[emptybox]

Originally Posted by psionic

It has EFI.

You simply keep the alt/option key pressed when you switch on and you can choose what drive to boot from (including DVD and USB etc. )

Originally Posted by Batwing

You choose that option by holding down the Option key when starting.

Edit: I see psionic answered you.

It's a much better way than messing inside a bios. If you have Windows installed on your Mac that is also how you get into Windows. You will see a Mac hard drive symbol, one for Windows, and those with Lion will also see one for recovery.

Does that work on older hardware?
I have an ibook G4, and I've often wonderered about putting a version of Linux on it, or just running a live CD.
I know I'd have to choose the distro carefully, as support for powerPC has been dropped by most.

ETA: pressing that on my laptop just gives "Mackintosh HD" as an option. No mention of DVD drive, even with an Ubuntu live CD in the drive (although I know that wouldn't be compatible)

[Batwing]

Originally Posted by emptybox

Does that work on older hardware?
I have an ibook G4, and I've often wonderered about putting a version of Linux on it, or just running a live CD.
I know I'd have to choose the distro carefully, as support for powerPC has been dropped by most.

ETA: pressing that on my laptop just gives "Mackintosh HD" as an option. No mention of DVD drive, even with an Ubuntu live CD in the drive (although I know that wouldn't be compatible)

Modern Macs do not show a a DVD drive unless you have a disc in it that is bootable and formatted correctly, for example a Mac OS X disc. Do a search on creating such a disc.

I can't give any specific answers for your older hardware but since you say it brought up Macintosh HD then it looks as if it works the same on older Macs.

[Quackers]

Right, first off for all you people saying every other version of Windows is good, and then using Windows 9x in your list, what planet are you on? Do you know nothing about Windows?

How can you go Windows 95, 98, XP ? Why not just go Windows 95, Mac OS 8, Windows 98?

Windows ME was the last of the 9x based OS, after that Microsoft killed it off, moved the consumer over to business class NT based OS, and renamed it from NT to Windows 2000 half way through NT 5.0s development. They did plan to do this with Windows 2000 at first, have a home edition, code named Windows Neptune, but the idea grew into Windows XP.

From about 1993, (maybe 92) there are 2 lines of Windows OS's

Consumer

Windows 3.1 -> Windows 95 -> Windows98 -> Windows 98 SE -> Windows ME -> Microsoft Kill it off, move to NT only

Business

Windows NT 3.1 -> Windows NT 3..5 -> Windows NT 3.51 -> Windows NT 4 -> Windows 2000 (NT 5.0) -> Windows XP (NT 5.1) -> Windows Vista (NT 6.0) -> Windows 7 (NT 6.1).

The only one they really messed up on big time was NT 6.0! We could not even access network shares withit without it being painfully slow, not matter what computer we installed Vista on.

A clean install of Vista with SP2 and all the issues we originally had with it back it 2007 are gone, i can actually copy files at a decent speed!

[emptybox]

Originally Posted by Batwing

Modern Macs do not show a a DVD drive unless you have a disc in it that is bootable and formatted correctly, for example a Mac OS X disc. Do a search on creating such a disc.

I can't give any specific answers for your older hardware but since you say it brought up Macintosh HD then it looks as if it works the same on older Macs.

Thanks.
I burnt a CD with the proper powerPC version of Ubuntu 12.04, and it came up on the screen and I could boot into it no problem.

Probably won't bother installing it because the wireless and sound don't seem to work, so more research required.

[cnbcwatcher]

Originally Posted by Daedroth

You do know Apple hardware is the same hardware that is in a PC right? Considering they're using standard Intel processors, standard graphics chips, etc. You could format a Mac very easily and put what ever you want on it.

You could even install a Linux distro on it or shock horror even run only Windows on it. Imagine if you went to the Apple Store with a Mac only running Windows. The guys at the Genius Bar would probably have a cow