Linux install party

This page is currently being worked on.

The "operating system" is GNU/Linux. We will be installing the Debian distribution. At other times in the course, we've also used Gentoo and Ubuntu.

( see debian family tree)

FOSDEM 2014

Tools

unetbootin

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

Unet bootin is a cross platform (window, mac, and linux) program to create bootable USB sticks.

boot-repair-disc

• Useful when things go wrong with booting

http://sourceforge.net/projects/boot-repair-cd/

Mac / OS X

Generally, the idea is to use the Mac's Disk Utility to shrink the main OSX/hfs partition and then to (USB) boot to install linux in the free space you create.

• http://superuser.com/questions/72896/cannot-resize-os-x-partition

Work around: copy a lot of data off the hard drive (temporarily), say your Movies folder, and then try to resize again. Once the partition has successfully be resized, you can copy the files back.

• Starting a mac from a DVD (special keys) Starting up the Mac with the ALT key pressed should allow you to pick a USB stick with a Linux (Debian) bootable installer.

Windows

• http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

Pressing shift while selecting restart (in the Power "charm") seems to bring up the UEFI settings.

Notes

Max's MacBook Pro, running 10.6, booted from the Debian NetInstall AMD64 USB stick using Alt key on bootup. Debian standard installer works, asking for wireless driver.

brcm/bcm43XX-0.fw

Got Lidia's machine working, BCM4331 wireless support still not in kernel.

Installed debian on Artyom's machine, and GRUB installed itself rather agressively and doesn't work -- Linux is broken and he needs to press the ALT key to manually select OSX now each startup... to be continued.

Installed debian on Caetano's Lenovo with Win8 and again the boot stuff isn't setup right. Tried using EasyBCD but choosing debian results in a windows error (is grub maybe not setup right?)