I posted this via Crunchbang Linux, so these instructions did at least work for me!

This is a step by step, read-me-from-top-to-bottom process for installing Crunchbang Linux (Statler) as a dual boot on a MacBook Pro from late July 2007 that started out running Mountain Lion 10.8.1; Crunchbang works out of the box with WiFi, brightness controlls, working sound, and trackpad support. Battery life isn’t great, but it’s not horrible - My battery only gets about two to three hours on Mac and I’d estimate that Crunchbang gets about 1.5 to 2. Not great, but usable.

By the way, if you’re running a MBP from late 2007, you’re probably running with 4GB or less of RAM (the max these models can see is 6GB) so you may as well use 32-bit Statler Crunchbang as opposed to 64-bit.

This guide is for Crunchbang linux, but since I followed along the Ubuntu guide, this should work for Ubuntu and probably Debian and - really - most other flavors of Linux. ‘Should’ being a keyword.

DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible or liable for any damage or loss you may perform or incur in the course of attempting to follow this guide. As I successfully completed this and have provided my references to be able to do so, I assume you will be capable of this feat. If you are at all unsure of your ability to do this, use your buddy’s computer first.

Prework

You’re going to need a couple of things / need to do a couple of thing ahead of time.

#! - Back up everything, or at least the essentials.

Mistakes in partitioning can mean bye bye all of your data. Mistakes else where could lead to your computer not working (although not unfixable).

#! - Download Crunchbang.

#! - Download rEFIt.

#! - Create a LiveCD of Crunchbang.

This is just burning the Crunchbang .iso to a CD or DVD; if you’ve never messed with this before, here are some simple steps to help you dive headlong into it:

Open up Disk Utility Drag and drop your Crunchbang .iso file into the left side panel of Disk Utility (the one which shows your HDD). Insert a blank CD/DVD. When/If the Finder throws a dialogue up in your face about what to do with this marvelous blank disk, tell it to ignore it. Right click the Crunchbang image in Disk Utility and click burn. My hardware is getting old or something (lots of problem burning discs these days) so I had to go with a low speed to get a successful burn and one that would install, so go lower than max speed if you’re at all concerned.

#! - Gather your courage and patience

Let’s do this.

Install rEFIt

Mount your rEFIt disk image by double clicking it. There will be a rEFIt package installer; double click it. Go through the dialogues or whatever - this part is already a little hazy in my memories, but I just did the default installation method and there were no issues. Restart your computer until the rEFIt boot menu shows up (this may take up to two restarts - if that doesn’t work, you’re now in unknown waters and should check out the rEFIt website for help. I had no issues, however).

Check the HDD

From the rEFIt boot menu, select the Mac and hit F2. Select Single User mode and hit Enter.

In Single User mode, just run the “/sbin/fsck -fy” command (the text on your screen will tell you the command, so you don’t need to write this down or anything) until it doesn’t say that it modified your disk. It may not do any modifications at all, which means you didn’t have to do this step, but I had to and since your coming the boot menu, I figured it would be easy to just throw this in because it won’t hurt anything.

To exit Single User mode, type “reboot” and hit Enter.

Make Space for Linux

Here goes the first step of partitioning:

Open Disk Utility and click the root level for your HDD (the top most item in the left most pane) and then click the partition tab. Hit the “+” to create a new partition. Size your partition Leave enough space for your OSX partition - this means whatever you use plus extra so the disk can clean itself and whatnot. This partition will should be the total amount of space you’re using for Crunchbang; for me this was 60+GB For the format of the partition, choose “free space”. Apply your changes.

Format the Space for Linux (*)

* = You can skip this step, but this is what I did; the actual installation process will have you reformat again but I’m including this because I don’t want to be liable for any mistakes from my assumption that this was redundant (but seriously, this was redundant).

Insert your Crunchbang live CD and reboot. The rEFIt menu will let you boot into your CD, which you want to do.

In the CD’s menu select “Live Session” and let it boot.

Once you are in and see the desktop, right click the desktop and select System > GParted It may give you “couldn’t mount” errors; ignore these

Click the unformatted free space you created.

Create a new partition; leave no space in front, size it to your RAM x 2 (eg: 2GB of RAM = 4GB partition) and format it as linux_swap.

Create a new partition; leave no space in front, size it to your desire between 10 and 30 GB and format it as ext4. This will be your “/” or “root” partition

Do that again for the rest of the space but sized as whatever is left. This will be your “home” partition.



This is far from the best way to partition your computer, I’m sure, but it is what I did due to some memory of previous attempts at Linux and needing to reinstall things periodically (mainly from jumping distros). I’m also keeping a separate “home” partition because I’ve actually left space for a few more distros on my HDD and was planning on using the same “home” for all of them, but honestly Crunchbang has been so seductive, I’m losing interest in other distros. Still, that is why I did it this way.

Graphic Install Time

Restart and go back to the CD. Select “Graphic Install” FYI: Your mouse may not work during this, but don’t worry, everything is cool! Just use your keyboard and carry on. Go through the defaults or whatever you want until you get to the partition options; select manual partitioning. Select the partition you made for swap and hit Enter Choose to use it as swap Formatting is optional, though I did. Select the partition you made for “/” and hit Enter Choose to use it as a ext4 partition. Format this partition and choose its mount point as root (“/”). Select the partition you made for “home” and hit Enter Choose to use it as ext4 partition Format this partition and choose its mount point as home (“/home”). You can now continue from the partition section and apply changes. Continue through the installer until you get to grub. Install grub to the Master Boot Record (select “Yes”) and let it go forth and finish the install. After installation is complete, it will eject your disk and tell you to hit enter; do so.

You have now installed Crunchbang, but there is on bit of housecleaning yet to do.

Make rEFIt and grub get along.

Reboot to the rEFIt menu Arrow down to the rEFIt partition tool and select it. This will take you to a screen that will offer update or create a new boot record. Hit “y” and let it do its thing, and then reboot.

Boot the Linux



Almost done - select the Linux partition now and boot into it. It may hang, but now worries yet, just make sure its not going anywhere and then force your computer down by holding in the power button. Try booting into Linux again; it may hang again, just power down again. Now boot into Linux successfully! (If you don’t succeed here, something didn’t go right, so boot to Mac and seek help elsewhere.)

Postwork

Pour yourself some scotch!

Resources: