needs an Hybrid MBR. Bootcamp does this, but just for a Dual OS setup. So to make the magic happen in a multi OS environment, you'll have to do want bootcamp does, manually.
Step 1 : Download the OS X Recovery Disk Assistant from Apple and flash it to a USB stick. (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433)
Step 2 : Reboot, holding the option key (aka CMD, left of spacebar) down, to trigger the boot menu options. Start the usb drive with OS X recovery and enter the partition tool. Create 3 to 4 partitions, suiting your tastes. Just put windows partition first and I recommend to put the partition sharing data across OSes second, MacOS 3rd and Linux Last for example. MacOS and Linux are fine with pretty much every setup, Windows need the 1° usable partition.
Step 3 : Migrate your Macos using the same tool (google it for details) or Reinstall MacOS from the recovery partition. (more about migration here, but there are better tuto on this)
Step 4 : Start your MacOS and create a bootcamp USB stick with the bootcamp tool. You need an ISO from Win7 (or Win 8) and a drive of at least 4 GB. Bootcamp will most likely complain about the fact that it will not be able to install 7 due to the fact that you don't have only one partition, ignore and proceed to the Bootcamp USB stick setup.
Step 5 : Adding the USB3 support to your Win7 installation. Plug your newly created Win7 USB stick to a computer running Windows. In the sources directory, copy the boot.vim on your disk drive and add the drivers that Bootcamp added to your USB stick, in the $WinPEDriver$ directory and follow these instructions to add them to your boot.vim image. Follow carefully every step, it does works. Add the drivers you feel like, commit and copy back your boot.vim image, patched, to your USB stick, in the sources directory.
Step 6 : In your MacOSX, install the GPT fdisk partition tool. You just have to unzip the archive. Win7 is unable to install to a GPT disk, so you will have to create a (dirty) Hybrid MBR. From a terminal, launch GPT fdisk. Carefull here, the Win7 is most likely not the 1st but the 2nd or 3rd because there is an UEFI partition before. Just check before adding them if in doubt, by striking p. Then key in r then h then the number of the partitions you want to add to this hybrid MBR (the Win7 & the Shared one). Accept the type 07 for this partition and type y, n & finally w. (more details here for the fans)
Step 7 : Reboot, keep the CMD key down to trigger the boot option menu. Reboot on the USB stick, install Win7. If it doesn't understand the partition made for it, format it, if needed, from the 7 installer, delete and recreate it.
Step 8 : Install your favorite Linux distro with a USB stick generator. (see here & here). No complex part, except that Grub will most likely scratch your nice Hybrid MBR, rendering Win7 inaccessible. No problem, reboot in MacOS and redo step 6, this will revive your win7.
Step 9 : It's cosmetic but keeping CMD key down to boot is not so practical. ReFind does it just great. Setup is super easy, just kick install.sh from a shell in MacOS. Fine tune decoration and some stuffs later on from the config file.
Step 10 (optionnal) : You want it all, without switching between OSes? Having Windows app running within MacOS is easy, with most native hardware acceleration preserved, using Parallels desktop. It also works with a "simple" Bootcamp Windows setup.
Enjoy your mighty triple boot MBP.

Just ordered a Retina MacBook Pro11,2 (mid-2014 15", 2.2GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, OSX 10.9.4 Pre-installed - Build 13E28) and have the exact same issue. The first thing I did when i booted it for the first time was enable FileValut2 and encrypt the disk. Though I failed to notice this behavior prior to encrypting the disk, the stuttering/lag happens without fail every time I have logged in from a cold boot, locked screen or sleep. Additionally I have noticed the same stuttering behavior when switching tabs on various built-in OSX applications such as the tabs on the About This Mac > More Info.... (System Information) dialog for example, and similarly other dialogs that experience this behavior of resizing when switching tabs. I was running no other software than About This Mac > More Info ... (System Information) and OSX 10.9.4 itself. The issue happens without fail with and without a USB mouse plugged in.
I am really glad to have found this thread and with such recent posts. I'd love to find out that this is just a software bug that will be fixed when OSX 10.10 "Yosemite" is released. If not, I hope the cause of this bug is determined soon so I can still exchange or have it repaired.
Migflono and Matthew, would you be able to post your hardware specs for comparison?

