- Joined
- Feb 26, 2011
- Messages
- 9
- Motherboard
- Samsung Chronos 7
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
Howdy All,
This is kind of a long post... partly because I'm regurgitating everything that I *think* I know, so far, so that someone else in my spot might find it and get some clarity. So, in a way, it's to save others from having to do all of the reading I had to do, but I also have some questions at the end, so bear with me...
I just got a Samsung Chronos 7 laptop. It's the first machine I've had which has EFI and I'm also going to be running all GPT-aware OS's, so this is going to be the first time where I've gotten to ditch MBR, entirely... I think. Because I think I can go completely EFI/GPT, I'm hoping to be able to install: MacOS (hopefully Mountain Lion), Ubuntu 13.4 (already working), Win8 (already working), Backtrack 5 (working), probably Win7, and maybe even FreeDOS (don't know if EFI/GPT support is in their kernel, yet). That's the goal, anyway.
The bios on the laptop lets me set it for MBR, EFI, or "both" (which seems to look for an EFI partition and, if not found, just tries to boot the MBR boot sector). And I've looked around in the EFI partition enough to feel like I've got a handle on how it's supposed to work.
Correct me, if any of the following is wrong:
Multiple OS's on the system can put their boot entries in the EFI partition, as each vendor (Microsoft, Ubuntu, etc.) get assigned their own subdirectories in the /EFI folder in the EFI partition to place their boot loaders. So, multiple OS's can all, peacefully coexist on the system, without them stomping on each other's MBR boot record, like in the past.
Now, from what I can gather, the various boot-loaders offered here (Chimera, Clover, RevoBoot, Chameleon) and also in Linux (grub2, rEFIt) *seem* to offer EFI support to non-EFI-capable machines by placing themselves in the old-style MBR boot record. The hardware thinks it's booting a plain 'ol MBR boot record (and it *is*, really), but that just launches a *software* EFI layer which looks for, and inspects, the EFI partition in the GPT partition tables. It's entirely up to each boot-loader how they want to present (or not) the user with the choices of OS's. A boot-loader could just boot the first thing it finds in the EFI partition, or it could present the user with a textual menu, or a pretty graphical one, etc.
One advantage of using the built-in EFI (if your computer has it) is that the EFI entries can show up in the CMOS/BIOS setup tool. For example, on my laptop, my "Boot Device Priority" list now looks like:
USB HDD
DVD-ROM
SATA #1
Ubuntu (placed there through EFI)
Windows Boot Loader (placed there through EFI)
Network Boot
USB-FDD
... etc ...
So, from the CMOS/BIOS setup, I can select from the standard hardware devices, but *also* individual OS's which have registered themselves with the EFI.
The *disadvantage* to using the built-in EFI is that I'm stuck with whatever the hardware supplier has decided to give me. In the case of Samsung, I can't hit a key to get a boot-device menu. If I want to change the boot order, just for one time, I have to go into CMOS/BIOS setup. Another disadvantage is that I'm sure that I can't count on the built-in Samsung EFI to load any special emulation stuff needed to trick MacOS into booting.
So, it seems that the advantage of using one of the third-party boot-loaders from here is that: 1) I can choose one which either suits my feature/visual taste and 2) they probably do special things to get MacOS to load.
The *disadvantage* of using a software EFI is probably that I won't be able to see all of the various OS entries in my CMOS/BIOS setup. There's also some question as to whether they'll support the EFI feature wherein an OS can tell it which partition to boot on the *next* boot (as the software EFI would need its own sotrage area on the hard-drive in order to remember that setting... which it would also need in order to remember my preference for what OS to boot by default... or to remember menu-timeout time, another EFI feature). Another disadvantage is that any boot-loader which gets loaded from the BIOS loading the MBR boot record runs the risk of getting over-written during the next OS install... which means that I'd always have to carry around a USB drive or something with a tool which could replace the software-EFI bootloader back onto the MBR boot record, right?
Do I have all of that about right, so far?
If so, then I guess I have further questions. Apologies if these have been asked before, but I've been googling and reading like crazy and I still don't feel like I have a clear answer in my head...
Of the boot-loaders offered here, which ones are able to boot OS's other than MacOS (for example, I want to boot Linux and Win8 and maybe Win7, too)?
Is there a wide difference between their user-interfaces? Chimera, Chameleon, and Clover look like they all present the user with a horizontal list of icons. I can't find any screenshot of RevoBoot. Does it look the same?
Can I boot any of the EFI loaders here *though* EFI, itself, or do they all have to be loaded from the MBR boot record? It would be nice to install all of them and be able to switch between them.
Can they all be booted from a USB or CD, or so I have to install some of them on my hard-drive's boot record?
How much flexibility do I have in installing MacOS? I've read some how-to's which say that it has to be the first partition, etc. Keep in mind that I'm *very* well versed with Linux, and I've got access to several good partition-copying/imaging tools (Acronis Disk Director, for example), so I've got a lot of ways that I could get MacOS onto a partition (including, say, just cloning an existing partition from a real Mac and then tweaking the kext's and other files from Linux). Is that what I'll need to do if I want MacOS to be on one of the non-first partitions? What are my options, here?
