Installing ubuntu on mac

[John Levin]

On 11 Nov 2004, at 10:42, Erik Bågfors wrote:

> Hi
>
> I'm just about to install ubuntu on a imac and I'm not at all used to
> mac's.  When reading the howto on the wiki it talks about a NewWorld
> boot partition, but says nothing about what that is. I googled alittle
> and found something about that it had to be 800K and have a specific
> type.

What sort of imac do you have?

>
> Now, I also want to have MacOS on it.

Which Mac OS - OS 9 or OS X?

> So, I assume I have to do
> something like this?
>
> * Boot ubuntu cd,
> * Partition disk, create four partitions, the newworld boot partition
> 800K first, the MacOS partition, the linux partion, and the linux swap
> partition.
> * Boot the MacOS cd and install that
> * Boot the ubuntu cd and install that
>
> Is this correct?

No, I don't think so - but I'm not absolutely sure.
What I did - and it worked for me - was:
1: Repartition the hd with OS X disc utility - running from the install 
cd. Split the hd into two partitions; one for OS X (HFS+) and one free 
space.
2: Reinstall OS X.
3: Once OS X was running fine, boot from the Ubuntu CD
4: The partitioner will give a very different view of the hd - on an 
imac, there was something like 11 partitions - a lot of micro 
partitions installed by OS X for booting, and a small blank partition 
near the beginning of the drive. This is what you install the Yaboot 
bootloader on.

(NB: for dual-booting on an ibook (g4), there was only 5 partitions - 
presumably these boot differently to g3 imacs)

5: Partition the free space as you wish for Ubuntu (remember a swap 
partition).
6: Let Ubuntu get on with installing

I think there's a good reason for having OS X first on the partition, 
but have read contradictory things about that. Also, you may want to 
leave some free space for a partition to be shared by OS X and Ubuntu - 
good for transferring files etc. But I haven't worked out the best way 
of doing this yet.

>
> I really think the install instructions are lacking but I'm sure it
> get's better soon, I'll keep track of what I do and add to the wiki.
>

Yeah, the instructions are inadequate. I want to improve them, but 
frankly, got bogged down in trying to understand everything that's 
going on.

> Regards,
> Erik

John

PS: Could you send me your machine details and the partitioning 
version? I'm trying to collate some data on this. Thanks.