Re: grub-efi with latest mac mini

[Chris Murphy]

a.) Mac Mini's EFI implementation can use either MBR or GPT schemes for booting.

b.) If this is a dual boot situation, Mac OS X is EFI only, effectively 
requires GPT and an EFI System partition. Your particular Linux distribution 
support of Apple's unique EFI, which is not UEFI, determines whether you will 
boot Linux or Windows or whatever you're booting, either in EFI mode, or CSM 
(BIOS emulation) mode.

c.) If CSM is required for the foreign OS, and this particular Mac mini, then 
GRUB2 EFI is inapplicable. You'd use GRUB2. And it necessarily means the nasty 
situation of hybrid MBR (disk appears to be MBR to the foreign OS, and appears 
to be GPT to Mac OS).

d.) The only distributions I know that reliably support EFI booting some Mac 
models is Fedora 17 and Ubuntu 12. But it's hit or miss on which models will 
work and which ones won't.


Chris Murphy