Running Ubuntu From USB on Mac

DubDJ

Wondering if anyone could show me what i'm doing wrong.

I've followed this guide to make a bootable version of Ubuntu (Latest version) for my mac. I followed all the steps successfully and the USB is ready to go. However when I get to the boot menu only the Mac drive and recovery appears and the bootable usb doesn't show.

I don't know what i'm doing wrong and i'm new to all things Linux. I don't want to install or run it on my system but boot from the flash drive with Ubuntu installed on it.

I've a Macbook Pro 8,2 running the latest version of OS X.

Any help appriciated.

BopNiblets

Perhaps you need to enable booting from USB in the bios?
Sorry not too familiar with the Fruit machines!

DubDJ

BopNiblets wrote: »

Perhaps you need to enable booting from USB in the bios?
Sorry not too familiar with the Fruit machines!

I think one of the issues with running it on Mac is it doesn't have Bios like windows but rather EFI or something along the lines. I'm really inexperienced myself with this kinda thing and so far searching online isn't too helpful. Just very technical and a lot of jargon I can't understand.

jonathan11

Hey,
I recently setup VMWare fusion on the mac, then ran Ubuntu as a virtual machine from a USB stick. It worked pretty good.
Not sure about running ubuntu directly on the mac.
Be careful of the root file system. :eek:

DubDJ

jonathan11 wrote: »

Hey,
I recently setup VMWare fusion on the mac, then ran Ubuntu as a virtual machine from a USB stick. It worked pretty good.
Not sure about running ubuntu directly on the mac.
Be careful of the root file system. :eek:

I'm try avoid VMware to be honest. I don't even know if what I'm try a do is possible but thought I'd chance asking here somebody might know. Thanks.

Can you try the usb drive on another device to see if the correct path was chosen when writing the image to the usb drive.

Is the image courrupted? You can check the hashes here.

Alternatively, You could always try unetbootin to write the image to disk.

It should work, I have a macbook pro, here with OSX SL, FreeBSD, Linux Mint & Fedora with rEFIt doing it's magic.

niallb

Install rEFIt in OSX.
Reboot TWICE.

You'll get a bootloader that will give you an icon for the USB if a bootable stick is inserted.

Changing System disk using the control panel tool will remove refit.

DubDJ

Think it's something to do with the version of Macbook Pro I have. I've seen a few posts with people having problem with the Macbook Pro 8,2.

niallb

Hi.
Loads of questions here, but easily answered. Should be able to get you sorted easily.

Which boot menu are you saying in first post shows only OSX and recovery?

Have you installed refit yet?
If you don't want to install it on disk for some reason, you can download a copy as an ISO, burn to CD and boot from that for a more complete boot menu.

Have you booted Ubuntu from a CD at all? Take a look at the just released 12.04, but make sure you download the one named amd64+Mac.

There's a couple of hiccups with sound etc on mac books that year, but Ubuntu should run beautifully on it.

What comes up in the finder when you insert the USB with osx running?

Don't give up! There isn't a MacBook ever released that someone hasn't failed to install linux on and written it up as an impossible task.
Once you're properly prepared,
it should just boot and run.

DubDJ

niallb wrote: »

Hi.
Loads of questions here, but easily answered. Should be able to get you sorted easily.

Which boot menu are you saying in first post shows only OSX and recovery?

Have you installed refit yet?
If you don't want to install it on disk for some reason, you can download a copy as an ISO, burn to CD and boot from that for a more complete boot menu.

Have you booted Ubuntu from a CD at all? Take a look at the just released 12.04, but make sure you download the one named amd64+Mac.

There's a couple of hiccups with sound etc on mac books that year, but Ubuntu should run beautifully on it.

What comes up in the finder when you insert the USB with osx running?

Don't give up! There isn't a MacBook ever released that someone hasn't failed to install linux on and written it up as an impossible task.
Once you're properly prepared,
it should just boot and run.

The boot menu I used was the Macbook menu (by pressing alt), which only showed the Mac and Recovery drive.

I installed refit but then removed it as my Macbook would go into a boot menu on every startup.

When I insert the usb it says it can't be recognized which makes me think Ubuntu is successfully installed onto it.

I downloaded the older version and now have the 12.04 64bit one you mentioned.

I think the best way for me to do it is install refit onto a CD and boot from that. I wasn't aware this was possible till I came across it the other day. I'll try booting the usb using refit on a disc and see if it's successful.

I've always wanted to try Ubuntu without installing it on my HDD, hence why I really want it on USB. Thanks for all the help so far.

