install linux on a mac in addition to the mac os

from 's download site, as I've found them to 'not be available' for the old MacBooks via the boot camp utility, to install all the other (after installation) drivers etc. You might need to download the needed BootCamp. If you choose the Windows 7 route, the better advice will be to remove any and everything you do NOT want on the Mac side to have the biggest space available, and then make use of the BootCamp features as that'll help you with the environment needed to boot Windows 7, as Windows 7 doesn't support UEFI/EFI 'easily' out of the box (unless you use the 64bit version, and even there are 'gotchas'). Windows 7 (if installed through Bootcamp) works pretty well without much hassle.Įchoing the 'backup' to have the original disks available if you ever want to return to an old MacOSX, the only warnings I'll give is that you'll be having fun with EFI using Linux, so you might need to investigate the versions that supports that (and the UEFI support should be sufficient). I'd stick with Ubuntu if you like fancy, or Linux Mint if you like simple. Plus side: With a laptop that old, there should be a decent amount of documentation for making your hardware work with Linux. I had a particularly rough time getting wifi to work in Ubuntu 12.blah on an older MacBook Pro.

Linux will take some tinkering to get working properly. If you have the original install disks, you shouldn't have an issue with restoring it. I think you can get away with 5-10GB for the Snow Leopard partition. Mainly because if something goes wrong (or if you don't like either alternative) it's much easier to recover a MacBook using the Mac OS. However, if you don't have those disks, I would strongly recommend keeping the Mac OS X install and creating a new partition (shrinking the Mac partition) for the new OS. Do you have the original install disks for Mac OS X? If so, there shouldn't be any issues with wiping the Mac partition completely off the hdd.

Install linux on a mac in addition to the mac os