This was written while installing both Mac OS X 10.5.6 and Ubuntu GNU/Linux 8.10 in an MSI Wind U100, model MS-N011. Just notes to remember how it was done, just in case it needs to be done again.
For the ones that are revisiting this article and do not need the long story:
The system comes with three partitions in the 160 GB disk
Factory partition table
|-------------------+--------+----------------------------------------| | Linux Device Name | Size | Description | |-------------------+--------+----------------------------------------| | /dev/sda1 | 4 GB | MSI Windows recovery utility partition | | /dev/sda2 | 40 GB | C: Windows Installed Partition | | /dev/sda3 | 116 GB | D: Empty | |-------------------+--------+----------------------------------------|
fdisk output
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x7ecbba1f Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 510 4096543+ 12 Compaq diagnostics /dev/sda2 511 5610 40965750 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sda3 5611 19457 111226027+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
Booting with an Ubuntu installation Live CD, split /dev/sda3 in two using fdisk, leaving sda1 and sda2 as they are
New partition table
|-------------------+-------+----------------------------------------| | Linux Device Name | Size | Description | |-------------------+-------+----------------------------------------| | /dev/sda1 | 4 GB | MSI Windows recovery utility partition | | /dev/sda2 | 40 GB | C:\ Windows Installed Partition | |-------------------+-------+----------------------------------------| | /dev/sda3 | 55 GB | Mac OS X installation | | /dev/sda4 | 55 GB | Ubuntu 8.10 / root filesystem | |-------------------+-------+----------------------------------------|
I did not make extended partitions, nor a swap partition. The machine has 1 GB ram, and Ubuntu will work well without swap since it is a netbook and not a workstation, and I know from previous iDeneb installations that extended partitions do not play well with Mac OS X. If swap is needed in Ubuntu, add it as a file.
Downloaded iDeneb 1.4, which was released on February 7 2009 The .torrent or rapidshare links are not at the iDeneb website, to avoid legal implications I guess. At first i tried downloading a .torrent found in piratebay but it was excruciatingly slow.
After a bit of searching, found links to rapidshare
Downloading, burning it, rebooting selecting (with F11) the external DVD writer as boot device...
Installed iDeneb 1.4 (Mac OS X 10.5.6 for non-Apple hardware) by selecting MSI Wind in the advanced settings tab. In theory, this should have seamlessly installed the thing into the computer, but you know it is never so easy...
At first boot, graphics card freezes. As the welcome music is heard in the speakers, I realize that everything else seems to be working. Rebooting with -x (without loading drivers), and installed the drivers from here following this link
Earlier versions of this document pointed to other installer that required using Kext helper, and in the end you had the wrong resolution. Everything is better with this GMA950.pkg, just click, install and reboot.
Now that hardware acceleration is working, you can try Photoboot to see the webcam works
It seems that for Ethernet connection to work, the cable must be plugged in (and connected to the gateway) DURING BOOT. Afterwards, you can unplug the cable, hibernate, and re-plug it and the device will still be working. You will need to Refresh the state of the card in System Preferences/Network by setting it to *off* and back to *using DHCP* again
There is no Airport driver for the WiFi card, but there is one that works with it's own custom configuration tool.
From the Ralink site I downloaded the RT2860 driver (RT2860 is the name of the chipset the card uses). Ralink update their drivers often. See the first link to see if a new version is available, and install that instead of the link I provide.
The card is recognized as "Ethernet 2", and works with the "Wireless Utility Cardbus PCI" the dmg installs. It connects seamlessly to my OpenWRT gateway and to a La Fonera 2.0 private signal.
The drive clicks a lot, as if it were all the time starting/stopping. I had seem it before https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/104535[in Ubuntu]. Aggressive APM settings shorten the life span of the hard drive.