This is kind of a long post... partly because I'm regurgitating everything that I *think* I know, so far, so that someone else in my spot might find it and get some clarity. So, in a way, it's to save others from having to do all of the reading I had to do, but I also have some questions at the end, so bear with me...
I just got a Samsung Chronos 7 laptop. It's the first machine I've had which has EFI and I'm also going to be running all GPT-aware OS's, so this is going to be the first time where I've gotten to ditch MBR, entirely... I think. Because I think I can go completely EFI/GPT, I'm hoping to be able to install: MacOS (hopefully Mountain Lion), Ubuntu 13.4 (already working), Win8 (already working), Backtrack 5 (working), probably Win7, and maybe even FreeDOS (don't know if EFI/GPT support is in their kernel, yet). That's the goal, anyway.
The bios on the laptop lets me set it for MBR, EFI, or "both" (which seems to look for an EFI partition and, if not found, just tries to boot the MBR boot sector). And I've looked around in the EFI partition enough to feel like I've got a handle on how it's supposed to work.
Correct me, if any of the following is wrong:
Multiple OS's on the system can put their boot entries in the EFI partition, as each vendor (Microsoft, Ubuntu, etc.) get assigned their own subdirectories in the /EFI folder in the EFI partition to place their boot loaders. So, multiple OS's can all, peacefully coexist on the system, without them stomping on each other's MBR boot record, like in the past.
Now, from what I can gather, the various boot-loaders offered here (Chimera, Clover, RevoBoot, Chameleon) and also in Linux (grub2, rEFIt) *seem* to offer EFI support to non-EFI-capable machines by placing themselves in the old-style MBR boot record. The hardware thinks it's booting a plain 'ol MBR boot record (and it *is*, really), but that just launches a *software* EFI layer which looks for, and inspects, the EFI partition in the GPT partition tables. It's entirely up to each boot-loader how they want to present (or not) the user with the choices of OS's. A boot-loader could just boot the first thing it finds in the EFI partition, or it could present the user with a textual menu, or a pretty graphical one, etc.
One advantage of using the built-in EFI (if your computer has it) is that the EFI entries can show up in the CMOS/BIOS setup tool. For example, on my laptop, my "Boot Device Priority" list now looks like:
USB HDD
DVD-ROM
SATA #1
Ubuntu (placed there through EFI)
Windows Boot Loader (placed there through EFI)
Network Boot
USB-FDD
... etc ...
So, from the CMOS/BIOS setup, I can select from the standard hardware devices, but *also* individual OS's which have registered themselves with the EFI.
The *disadvantage* to using the built-in EFI is that I'm stuck with whatever the hardware supplier has decided to give me. In the case of Samsung, I can't hit a key to get a boot-device menu. If I want to change the boot order, just for one time, I have to go into CMOS/BIOS setup. Another disadvantage is that I'm sure that I can't count on the built-in Samsung EFI to load any special emulation stuff needed to trick MacOS into booting.
So, it seems that the advantage of using one of the third-party boot-loaders from here is that: 1) I can choose one which either suits my feature/visual taste and 2) they probably do special things to get MacOS to load.
The *disadvantage* of using a software EFI is probably that I won't be able to see all of the various OS entries in my CMOS/BIOS setup. There's also some question as to whether they'll support the EFI feature wherein an OS can tell it which partition to boot on the *next* boot (as the software EFI would need its own sotrage area on the hard-drive in order to remember that setting... which it would also need in order to remember my preference for what OS to boot by default... or to remember menu-timeout time, another EFI feature). Another disadvantage is that any boot-loader which gets loaded from the BIOS loading the MBR boot record runs the risk of getting over-written during the next OS install... which means that I'd always have to carry around a USB drive or something with a tool which could replace the software-EFI bootloader back onto the MBR boot record, right?
Do I have all of that about right, so far?
If so, then I guess I have further questions. Apologies if these have been asked before, but I've been googling and reading like crazy and I still don't feel like I have a clear answer in my head...
Of the boot-loaders offered here, which ones are able to boot OS's other than MacOS (for example, I want to boot Linux and Win8 and maybe Win7, too)?
Is there a wide difference between their user-interfaces? Chimera, Chameleon, and Clover look like they all present the user with a horizontal list of icons. I can't find any screenshot of RevoBoot. Does it look the same?
Can I boot any of the EFI loaders here *though* EFI, itself, or do they all have to be loaded from the MBR boot record? It would be nice to install all of them and be able to switch between them.
Can they all be booted from a USB or CD, or so I have to install some of them on my hard-drive's boot record?
How much flexibility do I have in installing MacOS? I've read some how-to's which say that it has to be the first partition, etc. Keep in mind that I'm *very* well versed with Linux, and I've got access to several good partition-copying/imaging tools (Acronis Disk Director, for example), so I've got a lot of ways that I could get MacOS onto a partition (including, say, just cloning an existing partition from a real Mac and then tweaking the kext's and other files from Linux). Is that what I'll need to do if I want MacOS to be on one of the non-first partitions? What are my options, here?
