I remember when I was messing around a few years ago I had to use a bootloader called refit, which is now forked to refind at http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/
It's been too long since I used a Mac, but if someone wants to donate a recent Macbook to me I'm happy to get Debian set up and blog about it ;)
Not sure about the airs, but on the 2011 macbook pro, you could boot a lot of things from cd, but not from USB. Apple doesn't have a very good pre-boot environment if you're not running Apple software. (No PXE, either, just their proprietary netboot)
Comments
Can't boot from a USB nor from the Debian installer cd (using USB CDROM drive)
I remember when I was messing around a few years ago I had to use a bootloader called refit, which is now forked to refind at http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/
It's been too long since I used a Mac, but if someone wants to donate a recent Macbook to me I'm happy to get Debian set up and blog about it ;)
Make sure you're using the amd64 image, not the i386 one. Either the netinst or regular CD1 should work fine from a USB stick, if it's amd64.
I tried both i386 and amd64 about a week ago on my 2011 Macbook Air, and only the amd64 image booted successfully.
You shouldn't need rEFIt.
UEFI Fuck-Up. Or, try waiting 30-60 seconds until the Legacy-BIOS-Mode kicks in..
you have to use 64 bit and know a bit about uefi. (or give up and do lubuntu)
Are Macs different enough that the amd64 Debian installer won't boot on it?
Not sure about the airs, but on the 2011 macbook pro, you could boot a lot of things from cd, but not from USB. Apple doesn't have a very good pre-boot environment if you're not running Apple software. (No PXE, either, just their proprietary netboot)