The Spam Thread!

[cpd2009]

Reran Seatools under Win8 and the drive checked out fine yet again. It also only took an hour to finish. Previous attempt took five.

Now getting ready to install rEFInd on Lilly and to initiate a Linux test with said external drive. My ultimate goal is to remove Windows 8 and either run the Adobe suite under a VM in Linux, or actually find an open source video editor that is equivalent to Premiere Pro.

Distro? Probably PCLinuxOS. Kubuntu being second choice.

EDIT: rEFInd installed, and decided to go with Kubuntu since it appears to have the best Mac support when it comes to drivers.

[RAMChYLD]

Cinerella is good from what I've heard. But I prefer KDenLive myself.

[huckleberrypie]

Cinerella is good from what I've heard. But I prefer KDenLive myself.

Tried using the latter once on a Hitler parody. It takes some getting used to with the subtitles and all, but at least it's better than nothing.

[cpd2009]

Cinerella is good from what I've heard. But I prefer KDenLive myself.

Tried using the latter once on a Hitler parody. It takes some getting used to with the subtitles and all, but at least it's better than nothing.

I tried KDEnlive for a bit, and it's probably the closest I can get to making a good YTP video. For typical videos, it will work great. However... the reverse effect only works for the video track, not the audio. The reverse effect is essential for YTPs of mine.

As for Lilly, Kubuntu installed fine but I tried KDE Plasma 5. Too unstable, so I'm fetching KDE 4. I also noticed that the installer placed the EFI bootloader on Lilly's EFI partition, and I told the installer to place on the external disk! Because of this, GRUB loads before rEFInd, and if the disk is present, it will start Kubuntu.

Following directions at the Apple Community Forums, I got rid of the "ubuntu" EFI folder and everything is back to normal. Upon re-install, I will see if I can get Kubuntu to boot in Legacy mode to ensure the boot loader stays on the external drive. If not, I will double check to see if the installer ignores the bootloader placement option I select.

One last thing... Broadcom made a mistake in not providing the proper drivers for Linux. They need to be installed manually. :/

[huckleberrypie]

One last thing... Broadcom made a mistake in not providing the proper drivers for Linux. They need to be installed manually. :/

Well, at least you're lucky. The Ralink WLAN card I have works OOB on Linux, but the real kicker is it's practically impossible to find an OS X kext for it. A friend of mine at InsanelyMac did express his intention on putting up a NDISWrapper-style compatibility layer though, but idk if that would push through at all.

[RAMChYLD]

Well, I honestly don't think PCI wireless cards are worth the effort. Manufacturer support itself is spotty and upgrading is a pain. And of course there's the whole hackintosh thing- because all modern Macs don't have PCI or PCIe slots, most manufacturers don't produce drivers for them, nevermind that there are such things as Thunderbolt PCI/PCIe enclosures. That, and that all legit Macs has built in WiFi anyway. Apple seems to like using that as a crippling point and may be preventing manufacturers from creating Mac OS X drivers so that people can't create a fully working Hackintosh.

The best possible course for these is of course fan-written drivers. However, few people seem to be interested in creating third-party PCI WiFi drivers for the Mac.

[cpd2009]

One last thing... Broadcom made a mistake in not providing the proper drivers for Linux. They need to be installed manually. :/

Well, at least you're lucky. The Ralink WLAN card I have works OOB on Linux, but the real kicker is it's practically impossible to find an OS X kext for it. A friend of mine at InsanelyMac did express his intention on putting up a NDISWrapper-style compatibility layer though, but idk if that would push through at all.

Seeing as how Ralink is a brand found in discount laptops and tablets, I can see the reason why Apple avoids them. They only want the top tier brands like Broadcom and Cirrus Logic.

In regards to Lilly, I found out an easier way of getting her Broadcom WiFI working under Kubuntu.... you just need to install the proprietary third-party software during installation. I did that, and Wifi was working 'swell after reboot. It doesn't seem to connect automatically however, and it seems to be a known bug,

Oh, and the installer still placed the EFI bootloader on her main disk rather than the external disk even though I created an EFI partition there. Seeing as how I am testing though, it's not a big deal unless I need to use rEFInd.

[RAMChYLD]

Well, my experience tells me that if you have rEFInd, you don't really need the other EFI bootloader. Just rename the rEFInd EFI file to bootx64.efi and drop it in the /BOOT/EFI folder of the EFI partition of the stick. That's usually enough to let any random EFI computer find rEFInd and boot it.

Although, you do need the stick to be GPT-partitioned, and the EFI boot partition needs to also be marked as bootable and be formatted as FAT32.

[RAMChYLD]

Mentlegen, I have correlated the maths and concluded that female rabbits love balance beams! In retrospect I ask, Why?

[cpd2009]

Well, my experience tells me that if you have rEFInd, you don't really need the other EFI bootloader. Just rename the rEFInd EFI file to bootx64.efi and drop it in the /BOOT/EFI folder of the EFI partition of the stick. That's usually enough to let any random EFI computer find rEFInd and boot it.

Although, you do need the stick to be GPT-partitioned, and the EFI boot partition needs to also be marked as bootable and be formatted as FAT32.

The external disk isn't a USB stick. It's my 160gb external HDD.

I booted the Kubuntu LiveDVD in EFI mode. The installer does let you create an EFI partition if you choose to create partitions manually and it's set to format as FAT32. I didn't see an option to flag it as bootable. It also allows you to select where your bootloader goes, which works like it should most of the time. Here, it didn't honor my choice and placed GRUB on Lilly's EFI partition anyway. After install, I tried to place GRUB to the external disk via terminal, and it appeared to install fine. Instead, I got an Error 17 when I attempted to boot from it.

Because of the installer placing the bootloader on Lilly's EFI partition, she automatically loads up GRUB instead of rEFInd even if the external disk is unplugged/turned off. Only way to get around it is to turn off power to the external drive and let GRUB drop to a shell and then type "exit". Then rEFInd will load. I had to power the drive off for a bit to get rEFInd loaded, and turn it on and have it rescan to test the GRUB loader I placed on the external disk.

In the end, I may have to install Kubuntu in Legacy mode since that should ensure the bootloader gets installed to the first part of the Linux partition and not Lilly's EFI partition. Seeing as how EFI Kubuntu makes GRUB take over rEFInd, Legacy might be my only option.

I would like to keep rEFInd on Lilly's main HDD as the program it was forked from, rEFIt, was recommended by Ubuntu for installing on Mac Hardware. It also would allow me to easily boot into OSX, Recovery, or an external disk that Apple doesn't normally allow. If the test is successful, I plan on removing Win8 and putting Kubuntu in it's place and dual-booting OSX or Kubuntu with rEFInd.