Re: Creating an (Apple) EFI bootable media

[Michal Suchanek]

2009/10/2 Peter Cros <address@hidden>:
> OSX bless works for me with grub.efi in any hfsplus partition using the form
>   bless --folder /xyz  --file /xyz/grub/grub.efi
> (if the file paths are correct - I use GUI and drag the file icon onto a
> terminal commandline)
>
> However it is not always necessary to bless. On Apple Mac, the UEFI spec
> will boot *.efi  without needing to be blessed, and without refit, if it
> fits the naming convention in the UEFI spec. So a simple bootable package
> can be built.
>
> http://www.uefi.org/specs/ -
>  EFI System Partition Subdirectory Registry
>  UEFI Specification Version 2.3
>  3.4.1.1 Removable Media Boot Behavior - Table 9. UEFI Image Types
>
> If grub.efi is renamed to bootx64.efi or bootia32.efi and placed in fat32 or
> hfsplus tree /efi/boot, it will then be shown on the restart with Optiion
> key.
>
> However to get an automatic default boot, probably requires the bless form
> with the --setBoot option.
>
> For Apple Mac with 64 bit EFI -
> address@hidden:~/test$ tree efi
>  efi
>  `-- boot
>      |-- bootx64.efi
>      |-- bootx64.icns
>      `-- grub.cfg
>

This works nicely for me. The steps are:

1) build grub for efi 32bit a efi 64bit
2) use mkimage to add all modules (except kernel) to grub.efi
3) format a fat32/mbr flash disk
3) copy the appropriate .efi images to the directory structure as above
4) create a grub.cfg and remember to include a font if needed

Now the plug the flash disk into a mac and start/restart it while
holding ALT. The boot menu welcomes you with a EFI boot option even
before it finds the OS X boot options ;-)

Thanks

Michal