[SOLVED]Arch Linux / UEFI / BTRFS using Grub2 & Windows 8 in a 2nd HDD

PROBLEM:
====================================================================================
Dear fellas
I just purchased an new HP TouchSmart 17.3" laptop that comes with Windows 8.1 pro (1 tb HDD + small SSD for cache only ) and still have space for one more HDD or SSD.
I Google a lot and read a lot but many questions emerged since seems that no one has the same scenario (maybe I pick the wrong choices) like me.
The problem is.. I didn't wish to re-install Windows 8.1 since it came with from factory.. so I purchased a 750 gb hdd and put it into the free slot to install Arch Linux in a different HDD.
As I am not familiar with UEFI what I did was to reorder the hdds. I just put the Windows HDD as second disk and the new disk (For Arch Linux) as primary and changed into Bios from UEFI to compatibility mode and installed Arch Linux into the primary one.
I reaaaally need help to add to grub the correct "path" to Windows 8.1 disk that came with UEFI..
Anyone could please help me?
Thanks in advance!
====================================================================================
SOLUTION:
A huge thanks to @TheSaint and other users for their help and assistance!
More sources:
http://www.kossboss.com/linux---arch-in … -grub-boot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=METZCp_JCec#t=146
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 1#p1390741
Step by Step Summary:
Use gdisk to create partitions on /dev/sda:
- 512MB - EF02 type partition (for EFI boot)
- 690GB - Linux partition for the BTRFS.
- Create an EF00 (ESP) with 512mb
- Create a Linux System partition with the rest of space
Make the FAT 32 system for EFI boot:
# mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sda1
Make the BTRFS partition. If it complains about existing filesystems just add a "-f":
# mkfs.btrfs -L arch -f /dev/sda2
We will make out a root subvolume for sda1, this will be a folder called root located at the root of sda2. The way we will design this is that When the system boots we will not see /root, we will be inside root. Inside root you will have all of your etc,sys,proc,whatever folders etc.
# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
# cd /mnt
# btrfs subvolume create /mnt/root
This should show you your root
# btrfs subvolume list -a /mnt
Something like this: ID 256 gen 5 top level 5 path root
# cd /
# umount /dev/sda2
Now we will mount sda2 root subvolume as /mnt and we will dump the arch system into there with pacman. We will also enable compress to utilize btrfs compress feature.
# mount -o defaults,compress=lzo,subvol=root /dev/sda2 /mnt
NOTE: the command "mount" will not show which subvolume is mounted, to see how subvolumes are mounted you need to look inside proc (cat /proc/self/mountinfo):
# cat /proc/self/mountinfo | egrep sda2
The line for the mount of sda2 looks like this:
43 21 0:34 /root /mnt rw,relatime shared:30 - btrfs /dev/sda2 rw,compress=zlib,ssd,space_cache
We can see that the subvolume /root is mounted to /mnt from the device /dev/sda3
Notice how with regular mount command its missing:
# mount | egrep sda2
/dev/sda3 on /mnt type btrfs (rw,relatime,compress=zlib,ssd,space_cache)
Pacman will dump stuff into a boot folder, so we better mount our sda1 EFI boot partition to it. Or else all of the boot stuff will go to sda3 instead of sda1:
# cd /
# pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel
Let us create the directory and mount the EFI partition
# cd /mnt
# mkdir -p /mnt/boot/efi
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi
Let us generate the FSTAB:
# genfstab -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
Let us chroot into the arch installation:
# arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
Change password:
# passwd
Then pick the right one like this and associate it with a link to /etc/localtime
# ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Pacific /etc/localtime
Let us generate the initial RAM disk
# mkinitcpio -p linux
Let us setup the bootloader (GRUB)
# pacman -Syu grub efibootmgr
Let us generate the grub configuration
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Let us install grub into the HDD
# grub-install /dev/sda
# umount -R /mnt
# umount /mnt
# reboot
From this step you can go straight and forward with the https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_guide
Last edited by erickwill (2014-11-21 20:41:06)

