LInux support for the New intel Apple laptop?

[Daniel Armstrong]

On 1/13/06, Joseph Kubik <josephkubik-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Does anyone have any pointers on installing Linux on the new apple
> intel machines?
> -Joseph-

The latest Distrowatch Weekly mentions the new Apple Intel-powered laptops:

"If you are wondering why none of the current Linux distributions will
boot on these system, let's quote an expert. Answering the question
"Is Fedora prepared for Intel-based Macs?", Red Hat's Peter Jones had
this to say on the Fedora development mailing list: "No. Off the top
of my head: our x86 kernels don't have CONFIG_EFI; installer doesn't
do GPT partitioning on x86; we don't have a bootloader for them."

Trying to translate the above into plain English, the main problem
with MacBook Pro is that it no longer uses BIOS (Basic Input/Output
System); instead, it ships with the new EFI (Extensible Firmware
Interface), developed by Intel, to perform all the early communication
between different hardware parts. Although EFI does have BIOS
emulation support, Apple has reportedly decided to remove it from
their MacBooks.

The second issue is GPT (which stands for GUID Partition Table, with
GUID being an acronym for Globally Unique Identifier), which is
effectively a replacement for the MBR (Master Boot Record) in
EFI-based systems. Among the popular boot loaders, neither LILO, nor
GRUB 0.9x support GPT, although the new GRUB 2 (currently in alpha
development) does include support for the new standard. Unfortunately,
not a single Linux distribution has been bold enough to switch to GRUB
2, but it is possible that more effort will go into this area in the
coming months, especially if EFI-based motherboards become
widespread."

But free software developers are working on it. More info at
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20060116

Daniel
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