GRUB_2 - heldersrvio/PureDarwin GitHub Wiki
GRUB, the GRand Unified Bootloader, is a boot loader from the GNU project. GRUB 2 is a complete rewrite. In early 2009, Vladimir Serbinenko has added support for booting Darwin to GRUB 2, making it suitable as an alternative to boot-132 (the original Apple Darwin boot loader). However the "COPYING" file stipulates a GPLv3 license. This page discusses how to install and use GRUB 2.
Since GRUB 2 is still under heavy development, and since the XNU-related functionality is still very new at the time of this writing (June 2009), your best option for getting the most recent version of GRUB 2 is to compile it from source.
At the time of this writing, there are some issues with compiling GRUB 2 on Mac OS X and Darwin. Hence, the follwoing instructions assume that you use a Ubuntu 8.10 Live CD (more recent versions should work as well). (This page needs to be updated to explain the procedure using Mac OS X or Darwin as well.) sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install build-essential subversion autoconf ruby bison svn co svn://svn.sv.gnu.org/grub/trunk/grub2 cd grub2/ ./autogen.sh ./configure --enable-efiemu make sudo make install This should install GRUB 2 to /usr/local/bin, from where you can call it to install the boot loader to a disk.
Once you have installed GRUB 2 to /usr/local/bin as described above, you need to install it to the disk you want to make bootable. sudo grub-install --root-directory=/media/XXX/ /dev/sdX This should give a message like Installation finished. No error reported. This is the contents of the device map /media/disk//boot/grub/device.map. Check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect, fix it and re-run the script `grub-install'. This has been tested with a FAT32-formatted USB stick. You need to replace /media/XXX/ with the mountpoint the partition is mounted to, and /dev/sdX with the device of the USB stick (not the partition). It might be necessary that you flag the partition bootable using cfdisk. To be investigated: Can we install this to a HFS+ volume from Ubuntu?
GRUB 2 lets you control the kernel and extensions to be loaded in a very fine-grained manner. Please refer to the XNUSupport page of the GRUB wiki for more detailed information. The following searches all disks for /mach_kernel, and boots it using Extensions.mkext: insmod vbe insmod gfxterm search --set /mach_kernel xnu_kernel /mach_kernel xnu_mkext /System/Library/Extensions.mkext terminal_output gfxterm boot For EFI-based machines
GRUB 2 can also be used on EFI-based machines, such as Intel-based Macs. The procedure is different from the one described above. Basically, you have to compile GRUB 2 as an EFI module, and place it in /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI /EFI/BOOT/BOOTIA32.EFI on your disk. When you press the Alt key during boot, your Intel Mac should show the disk as "EFI Boot". See this thread on the Ubuntu Forums for more information. References
The goal of this project is to make Darwin more usable by providing an installation ISO, documentation, and add-on software. You are welcome to join #puredarwin on irc.freenode.net or the Gitter chat if you would like to join PureDarwin development and to add to this site.
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