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©2004-2005 KDS GNU FDL
The objective of this mini-project was to have a running Debian installation from a USB disk connected to an MBP but without changing anything on the internal hard disk of the MBP.
I am assuming the following:
The first thing we need to do is to partition our USB disk (flash disk or external hard disk). As we already have Mac OS X running on the MBP, connect your USB disk to the MBP and open Disk Utility. With Disk Utility, make 2 partitions in it(for me it showed it as /dev/sdb) with the first one being a Mac HFS+ type of about 20MB (smaller migth work too) and the second one big enough to fit your Debian system. It doesn't matter how you format the second partition as it will be re-partitioned and formatted while installing Debian. Then write the changes to the disk.
Install rEFIt on the first 20MB partition we created just now. Download the rEFIt dmg and install it using the method described on refit documentation page for Installing on a separate volume or external disk.
At this point, we are almost done with using Mac OS X for our project. The only thing left is to download a daily image of Debian net-install. I used the 23rd April image, as the 26th April image was not able to recognise the MBP's network card.
Armed with the net-installer CD, you can now start the installation process. Insert the CD into the CD ROM drive of your Mac and keep the USB disk connected reboot the machine. Make sure you keep the "C" pressed to boot from the CD ROM.
With "C" pressed you should get the Debian net-install prompt. For me just clicking "Enter" worked but if you see keys not working check out [1]. The installation should start and the usual hardware detection and installation questions follow.
At the partitioning stage, choose Manual Partitioning and be very careful in making choices as changing the partition table and/or formatting could end up in data loss. I just made two partitions: 128MB swap at the end and the rest (about 850MB) between the HFS+ and swap as the /. You can make separate partitions for /home, /etc, /usr, etc. depending upon your choice and disk space available. Write the changes to disk and continue installation.
Choose if you want to have a Desktop machine after install or a server. I just installed the base system.
At the point where the installer asks to install GRUB at the MBR, choose "No". After this the installer will ask you where to install GRUB, choose the USB disk device which was /dev/sdb for me. Install GRUB and continue to finish installation. When installation is done, Debian will ask you to take the disk out of the tray and reboot.
To boot into your newly installed Debian system, make sure the USB disk on which you installed Debian is connected to your MacBook Pro and switch it ON. Press the "Alt/Option" button immediately after switchinig it ON. You should see two options at boot now: Mac OS or rEFIt. If you choose rEFIt, you will get rEFIt choices of booting into Mac OS, your Linux OS and other eEFIt operations. Choose the Tux with arrow keys and press "Enter" button.
At this stage, GRUB should present you with a choice of kernels to boot. Choose the first (the other is single user rescue mode) kernel and hit "Enter". You system should boot into Debian now. If it doesn't, it is most likely a bad root= option in GRUB. Mine showed (hd1,1) as root, which was expected as the USB disk was detected as /dev/sdb. But when I use rEFIt booting, it is detected first and root option of (hd0,1) is the one which works. Try it(numbers depending upon your system config and hard disk partitioning) and hopefully it should work out pretty well.
©2004-2005 KDS GNU FDL