I’m trying to install opensuse 11.3 (32 bit) on a new macbook pro. I’ve created a separate partition using bootcamp and installed rEFIt at a boot menu. I then put the opensuse 11.3 install cd into the drive start the machine, and rEFIt gives me the option of booting from the CD, which I do. The menu comes up and I choose the installation option and the install starts, goes for a while, and then stops when it is trying to find the cd/dvd device.
Does anyone know why this might be happening? I’ve successfully installed opensuse 11.3 on non-mac machines from this media, so don’t think it’s the media, but can’t find anything on the internets pointing to what the issue might be. This is the first time I’ve tried installing linux on a macbook - is there something I’ve missed in terms of partitioning/rEFIt maybe?
I’m not fortunate enough to own one of these machines, so any advice I offer can only come from online research. I did find this guide which may offer relevant advice. In particular, have a read of the ‘Installing and Booting’ section.
You probably already know this (but I’ll mention it anyway):
To make your Mac boot from a Linux or Windows CD or DVD, you need to hold down the ‘c’ key as the Mac starts up, keep holding it down until it is obvious the CD is booting.
Other than that, it may well be a question of optical tolerances within the CD/DVD reader. Some hardware just doesn’t play nice with optical media created via older CD/DVD drives.
Response is a few days late, but…
FYI macbook pros will run 64-bit OSes. I just successfully installed the 64-bit version of 11.3 on my new 13" macbook pro. The hardware runs a little hot, so I haven’t spent much time configuring yet, but at first glance everything seems to work OK.
could you please elaborate on your “hot” a little more precisely
because
just these very minutes i have to make a decision to either maintain my HP elitebook order from USA or to get locally from HP store a comparable spec macbook pro 17"
however living/working in the Philippines and Cambodia since many years - ambient temperature for laptops always is a serious issue with overheating and shutdowns due to overheating specially in recent weeks when all temp seem to be a little higher than in earlier years. typical max working temp for most electronic equipment is usually 35 degrees C max - that is what i have and up to 40+ C in daytime or outdoors …
what did you run as apps when your macbook pro run hot ? audio/video or simply computing ??
You might want to look at running openSUSE inside a VM. I have been able to run this successively via VirtualBox (open source), you need to install the 64bit version on MacBook Pro’s.
Turns out I had a bad fan, which was causing my overheating problems. It was still under warranty, so Apple replaced the fan and mobo, and it seems to be operating at a more normal temperature!
I’m dual booting Snow and OpenSUSE, and both seem to work well.
I’ve installed openSUSE 11.3 (64bit) on Macbook Pro 13.3" (2010 model - identifier MacbookPro7,1). I too noticed that openSUSE 11.2 (64bit) and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 SP1 (64bit) has the same issues as pointed out dmbkiwi. Both will boot up the kernel/initrd and after selecting Installation, it hangs at udev and then drops to ncurses mode and it just could not mount (or even detect) the DVD drive.
While I’m happy with openSUSE 11.3 working (well… 90%), I’m a little hung up about how the other versions cannot detect/mount the DVD drive. Wondering if anyone has found a means to overcome this “little” hurdle?
Same installation problem here with OpenSUSE 21.1: DVD-Drive did vanish after kernel was loaded from DVD!!!
The problem emerges from the fact, that BIOS-Emulation form rEFIT puts the controller in IDE-Mode, which the DVD-Drive cannot handle.
Hope this will help. Perhaps there are some other, slightly more elegant ways to do it (like using a SuperGrub-Disk to boot the image on the Install-Disk). But I remained happy with my little workaround!! rotfl!