DubDJ

Now I have rEfit on Disc, and also have the latest version of Ubuntu on USB Flash drive. Followed all the steps one by one and almost 100% it installed on the USB correctly.

Restarted the Macbook, holding Alt, and the boot menu pops up. Showing Mackintosh HD, Recovery HD and rEfit. So I move across and select rEfit and it boots from the disc. But the rEfit menu shows Mac HD and Legacy HD with a few other menu's below. Now showing me Ubuntu on USB drive. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

niallb

DubDJ wrote: »

Now I have rEfit on Disc, and also have the latest version of Ubuntu on USB Flash drive. Followed all the steps one by one and almost 100% it installed on the USB correctly.

The USB should mount as a file system in OSX if it's been created correctly, so maybe go back to that step again just to double check. I'll try to get a chance to duplicate the process.

DubDJ wrote: »

Restarted the Macbook, holding Alt, and the boot menu pops up. Showing Mackintosh HD, Recovery HD and rEfit. So I move across and select rEfit and it boots from the disc. But the rEfit menu shows Mac HD and Legacy HD with a few other menu's below. Now showing me Ubuntu on USB drive. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

What do you get when you pick Legacy HD?
Some ways of making sticks bootable on Mac might not look like Linux to refit.

DubDJ

niallb wrote: »

The USB should mount as a file system in OSX if it's been created correctly, so maybe go back to that step again just to double check. I'll try to get a chance to duplicate the process.

Yeah gonna format the USB and start from scratch.


What do you get when you pick Legacy HD?
Some ways of making sticks bootable on Mac might not look like Linux to refit.

When I selected Legacy HD I just got a black screen like terminal.

Thanks for the help so far.

DubDJ

Just to be a little more clear.

When I boot up this is the screen I get. Screen 1

Then after selecting rEfit this is the next screen. Screen 2

When I select Legacy HD this is the black screen and message that comes up. Screen 3

The smaller options underneath, the first is about a shell. And this is what i get when I click into that. Screen 4

The other options are Partition, About rEfit, Restart and Shutdown.

Hopefully it makes it a little more clear for you as it's the best way I can explain it.

niallb

Any luck getting the USB visible in OSX ?

DubDJ

niallb wrote: »

Any luck getting the USB visible in OSX ?

Sorry about the delay in replying. I don't know what the USB Flash should show up as if it's visible.

When I insert the USB this is the message I get.

"The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer."

With 3 options below: 'Initialize', 'Ignore' and 'Eject'.

I'm thinking of giving up on Booting from USB.

niallb

It should show up as a formatted filesystem with ubuntu on it.
Intel Macs are trickier to boot from USB than other PCs.

Why don't you just burn the amd64+mac iso to CD and boot from that?
It'll work with far less problems.

DubDJ

niallb wrote: »

It should show up as a formatted filesystem with ubuntu on it.
Intel Macs are trickier to boot from USB than other PCs.

Why don't you just burn the amd64+mac iso to CD and boot from that?
It'll work with far less problems.

I've also tried that before and selected try Ubuntu and it just got stuck at a black screen. Nothing happened.

niallb

Check the ISO you downloaded, and make absolutely certain it contained the letters amd64+mac in the name.
If you downloaded it from www.ubuntu.com, the default one it gives you is wrong.

I found the right one at

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/precise/release/ubuntu-12.04-desktop-amd64+mac.iso

If you haven't tried it, give it a go - it understands EFI.
By the way, how long did you leave the black screen up?

DubDJ

niallb wrote: »

Check the ISO you downloaded, and make absolutely certain it contained the letters amd64+mac in the name.
If you downloaded it from www.ubuntu.com, the default one it gives you is wrong.

I found the right one at

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/precise/release/ubuntu-12.04-desktop-amd64+mac.iso

If you haven't tried it, give it a go - it understands EFI.
By the way, how long did you leave the black screen up?

Yeah I definitely have the correct version. I checked to make sure as well. I downloaded the 64bit file. I also went and checked to make sure the image wasn't corrupt and that checked out. Gonna try burning it to a disc again. See if it'll work. I left it around 5 minutes last time.

niallb

DubDJ wrote: »

niallb wrote: »

Check the ISO you downloaded, and make absolutely certain it contained the letters amd64+mac in the name.
If you downloaded it from www.ubuntu.com, the default one it gives you is wrong.

I found the right one at

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/precise/release/ubuntu-12.04-desktop-amd64+mac.iso

If you haven't tried it, give it a go - it understands EFI.
]

Yeah I definitely have the correct version. I checked to make sure as well. I downloaded the 64bit file. I also went and checked to make sure the image wasn't corrupt and that checked out. Gonna try burning it to a disc again. See if it'll work. I left it around 5 minutes last time.

