usb stick boot linux on air?

possible to boot a usb stick linux os on the Macbook air?
If so, can someone give a thorough procedure on how to make one?
I have tried windows then mac os and now wanna try linux
much appreciated


thanks,
soda

 

It could be done. You would need to find a small version of linux (google linux usb stick there are linux OS's that don't take up a whole lot of space) and then use a bootloader like rEFIt on the mac to see and boot off the disk. How big is your USB disk? If its a hard drive I would recommend something like ubuntu. Or you could also run linux on the macs hard drive through bootcamp or vmware.

 

yea I've been google a bit
the usb boot mostly work on Windows
not much about booting from mac
I have a 8gb usb stick and I don't want to load from the hdd 'coz space is very limited on Air
I read something about got to load from a live CD to start it up
or the new mactel doesn't need rEFIt to start up the usb
so that's why I didn't get rEFIt
more information would be appreciated


soda

 

I don't think Mac's will boot from usb. They will from firewire, though.

I'd recommend getting a small firewire drive to install linux on.

 

I guess its a stretch, but dont they boot from USB when you install leopard off of a USB drive?

Although I don't know if the alt+startup will boot linux or other os'es

 

This is really confused as like I google around
'coz some say can but some say can't
it sounds like there might be a work around
i wish someone can lighten me on this


soda

 

wrong about macs not booting from USB.

it has worked on all my intel machines.

 

Yea. What you can do is go on ubuntu.com and download the iso. Burn that onto a disk and you can boot off that. Then you should be able to go into the installer and install it on the USB stick.

 

Then Mac will recognize it when I start with alt/option?
Can I do it on a windows PC or have to be on the Mac?
'coz Mac Air only has 1 usb port
also can you give a briefly walkthrough on how to go on a linux installer and format the usb as I've never use linux before


thanks in advance,
soda

 

Well if you have bootcamp setup, I'm pretty sure if you have the CD in when you select windows from the alt+startup, it will boot the CD.

Haven't actually tested this, but from stuff I've done so far I would think it would have a good chance of working.

 

I don't know about alt/option I recommend just using rEFIt.
Once its installed on the disk, it should work on both mac and windows.

Walk through-
Keep in mind I've never booted off a usb stick before.
Download the ubuntu iso from ubuntu.com and use disk utility to burn it on a disk (let me know if you don't know how to do that). Put the disk in and restart. Then boot off the linux disk and it will run Live. Once in linux double click on install and go through the installer. Once it asks where to install to, pick the usb disk and you should be good to go.

p.s. If you can't see the disk in the linux installer re-boot into mac and re-format it.

Let me know if you need anything else.