This guide is about how to achive the following:

• Boot A Linux Live System From A USB Drive On A Mac Running OS X Lion
• Update An OCZ SSD’s Firmware On A Mac Running OS X Lion Without Installing Another OS

Interested in installing Linux on your Lion-driven-Mac permanently? Go here. But you didn’t buy a 1000$+ combination of hard- and software just to exchange it’s superior personal-computing software, or did you?

Some Problems I Experienced

• A Mac uses EFI instead of BIOS to manage bootable devices. I experienced a decent lack of EFI support when I used Linux live systems. Everything crashed or froze or didn’t even show up in the boot menu. A common workaround seems to be rEFIt but it isn’t compatible with OS X Lion and I don’t like to modify system tools. (Update: Things have changed, but I still don’t want to mess around, just to update my SSD)
• There is no SSD firmware update tool by OCZ for OS X so you’re forced to use a Linux live system unless you want to make changes to your hard drive setup – like using Bootcamp.
• I replaced my optical drive with a HDD to insert a SSD in the original HDD-Bay – a common modification – but obviously a Mac hates to boot from an external optical drive. As mentioned earlier boot processes crashed or froze.

My Solution How To Boot A Linux Live System

Okay, I found an EFI-loader that has been able to boot nearly every version of Ubuntu and is very easy to setup and it even doesn’t need rEFIt. I found it in a German Mac Forum and it comes with a very detailed description how to use it but this description didn’t work for me. Here’s what I did to boot Ubuntu 11.04 Desktop Edition 64 bit as a live system from an external USB Drive on a MacBook Pro 13’3 early 2011 that was equipped with a 320GB HDD and a 120GB OCZ Agility 3 :

1. Get the ISO-2-USB EFI-Booter for Mac 0.01 beta and a recent version of Ubuntu Desktop Edition 64bit.
2. Format a USB drive to provide a single FAT32 partition featuring MBR.
3. Create the following directories on your USB drive: /efi and /efi/boot
4. Copy the bootX64.efi from “ISO-2-USB EFI-Booter for Mac 0.01 beta” into /efi/boot on your USB Drive.
5. Copy the Ubuntu image into /efi/boot/ on the USB Drive, too and rename it to “boot.iso”.
6. You should have 2 files on your USB drive now: bootX64.efi and boot.iso – both in /efi/boot.
7. You’re ready to reboot: During the startup of your Mac hold Alt/Option. You should see “EFI Boot” which has a nice little USB Drive Symbol on it in the appearing boot menu. Boot from your USB Drive by clicking on the little arrow below it.
8. Good Luck!
9. Ubuntu should be booting now…

Video guide

Additional information

• The EFI-fiels are precompiled versions of GRUB2 with included configs. You can make your own ones…
• I didn’t test any 32bit systems. But in case you wish to do so I guess you ought use “bootIA32.efi” from “ISO-2-USB EFI-Booter for Mac 0.01 beta”.
• This shouldn’t be restricted to Ubuntu. In general you need a distribution that supports loopback. You can check this by browsing their ISO for a loopback.cfg or loop.cfg.
• I used a generic 2GB USB thumb drive a friend of mine forgot at my place. Nothing special.

Updating an OCZ SSD’s firmware

After you’ve booted into Ubuntu just follow the official guide. Don’t forget to enable TRIM!

Any questions?

Feel free to ask me anything…

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