If it's the one marked 64 bit from following the links on www.Ubuntu.com it won't work.

It must have the letters +mac in the filename.

Check the filename of your file and if it only has amd64 in it, download the one I linked above.

DubDJ

niallb wrote: »

DubDJ wrote: »

If it's the one marked 64 bit from following the links on www.Ubuntu.com it won't work.

It must have the letters +mac in the filename.

Check the filename of your file and if it only has amd64 in it, download the one I linked above.

Quick question. Would it matter that I changed the name? I can't imagine that it would but i've renamed it Ubuntu 12.04. It is the Mac version, AMD 64bit file I downloaded. 100% sure of that.

niallb

DubDJ wrote: »

Quick question. Would it matter that I changed the name? I can't imagine that it would but i've renamed it Ubuntu 12.04. It is the Mac version, AMD 64bit file I downloaded. 100% sure of that.

No, but only if it was the right file to begin with. What was the original name?

If you followed the link on the page called
"How to create a bootable USB stick on OS X"
you have the wrong one.

Post the md5sum of the iso file you have.
Instructions at the end if you don't know how to get that.
Make sure it's b9a8cbb64cc15df0209b68c8494ed5ef or you have the wrong one even though the install page claims it's suitable for mac.

The right mac file was originally called ubuntu-12.04-desktop-amd64+mac.iso
The normal desktop download is called ubuntu-12.04-desktop-amd64.iso
and has the md5sum 128f0c16f4734c420b0185a492d92e52
It's the first one I downloaded as well and it didn't work for me either.

To verify the MD5SUM in OS X, simply open the Terminal and type “md5″ followed by one space, and then drag and drop the downloaded file from the finder into the terminal window. Hit return on your keyboard and wait a few moments (The larger the file, the longer it will take). The terminal will spit out the MD5 hash for the file, which you can then compare to the once provided by the download originator! (From macappguide )

DubDJ

niallb wrote: »

No, but only if it was the right file to begin with. What was the original name?

If you followed the link on the page called
"How to create a bootable USB stick on OS X"
you have the wrong one.

Post the md5sum of the iso file you have.
Instructions at the end if you don't know how to get that.
Make sure it's b9a8cbb64cc15df0209b68c8494ed5ef or you have the wrong one even though the install page claims it's suitable for mac.

The right mac file was originally called ubuntu-12.04-desktop-amd64+mac.iso
The normal desktop download is called ubuntu-12.04-desktop-amd64.iso
and has the md5sum 128f0c16f4734c420b0185a492d92e52
It's the first one I downloaded as well and it didn't work for me either.

To verify the MD5SUM in OS X, simply open the Terminal and type “md5″ followed by one space, and then drag and drop the downloaded file from the finder into the terminal window. Hit return on your keyboard and wait a few moments (The larger the file, the longer it will take). The terminal will spit out the MD5 hash for the file, which you can then compare to the once provided by the download originator! (From macappguide )

Maybe it was the wrong file I got. I'll check yours out that you linked and get back.

niallb

DubDJ wrote: »

Maybe it was the wrong file I got. I'll check yours out that you linked and get back.

Hi @DubDJ.
Did you get around to trying the other image at all?
Did it make any difference?
Curious to see if it gets sorted out on that model.

DubDJ

niallb wrote: »

Hi @DubDJ.
Did you get around to trying the other image at all?
Did it make any difference?
Curious to see if it gets sorted out on that model.

Hi Niall,

Sorry about the late reply. I ended up giving up on the whole idea. Too much hassle. I only wanted to try it in the first place but ended up being determined to get it to work. I'll probably come back to it some other time and try it out.

Thanks for all the help though.

TenLeftFingers

I have the same problem on a 13" Macbook Pro (late 2011). The USB stick boots fine on two Dell systems and the persistence even stores my installed applications.

On the Mac, I choose Refit at boot-time. It picks up on the two partitions of the USB stick (although it doesn't recognise the Ubuntu one as linux). It recognizes the second one as Windows (but it's just and empty drive formatted to NTFS.

When I choose the Ubuntu partition, I get a tty with the error "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key".

Any ideas? I had installed fine from CD as previous posts mention, but the persistence is why I'm interested in USB. Also, there are rumours that CD drives will be phased out in the future

<edit>I'm not using the AMD64+Mac image. I have an Intel Mac so I downloaded the default ISO. Is that right?</edit>