For most people, the Mac's OS X is all about the graphical user interface. But system administrators and power users know that the Mac's command-line interface can be a powerful time saver and, in. This is a command line tutorial primarily conducted in in the OS X command line. Because of OSX’s unix heritage, much of the info here is also useful in other unix inspired systems, like the Linux command line.
I need access to grub-mkrescue for a project I'm working on. I know that the GRUB command-line tools come builtin to Linux, but how do I get them on OSX? Is there a package? Is it built into the system somewhere? Is there an installer?
CLARIFICATION: The question is not about installing GRUB as a bootloader on the Mac. The question is about installing the GRUB command line tools to do things like create bootable disk images of other operating systems.
3 Answers
I know this is two years too late for the OP, but by following the OSDev Wiki on installing GRUB2 on Mac OS X, I was able to get grub-mkrescue (and other GRUB related tools for my target platform) installed after installing the proper build tools for the target platform.
To get the build tools, I used a Homebrew tap, but at its root, Homebrew is just a pile of Ruby scripts that install things for you so they could be followed if you don't use Homebrew.
It's possible, there's just no brew formula for it because the Homebrew maintainers are PHP dilettantes and enterprise dbags whom don't do anything real like toolchain cross-compilation or bare-metal kernel development. :)
I would highly suggest that you don't mess with the bootloader on your Mac unless you are in a position to format your machine.
Macs do not use grub to boot into OSX
The firmware’s built-in boot volume chooser (hold Option to activate it) will recognize Linux boot CDs as well as bootable hard disks and let you boot them. (They may be labeled “Windows”, though.) For triple-booting you’ll get only one item in the built-in chooser, but you can use GRUB, LILO, or NTLDR to act as a second-level menu to choose between Windows and Linux. http://refit.sourceforge.net/myths/
Mac tools catalog online. Also this way you can unlock just the features you want within one app, so the developer doesn’t have to worry about supporting mutiple versions. So rather than a lite version and a full version (which you’d have pay full price for again if you wanted to move up) you can just unlock the additional functionality.
A much better solution would be to spin up a VM in Virtualbox, and run grub-mkrescue to create your grub recovery disk from there.
If you search a Mac package manager for grub software, you will find none: Likely because the tools have no use on Mac.
Update
Attempt to compile from source
-Install Homebrew
-Install bazaar
-Download grub source
-Install autogen
-Compile
It looks like the configure.ac was not setup for the Mac OS. If you are adept at compiling software, you may be able to modify it.
Your best bet will still be to install virtualbox, and create a linux VM and run the grub tools from there
Additional Resources
Hdd raw copy tool for mac. Page 1 of 38 [ 1516 topics ] 1,,,.
http://refit.sourceforge.net
http://mac.linux.be/content/problems-refit-and-grub-after-installation
http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=24692
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080929055515AAeK1j7
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/39291/ubuntu-on-mac-dual-boot-where-do-i-install-grub