TheSaint wrote:As UEFI BIOS is a boot loader itself. You should make on each HDD an ESP.
When you want to start win8 you go to BIOS and chose its entry, so will do for Arch the same.
For this way I suggest you write to boot the kernel directly from the BIOS. It just take some reading on this topic
Other option you set on you second ESP the boot loader of your liking and it will try to find win8 partition.
Thanks for your reply.
For the second option, may I use the compatibility mode and install the booloader into the first partition along with Arch?
Or in case the first option is still the better option, could you pleaaaase give me some directions from the scratch? Do you have Google Hangout?
Thanks in advance.
Last edited by erickwill (2014-11-18 19:54:26)

Has anyone successfully installed OSX, Windows 7 and Linux on macbook pro 8, 2

I just want to know before I take a shot at this, if there are any success storys of this or similar model macbook pro
also i want to do this while having a shared partition for music movies and pics to share between the 3 os's
also i would prefer all efi, but understand that i will most likely have to at least have windows in bios mode
so please post your fails and successes as this may help me
idk if any tianocore bootduet works on macbook pro either if anyone knows more about that please post
and i will post my results and attempts
also the linux i will use will most likely be ubuntu
one more thing, when i first got this macbook, the superdrive wasnt recognised in ubuntu so it would boot, then fail while trying to load the files
so i tried many things, couldnt get even cd combined with usb to work, so i waited, now with the recent release of 12.04 LTS, ubuntu will boot just fine on my macbook so i know it can now be done

No problem installing on my windows 7 x64 systems. Try uninstall AIR seperateley and then reinstalling it. Then reinstall IB. Note the more recent help systems also run Air so you can test that as well.
I believe this is the url for air (or try off the adobe home page)
http://www.adobe.com/go/EN_US-H-GET-AIR
you need to make sure you get the most recent as IB and AIR are more current then the ELEMents installs.
Don't uninstall elements.

My macbook pro runs slow, iTunes videos keep stuttering. Nothing has worked to solve this issue. Macbook Pro 13-inch mid 2012 2.5GHz i5 with 8GB RAM upgrade.

Hello everyone.
I have been having this issue for a few months now and nothing works to resolve it. The biggest issue is that iTunes videos constantly stutter ever few seconds, the audio portion of the video is not effected. The most I have open at once is Safari, Skype, and iTunes, and possibly Open Office. Videos will even stutter with nothing else open other than iTunes. At times it sounds like the computer is running something in the background from hard drive noise.
I even upgraded the RAM to 8GB and it still has this problem! Nothing looks wrong in Activity Monitor other than occasionally the memory usage spikes up to 6GB, but even then the memory pressure graph is green. I dont understand how these non-intensive programs can use that much. The hard drive is barely 1/3 full.
Please help with a solution as nothing has worked so far. Thanks!
Macbook pro 13-inch mid 2012
2.5GHz dual core i5
8GB DDR3 RAM
500GB HDD
Intel HD graphics 4000

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It won’t solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of this test is to determine whether the problem is localized to your user account. Enable guest logins* and log in as Guest. Don't use the Safari-only “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac.”
While logged in as Guest, you won’t have access to any of your documents or settings. Applications will behave as if you were running them for the first time. Don’t be alarmed by this behavior; it’s normal. If you need any passwords or other personal data in order to complete the test, memorize, print, or write them down before you begin.
Test while logged in as Guest. Same problem?
After testing, log out of the guest account and, in your own account, disable it if you wish. Any files you created in the guest account will be deleted automatically when you log out of it.
*Note: If you’ve activated “Find My Mac” or FileVault in OS X 10.7 or later, then you can’t enable the Guest account. The "Guest User" login created by "Find My Mac" is not the same. Create a new account in which to test, and delete it, including its home folder, after testing.

