[Gllug] Mactel Linux problem - Save my marriage :)

[Panos Savvas]

Many thanks for the informative reply. Despite having used several
derivatives I haven't yet given Debian a go.

Just to clarify, I have no difficulty in installing linux on my mac. The
problem is that once my wife decided she does not want linux anymore I could
not find a way to recover the "swap" and "/"partinions for use by OSX.

Mac provide an application called Bootcamp which allows one to resize the
partitions in order to dual boot windows, and with a few tweaks this method
can be used to install linux. However ext(n) filesystems seems to be not
supported by bootcamp and therefore neither it or the native mac disk
utility any longer even acknowledge the partitions. I therefore had a hard
disk of 120Gb which is correctly reported by the mac disk utility, but only
one 80Gb partition visible for configuration.

At any rate I then used a live CD to delete the linux partitions and this
made no difference. Even the mac cd installer see only the 80GB partiotion.

Finally I tried wiping the entire disk using a kde based live cd, ensuring
the partition table is deleted (i.e. one 111Gb block of
unpartitioned/unformated disk). Therefore there is no OSx on the system
anymore.

The mac cd installer now (predictably) sees no disk at all, at so I cannot
install OSX again :)

I need to find a way I think to use a live linux CD to format the disk in a
OSX compatible filesystem.
Is this possible?

I found this:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/linux-hfsplus/
has anyone any experience of this?

Chris you mentioned previously: "rewrite the partition table with some clear
unused space"
Is there an explicit step to doing this beyond deleting the partitions and
writing the changes to disk?

Cheers

On 7/26/07, Chris Bell <chrisbell at overview.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> On Thu 26 Jul, Panos Savvas wrote:
> > hi Chris,
> >
> > Thanks for the suggestion.
> >
> > I tried this last night. But maybe I am missing the step "rewrite the
> > partition table with some clear unused space"
> >
>
>   I use Debian, and although I have never used the Mac version, the
> facilities are generally similar across all the different versions.
>   I understand that each kind of Apple computer is a unique design, and
> software must be written to match each particular version, so it is very
> important to read the relevant instructions. Debian includes instructions
> on
> the installation discs, and the latest instructions are always available
> from the Debian website, see www.uk.debian org or www.debian.org
>   There are different methods of starting the installer, giving the
> required amount of manual control over the installation, or a fully
> automatic
> installation using the entire disc.
>   As many configuration decisions as possible are made before any
> irreversible write is made to disc.
>   From what I have read, Debian uses the Mac Boot facility for the
> particular version of Mac. For manual partitioning, all partitions are
> normally found by the installer and shown in the menu, usually marked "Do
> not use". To change anything, move the cursor to the particular line and
> select (enter) that line. The menu will then display the current set of
> options for that item. Unwanted partitions can be selected for
> modification
> or deletion prior to re-using the space. All configuration decisions are
> held in memory until it is essential to write to disc, and you are asked
> to
> confirm that you wish to write to disc at every stage where this is
> required. It is fairly easy to mark all unwanted partitions for deletion,
> and no other action, leaving all wanted partitions and some free space on
> the disc. The installer will modify the partition table as neccessary to
> suit your requests.
>
>
> --
> Chris Bell
>
> --
> Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
> http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug
>
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