Fortunately, the workaround for Mac OS X is the same as in Linux; I found http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/[a port of hdaparm to Mac OS X], and installed it by copying hdapm.list to /Library/LaunchDaemons and hdapm (the executable) at /usr/local/bin. I also applied the same workaround in Linux (see below)
One of the points of this installation was testing if the computer was able to run Xcode Indeed. The IDE can be installed seamlessly by downloading the .dmg from the Apple Developer Connection Even better, wxWidgets is installed by default in Mac OS X, so easy cross-platform GUI programs can be done. It is remarkable how the Apple guys make the transition from GNU/Linux or BSD (or any other POSIX system) to Mac OS X a paved road for the Unix developer. You can just fire a Terminal ( Terminal.app being the Mac OS X equivalent of Unix's xterm , and you have all the familiar tools, including the whole GNU toolchain (Xcode's Objective C compiler is GNU cc). After all, it is Unix
Reboot with -x (no drivers) switch, and install:
To install it, select both .kext files inside and drag and drop them to the Kext helper application. If you do not have the Kext helper application, you can download it from here
A standard Ubuntu 8.10 installation was performed on /dev/sda4, making an ext 3 filesystem on it. Rebooting it, WiFi does not work (driver does not come in the Ubuntu 8.10 CD), but ethernet does. Upgraded the distribution.
Ubuntu detects the Windows XP partition and the first recovery partition and adds them to the GRUB menu, but it did not detect the Mac OS X installation. I removed all the entries Ubuntu installation made in /boot/grub/menu.lst and replaced them with this four, enabling the boot of
title Mac OS X 10.5.6 root (hd0,2) savedefault makeactive chainloader +1 title Ubuntu Linux 8.10 uuid c67c0b63-d3bb-4144-a80b-3e5d6a57d00c kernel /vmlinuz root=UUID=c67c0b63-d3bb-4144-a80b-3e5d6a57d00c ro quiet splash initrd /initrd.img quiet title Windows XP root (hd0,1) chainloader +1 title Windows Recover Utility root (hd0,0) chainloader +1
Added also a pretty splash image (a bit of eye candy) found here by adding this to /boot/grub/menu.lst
splashimage=(hd0,3)/boot/grub/bike_gua.xpm.gz
Mac OS X was made the default booting option by saying 'default=0' on top of the menu.lst
Fixed by adding
hdaparm -B 255 /dev/sda
in /etc/rc.local
The ethernet driver for Realtek 8168 has an issue when dual booting from windows (or Mac OS X, as it seems). more information.
To boot in Ubuntu and get ethernet to work after running Windows or Mac OS X there is a workaround:
Powering down the machine completely, unplugging the power supply, *removing the battery* (this was not in the post above) for 10 seconds before booting Linux.
Some ajkessel here points that disabling the auto-negotiation feature (negotiate 10/100/1000 Mbps link with the ethernet switch) fixes the problem
But it does not. In the end I figured out why for some time it did work and now it does not:
The driver works with the kernel package 2.6.27-7 (the one installed from the CD) but not with the 2.6.27-11 (the one upgraded), so i rebooted using the old kernel to just...
The Ralink RT2700E does not work out of the box on Ubuntu 8.10
Compiled the driver following this link
apt-get install module-assistant m-a prepare [get things needed to compile] apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.27-11 linux-headers-2.6.27-11-generic cd /usr/src wget http://www.ralinktech.com.tw/data/drivers/2008_0918_RT2860_Linux_STA_v1.8.0.0.tar.bz2 wget http://www.ralinktech.com.tw/data/drivers/RT2860_Firmware_V11.zip tar jxpvf 2008_0918_RT2860_Linux_STA_v1.8.0.0.tar.bz2 cd 2008_0918_RT2860_Linux_STA_v1.8.0.0 vi os/linux/config.mk [ Added =y to the two WPA supplicant options] make make install
Then rebooted with 2.6.27-11 and redo the above operation. Added rt2860sta to /etc/modules, so it is loaded on boot.
A good work from the Ralink guys having their source readily compilable from their source tarballs.
With [ACPI] and [onboard memory] enabled in BIOS (which I did the first), windows did not boot. I disabled the options and now it works. The good part of the failure is that I tried to restore it using one of those infamous "recovery partitions", and found something interesting.
Windows can be reinstalled using the MSI utility in the first partition, surprisingly without breaking GRUB and without overwriting the Mac OS X or Linux partitions. It is the first time i see this. The recovery option in HP laptops wipe out the entire drive, removing any linux or other partition that was there.
For anyone out there trying to reproduce this setup, *please note* that I did not touch the first two partitions. I do not know if, i.e. resizing them will end up with the recovery tool whipping out your entire hard drive. I just tested without touching them and using the free original D: partition. Your mileage may vary.
Pablo Martin
