[AsLan^]

Linux has been succesfully booted on the Intel Imac !

Mactel-Linux Homepage

The site is a little low on specifics but there is a screenshot of Linux booting on the iMac.

Hopefully this means we will be able to run Windows in vmware or apps with wine.

Additionally, they mentioned they booted off an external drive which would mean you wouldn't even have to go through the hassle of setting up dual partitions, or messing with EFI.

I saw this on digg and it looks like the site got hit about 3000 times in the last ten minutes so here is the relevant text from that page (like I said, not too many specifics, instructions are supposed to be posted on the weekend).

Using elilo and a modified Linux kernel, we can boot from a USB hard disk on the 17" iMac Core Duo. We are using the hacked vesafb driver to inherit the bootloader's framebuffer, keyboard and a USB network card work. Gentoo runs and can compile the Linux kernel with a compiler that runs on linux, which was compiled in linux.

[Wickers]

Somehow I find it hard to believe that a bunch of gentoo hacks ported elilo over from IA_64 on their own. It's mostly written in assembly, so porting would be not only a pain, but require a large amount of it to be rewritten.

This is why RedHat went public with plans to get linux booting on intel-macs... they knew it was going to take a larger share of brain power to get the job done, and why not have their name attached to such good press.

:/ I'll believe it when I see them post the details and patch code, and others use it to do the same.

[AsLan^]

Originally Posted by Wickers :/ I'll believe it when I see them post the details and patch code, and others use it to do the same.

You think its a fake ?

The idea crossed by mind but I want to believe !

[AsLan^]

Well it looks to be the real deal, they have posted instructions and there is a small amount of discussion on the wiki.

[Brad]

Amit Singh (of KernelThread.com) also just posted about getting Linux running on the Intel Macs...

Test-driving Linux on an Intel-based Macintosh

I do have strange friends. Take Mark Smith, for example. Mark is essentially a "Windows Internals" guy -- he's OS-agnostic at best. In particular, he is certainly not a "Macintosh" person. However, he recently purchased an Intel-based Macintosh because he felt like running Linux (an operating system that he does not normally use) on it. Then, there is Benjamin Reed, who is decidedly a Linux guy, although he owns and uses Macintosh computers, albeit with relentless complaints. Somehow, they think of me (Amit) as a Mac OS X person — this is not true. So it was this unlikely team that decided to see if we can get Linux to run on an Intel-based Macintosh. We did succeed, and since Ben is somewhat of a Linux distribution connoisseur, we thought of releasing a prototype distribution for Intel-based Macintoshes. However, as far as "first-to-announce" is concerned, we were beaten to the punch by the Mactel Linux people, who announced their successful attempt yesterday. Nevertheless, here is our technical description of how we ran Linux on a 17-inch iMac. Moreover, we are releasing a test-drive mini-distribution as an HFS+ bootable disk image. Simply burn it to a CD and boot with the option key pressed.

[AsLan^]

Originally Posted by Brad Amit Singh (of KernelThread.com) also just posted about getting Linux running on the Intel Macs... Test-driving Linux on an Intel-based Macintosh

That was a good read, this is very exciting stuff !

It looks like the biggest hurdle (EFI) has been crossed, strangely enough they used an EFI with FAT support, does that mean they could chainload Windows ?