[SOLVED] Arch Linux on encrypted luks partition on USB key

Hi
I've installed Arch Linux on a USB key following this Wiki page: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … _a_USB_key
I also used dm-crypt as described in this Wiki page: https://wiki.archlinux.de/title/Festpla … iante_1.29
I installed Arch Linux on the USB key using VirtualBox.
To do that, I created a "rawvmdk":
vboxmanage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename ./usb.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sdd
Everything works fine when I'm trying to start the system within VirtualBox.
Syslinux loads Arch using the following kernel command:
APPEND cryptdevice=UUID=6aa73872-3755-4bdf-bee3-d1cd7a3fe0bf:main root=/dev/mapper/main-root rw
/etc/mkinitcpio.conf holds the following "HOOKS" configuration:
HOOKS="base udev autodetect modconf block keyboard keymap encrypt lvm2 filesystems fsch resume"
As already mentioned the configuration works within VirtualBox. When I'm trying to boot from the USB key on my real computer, I'm getting an error. Syslinux works fine and loads Linux, but Linux is complaining. Here's the log:
:: running hoock [encrypt]
Waiting 10 seconds for device /dev/disk/by-uuid/6aa73872-3755-4bdf-bee3-d1cd7a3fe0bf ...
ERROR: device '/dev/mapper/main-root' not found. Skipping fschk.
ERROR: Unable to find root device '/dev/mapper/main-root'.
You are being dropped to a recovery shell
I'm not getting prompted for the passphrase since the cryptdevice can not be found. But why? It can be found when I'm booting within VirtualBox. What might be different? I successfully installed other Linux distributions (but without encryption and using GRUB as bootloader) previously within VirtualBox and was able to boot from the USB key on a real machine afterwards.
Some additional information that might help:
Here's the "lsblk -f output" for the stick:
sdd
├─sdd1 ext4 usbboot bb45e84e-842e-4209-8c44-1af3c7933389
└─sdd2 crypto_L 6aa73872-3755-4bdf-bee3-d1cd7a3fe0bf
When I'm running "lsblk" or "blkid" from the recovery shell after the failure, I'm getting no output. "ls /dev/sd*" returns nothing as well. The directory /dev/disk does not even exists in the recovery shell. (I'm not sure if this is normal or not.)
Thanks for helping.
Last edited by The Infinity (2014-08-14 20:26:06)

I still haven't solved the problem:
When starting the system on a machine with NVIDIA GTX 560Ti graphics card:
- X doesn't start using startx or xinit and there are no log entries in /var/log/Xorg.*.log (as I haven't tried to start X).
- I'm getting the message "Waiting for X server to begin accepting connections .. .. .. ..".
- I already tried to uninstall xf86-video-nouveau and nouveau-dri with no effect.
- Additionally: The "default terminals tty1/2/3/..." (which I'm using to start X) from have a poor resolution (I think 640x480 pixel).
When starting the system on a virtual machine or a machine with an ATI Radeon (mobile) graphics card:
- X starts and runs without any trouble the XFCE desktop environment.
- Additionally: The default terminals have a proper resolution (I think the maximal resolution of the display).

[Solved] Installing packages on MacBook Pro 8.1, No Internet!

I'm trying to install archlinux to a partition (I'm dual booting) on my MacBook Pro Early 2011 model, my issue is I can not have a wired connection since my ethernet port is broken.
So my plan is to download all the base and base-devel packages from the packages on this webstie, and install from a portable device. From there I'll download and install the wireless drivers (from AUR) for my MacBook, connect to the internet and continue the Arch installation from there.
So far I downloaded the base and base-devel packages. Now I'm confused on how to install them from my mounted USB without pacman. I don't know how to work with pacstrap so maybe there is a command on that script I can use to install the packages from my USB to my system?
(I know with pacman i can use pacman -U /path-to-install-from)
Can someone help me out?
Last edited by mastrgamr (2013-04-15 18:40:41)

For clarity sake, I'll assume a few things:
You are booting from a live USB of the netinstall image and *not* your internal hard drive.
You say you need files from the AUR, so you must have downloaded the tarballs when you grabbed base and base-devel.
While in the live environment, you have access to these downloaded files (tarballs, base, and base-devel)
You're going to create a local repo on the live USB.
While booted in the live environment, use the repo-add utility to do this. Add all the packages from base and base-devel.
Using the pacman -U command, install your base-devel packages to the live environment. This will allow you to build your AUR packages. Do that, and then add the newly created packages to your local repo.
Once you've done both of these, modify /etc/pacman.conf to point only to the local repo. From here on in, you should be able to use pacstrap to setup the system as normal. More help here.
Hope that helps!

[SOLVED] Arch Linux on Macbook Pro 4.1

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