As an aside, it is interesting to wonder why Apple would make it hard for their customers to install whatever operating system they wish on the hardware they purchased and hence own. The main reason for the problem is that while booting on UEFI (as opposed to BIOS) systems is well supported by Linux, Apple seems to be using their own, unique mix of features from different versions. Hence, I needed a USB flash drive that booted on my Macbook without rEFIt/rEFInd, and I needed to prepare it on another Linux machine. In addition, the original installation CD did not recognise the 500Mb disc (but reported it was 3.0Tb) and Disk Utility (luckily) refused to do anything. Google found solutions that may work for more modern Macbooks (pro), but not for this machine. It turned out that booting Linux from a USB flash drive / USB pen drive / USB stick (or CD for that matter) is nearly impossible without rEFIt or its modern clone, rEFInd. Since OSX hadn’t been booted for some years, I decided to install Linux only. The original 100Mb hard disc was failing and I bought a 500Mb drive to replace it. The white Core duo (without the 2) 32-bit Macbook was purchased in September 2006 and used to dual boot Gentoo Linux and Mac OSX using rEFIt.

While this is trivial on most PCs, it turned out not to be on an old Macbook. In order to install Linux on the replacement of a crashed hard-disc drive in a 2006 Macbook Core duo, I wanted to boot Linux from a USB flash drive in order to then install it.

Bootable linux usb mac