Am 27.01.2015 um 13:00 schrieb Jonathan Copeland 
<jonathan.mcopel...@icloud.com>:

> Hi Debian Community 
> 
> I am a student at the University of Pretoria and I need to have Debian 
> installed on my Mac for my degree, 
> 
> The only requirements that we’ve been notified of are that we’re meant to be 
> able to run Debian in our Computers 
> and that we are to be able to submit Projects.
> 
> I’d like to partition the disk and install Debian in a duel boot using 100gb, 
> like when you duel Boot to Windows. 
> 
> My Mac’s details are the following;
> 15” Macbook Pro retina 
> 2,5 GHz Intel Core i7
> 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
> Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB
> 500gb SSD

It depends on the model of the Mac, the firmware and the version of OSX, if it 
is easy and works without problems.

I did it following the usual HOWTOs [1] on a MacAir Mid 2013, installing 
reFind, shrinking the OSX partition on the 128 GB SSD to 60 GB, and installing 
Debian on the free space.

Of course you should backup your disk before shrinking with e.g. TimeMachine.

In the end I uninstalled Debian because of the following problems:

1. The brightness of the screen does not readjust after suspend/resume in 
Debian (I worked hard trying to solve this with some published hacks, but no 
full success).

2. Often the Mac got hot with closed lid, eating the battery. This seems caused 
by the above firmware manipulation hack.

3. Ugrades of OSX seem to damage the reFind configuration. Also there is a 
problem writing the hidden rescue partition during an upgrade of OSX.

[1] http://www.howtogeek.com/187410/how-to-install-and-dual-boot-linux-on-a-mac/

> What’s the best and safest way that I can do this?

Install VirtualBox on OSX and install Debian in VirtualBox. This is the safest 
way. The disadvantage of a virtualized Debian are some restrictions in using 
hardware like USB-devices, and degraded performance.

Another way, which I choosed, is doing your tasks directly in OSX, using e.g. 
homebrew, perlbrew. Many packages available for Debian can also be compiled and 
installed under OSX, but sometimes it is boring and time consuming. This 
depends on the tasks and details. But I am happy with this way, mainly 
developping in Perl, C, C++ in OSX on one of best lightweight (1 kg) laptops, 
with a battery allowing 9 hours of work.

HTH

Helmut Wollmersdorfer

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