Booting Centos 5 with Boot Camp or GRUB

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Level 1

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Booting Centos 5 with Boot Camp or GRUB

I have successfully installed Centos on my MacBook, but now I can't figure out how to boot into it.

Previously, I used Boot Camp to dual boot into Windows XP. I'm pretty sure Centos installed a GRUB boot loader, but when I hold option down on startup the only option is my Mac drive (I deleted the Windows partition to install the Linux side).

Before I installed Centos, I removed the Windows partition with XP on it and zeroed out all my free space. At this point I had one ~150 GB partition on the drive which was the Mac OS.

I then booted the install disc and tried to create a new partition and install Centos. I selected "Create default partition from free space" but the partitioning agent didn't see the free space inside my Mac partition (which took up the whole drive) but the free space on the drive (the space free of any partitions).

I then created a new windows partition with Boot Camp Assistant of the size I wanted for Centos and deleted this new FAT partition from the Centos install disk which created two partitions from the free space. One partition was 12 GB (I am assuming this is the root partition) and the other was 200 MB (I am assuming this is the swap). I thought that there was supposed to be three partitions, one of them a /boot/ partition (which might be part of the problem...).

I thought I successfully installed Centos because the installer continued after I partitioned the drive (instead of saying the partition was too small - it did this before I created and deleted the 12 GB Windows partition) and after cranking through the installation progress bar it said something along the lines of "Installation complete - restart computer".

I have tried rEFIt but it has the same problem as Boot Camp, it didn't seem to see the Centos bootable partition, only the Mac side.

I have found this old forum with a similar problem - http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=5042

They recommend manually partitioning for the "Master Boot Record" but when I try to partition from my Mac install disc, the smallest size it allows me is 1 GB when all I want is a 100 MB. This method also seems to delete my Mac partition and I am unsure if it will work if I just add the new partition instead of deleting the old one.

How do I boot into Centos on my MacBook, and can I use Boot Camp like I did with Windows to keep my Mac partition bootable and safe along side Linux?

Thanks a ton!

MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.5.7), Centos 5.3

Posted on Jul 12, 2009 2:46 PM

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Answer 1

Dreier Carr Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 13, 2009 7:32 PM in response to Dreier Carr

I have gotten as far as being able to boot into Centos the same way as the form I liked to above, but I also have the same error stating "missing operating system."

Does anyone know if I can use the same method as stated on the other site (and quoted below) WITHOUT deleting my Mac partition? My goal is to dual boot Mac OS 10.5 and Centos 5. Is this possible?

Thanks,
Dreier

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Intel Mac Mini installation instructions for CentOS 5:

1) Boot Mac OS X install CD. Click on "Utilities" in the upper left corner and select disk utilities
2) Click on the "Entire" disk, select partition tab, then select 2 partitions. click the first, choose MS-DOS (I set the size to .1GB to get it smaller than the 8.XX it wants to leave it at). Then click options and select "Master Boot Record" to support booting other OS (3rd option down). Then click, "Partition" when you are done in the "partition" tab. If you click outside of this tab, you'll lose this information.
3) Once you are partitioned this way, when you reboot, hold down "C" to boot off the CentOS 5 DVD (I installed from DVD, so I don't know if it works with CD's or not).
4) Boot per normal. Partition disks, DON'T DELETE THE MS-DOS PARTITION!!!! When it asks about Grub, make sure to select "Advanced" at the bottom of the window and then next. On the next page, it asks if you want to install in the MBR on /dev/sda, select that one. Don't pick an individual partition.

5) Go through the install, select how you want to build the system. After the reboot, it should just "work". It took it a minute to get to Grub, so be patient. If you see a blinking folder, you missed a step and have to "reinstall" the entire system.

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