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bootloader posts

Filed under: OS, Hacks, Odds and ends

Drives that go 'poof' in the night

by Michael Rose (RSS feed) on Dec 12th, 2006


While revving up a new MacBook Pro and pondering how to get a persistent bootloader, I inadvertently did something dumb: I disconnected a Firewire drive from my laptop while it was at the EFI boot screen. As sometimes is the case, dumbness led to knowledge -- I had never seen the drive 'poof' effect on the startup chooser screen, and I have to say I was pleased at the little 'slide' as the remaining drives shifted over to take up the space. Nice fit and finish there.

Tags: bootloader, efi, poof, video

Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Hacks, Open Source, Mods

A bootloader for the rest of us

by Michael Rose (RSS feed) on Dec 12th, 2006


Chalk this one up to a colleague's complaining. One of my cohorts was the mostly-happy recipient of a shiny MacBook Pro today, and he was setting up Boot Camp (with the eventual intent of configuring Linux as well as OS X & Windows) and griping that he wanted to see the EFI bootloader on every restart. "What's wrong with holding down the option key?" we asked him. "Nah," he said, "I want it to ask me each time. I reboot so infrequently, chances are when I do it's because I'm switching OSes." Or something like that. I tend to tune out when people complain; it helps get through the IT day, if you know what I mean.

Well, I couldn't let the challenge sit unsolved, so here's one option for eliminating Option: the rEFIt project. This open-source alternative bootloader for Intel Macs will allow you to choose between your installed OSen at boot time, among other helpful features (and was mentioned in the comments to a TUAW post back in August). I'll get my colleague to install it and make sure it doesn't cause his MBP to detonate nearby cable modems or anything else antisocial.

Tags: bootloader, efi, intel, linux, oss

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