Ubuntu On Mac Without CD-Rom or USB

Ubuntu On Mac Without CD-Rom or USB

This was quite the saga.
I ended up doing the following:

  1. Buy a Firewire cable, 6-pin to 6-pin and make sure you have another macbook or mac!
  2. On the mac that will be Ubuntufied download and install Refit this is a custom boot loader for Mac and will mac it easy to switch between operating systems on your mac! Go to Applications > Utilities and select Partition Inspector, then select analyze!
  3. On the mac you want to install Ubuntu on, go to Applications > Utilities and then Disk Utility.
  4. Select the drive you want to install Ubuntu on and then make a new partition on the drive. If you have no space resize the existing partition and then add a new one. Once the new partition is made, go ahead and delete it, making sure the other partition is kept the same size as when you resized it. Now you should have some unallocated space on the drive. Perfect!
  5. Then get a friends other macbook and connect them both through the firewire ports.
  6. Go to System Preferences > Then Startup Disk then select “Target Disk Mode”. Do this on the mac that you want to install Ubuntu on.
  7. Make sure you have a copy of Ubuntu on CD. Insert it into the 2nd mac (Your friends mac) then reboot it.
  8. As it reboots make sure you hold down the option key (alt option) as it boots, you will now see a selection of devices to boot from. Select the CD option.
  9. Ubuntu will boot in and show a live cd installer. Which is basically a replication of the operating system running via RAM and CD-ROM. Double click the install option and begin with the installation.
  10. When it comes time to selecting which device to install it on make sure you select the firewire device, which will usually be sdc or sdb, below the primary hdd device. If you are unsure go to System, Administration and select Partitioner to double check.
  11. Click Next. Now i simply just chose guided, using the most free allocated space. 
  12. Fill out your details on the next page and choose next.
  13. Now you will be taken to a new screen showing a summary of all the installation. On this page look for a button called Details. Click it and select the boot from and change it to the new partition. Mine was SDC3 which was the 3rd partition (the new partition) on the device. This will install the bootloader on the correct partition and not screw up the master boot records on your friends PC!
  14. Click next and install!
  15. Once the installation is complete reboot both pcs and you are done!
  16. On the Ubuntu’d mac, refit! will load and simply select the penguin option. At first i was just greated by a blinking cursor. Then it froze. I rebooted, tried again, this time i was greated by a frozen penguin (tux). The third time worked. However if this happens to you i recommend you use the partition inspector from the boot screen to update all the partitions correctly. Then it should all work!

I had a heap of trouble achieving this, as i smashed my internal drive in my mac book. I bought an external drive, however the mac book wouldn’t boot from that.

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Posted by VoiDeT

Categorised under Technology
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One Comment

  1. Ian W

    Thank you for this! I also had a problem with a broken CD-ROM and this guide was incredibly helpful.

    April 27, 2009 @ 10:07 pm

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