[SOLVED] Install Gentoo on External HD of Intel iMac?

skrapasor · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jul 2008 Posts: 92

How do I do it? I attempted this before and wasted many hours and gave up eventually, but I'm feeling courageous. I guess this isn't really a Gentoo-specific problem, so if I'm on the wrong forum please correct me, but it does have to do with "installing Gentoo." I have a working Gentoo system, BUT I can only access it by popping in an Ubuntu CD (I'm sure any live CD would work) and then choosing "boot from external HD," which puts me into a working Gentoo. But I don't know how to just turn on the computer and get to that point. When I hold the option key the external HD doesn't show up.

poly_poly-man · Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 2:15 am Post subject:

you installed an openfirmware-compatible bootloader to the bootsector of that drive, right?
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skrapasor · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jul 2008 Posts: 92

No I didn't, but that sounds about right. Could you tell me how or point me in the right direction?

poly_poly-man · Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 4:07 am Post subject:

http://refit.sourceforge.net/myths/

I'm assuming, based on the fact that the ubuntu cd works, that you are using some sort of bios-emulation? in that case, just install grub as per normal instructions in the manual. Otherwise, use rEFIt or elilo (and, apparently, lose 2d and 3d acceleration).
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skrapasor · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jul 2008 Posts: 92

No, I'm not doing anything like that. I just popped it in and it works. The screen is fairly fuzzy and messed up, but it's usable. I've used refit, it didn't detect my external HD with Gentoo on it, that's the problem. I don't know what I need to do to make sure it can detect it.

cach0rr0 · Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 1:28 pm Post subject:

possibly a timing issue?

USB drives are going to take longer to initialize and become visible. I've seen people fiddling with 'rootdelay' on the kernel stanza in grub.conf for such things - never done so myself, don't know if this info is in any way useful to you

skrapasor · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jul 2008 Posts: 92

Well it shows up in rEFIt, but when I click "Linux from USB" or whatever (but not the internal HD one), it doesn't work. It shows the penguin for a minute and then says

skrapasor · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jul 2008 Posts: 92

This should help in case any else is interested: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=814155

I think I will create an internal boot partition.

skrapasor · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Jul 2008 Posts: 92

I did it! I had to re-sync the partition tables with rEFIt (I think it uses gptsync) and then I had to reinstall grub to the internal boot partition I created (not the one Mac OS X uses.) When I boot the Mac and hold option, it shows me "Windows" which is my internal boot partition. The boot partition now boots to the external HD, so everything is working. I'm actually on links right now compling gnome-light in my iMac Gentoo.