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I would like to use Boot Camp Assistant to partition my HD, reserving around 30 GB for Ubuntu. I would then have a dual OS X Yosemite and Ubuntu Linux system.

This used to be fairly easy. Boot Camp Assistant would partition the HD, then you could quit, and then using some boot manager software like rEFIt (now rEFInd), you could use that reserved space to install Ubuntu.

Now, I'm not so sure. Boot Camp Assistant gives me three options:

(1) Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk (2) Download the latest Windows support software from Apple (3) Install Windows 7 or later version

For (1), I need a Windows ISO image. I cannot do with without a Windows product key.

(2) just downloads Windows support software to a 16 GB USB port of mine, and then...Boot Camp Assistant quits.

(3) doesn't work, as apparently I need an installer disc.

How should Yosemite use Boot Camp Assistant to partition their HD? Why is Apple doing this to us?

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  • I'm not sure what you think Apple is "doing to [you]", but Boot Camp Assistant is for installing Windows on a Mac. The fact that you could previously use it for something other than its intended purpose was not a feature. If you want to partition your hard drive, you should be using Disk Utility or another partition manager.
    – tubedogg
    May 28, 2015 at 3:52
  • @tubedogg What I mean by this is that Apple used to allow Disk Utility to partition a Mac HD. The newest version of Yosemite does not allow this. So, users must use Boot Camp Assistant to do this OR use the command line. That's one problem. The second is that Boot Camp Assistant in the newest version of Yosemite is not the same animal as it was previously. Users must install windows first, before they partition their HD. As I've detailed above, it is extremely complicated to do this, even if you do install Windows. Unless you have an official windows copy, it doesn't work.
    – ShanZhengYang
    May 28, 2015 at 15:24
  • @tubedogg Do you see what I mean now? I feel these new engineering changes are constraining users.
    – ShanZhengYang
    May 28, 2015 at 15:25
  • None of what you just stated is true. Disk Utility has not changed. There is literally a tab called "Partition" where you partition a drive. BCA still works as it did before. You either create a Windows disk from an ISO, or insert an existing Windows disk, then the drive is partitioned, the system reboots and launches the Windows installer. It may not previously have checked to see that you have a Windows installer before partitioning the drive, though I think it did, but in any event, that would be the only change.
    – tubedogg
    May 28, 2015 at 15:28
  • @tubedogg Disk Utility does not allow users to chose the size of their partition. The reason is that with OS X Yosemite, the internal OS X installation is converted to a Core Storage volume, which is still not fully supported by Disk Utility. Yes, the Partition tab exists, but you cannot manually choose the size of the partition anymore using the Disk Utility GUI. This is definitely a new feature of Yosemite. I have contacted Apple, and they have confirmed this.
    – ShanZhengYang
    May 28, 2015 at 15:30

1 Answer 1

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Personally, I would avoid using BootCamp altogether. I would look at VirtualBox as a free solution to run Ubuntu on your Mac. If it does not provide everything you require, you might try a demo of VMWare Fusion for OS X. It will support things like KVM Hypervisor in a VM, which VBox will not.

If you insist on a native Ubuntu running on bare metal, just use Disk Manager to resize your system partition, add a second partition and install Ubuntu on the second partition. You will likely clobber your apple boot record, but you should be able to restore that by using the Recovery Boot Partition and repairing your OS X installation.

After you have Ubuntu installed on a partition, try to use the boot menu to select the partition from which you wish to boot. You get the boot menu by pressing and holding the option key after the boot sound and before the grey screen. It will present a list of system devices that are detected. It will also include USB drives, if that is a path you wish to take instead. Select the one from which you want to boot, and hit enter.

That should/might work. I haven't used a dual-boot Mac in some time as I use VMWare instead.

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