MacBook Pro, Early 2011 (MacBookPro8,2) won't boot Tails

[intelligence]

So, as already known, there seems to be an issue with booting Tails with this specific model. You'll be prompted to Grub where you select Tails and a load bar is shown, when the load bar reaches 100% nothing happens.

I open this issue to try and rally up some possible explanations as of why this happens.

[intelligence]

Found this topic which seemed to be interesting
https://tails.boum.org/forum/simple_way_to_get_TAILS_running_on_Macbook_Air___40__all_macs__41__/

Especially:

What would happen is what countless other people experienced... 
the white, light blue, dark blue debian 6.0.6 status bar would load 
half-way and then just freeze. Many uneeded wasted DVD's.... 
The trick that worked for me was to simply hit the "down key" and 
select the second "(flawless) or (faultless)" option, whatever it was. 
It started right up and went to the welcome screen. Go f'n figure! 
I can't promise it will be this easy for you, but try it, and then try 
adding each additional parameter as described in one of the help documents... 

He/she is refering to failsafe mode, so I thought I'd might try that out.
I added this to my grub.cfg:

menuentry "TAILS live (Failsafe)" {
        fakebios
        search --set -f /live/vmlinuz
        linux /live/vmlinuz askmethod boot=live config live-media=removable nopersistent noprompt timezone=Etc/UTC block.events_dfl_poll_msecs=1000 splash nox11autologin module=Tails  noapic noapm nodma nomce nolapic nomodeset nosmp vga=normal
        initrd /live/initrd.img
}

(as per live.cfg in the tails iso) but with little luck.
It still loads up to 100% (very slow though, possibly 90-120s) but then it just sits there.

[cryptomule]

I believe that the reason for this problem is the lack of Linux kernel mode setting (KMS) support in Apple's EFI firmware, which is required for Nvidia video drivers to function properly. Disabling KMS in the boot options of most distros actually causes the splash screen to show up, but then X (the graphical windowing system used to provide a desktop) can't start because KMS is disabled, and so you are dropped into the terminal with a bash shell.

Apple ignores or subverts large parts of the EFI specification in its Intel MacBooks and so this causes notable problems on older models.

Let me know if you find a solution :)

[intelligence]

Hm, but most (if not all?) of the working models have Nvidia graphics. And since we also have the built in Intel card to play with, if your speculations are true we should be able to just run with the Intel card instead of the discreet, right?

I'm very inexperienced with these types of problem, I've hardly used Linux at all before so this business is little beyond my knowledge but I'll google around the best I can :)

Edit: Doh! I realized I have an ATi card, not Nvidia.
Edit2: http://dentifrice.poivron.org/laptops/macbookpro8,2/

[intelligence]

Tried to set outb 0x750 0 in grub.cfg but it only gives me unknown cmd. Any idea why?
Seems like the Radeon card could be the issue here.

[timatron]

Same exact problem over here. Can't get it to boot, read through the same forums, outb unknown.

[termanader]

I have an early 2011 MBP, and have tails 0.24 on DVD and am able to boot into it just fine.
I have to reboot, hold own the alt/option key an select the windows DVD option.

[drjackyl]

I have the same or a similar problem with a MacBook Pro 15" Mid 2010 and Tails 1.1.

The boot begins, the blue progress-bar(s) appears, grows about 50% or 60%, then stops and nothing more happens.

This might be a problem with Tails itself, though.

Regards,
Felix

[mrharicot]

I had the same problem, found a fix here (and from a few other websites):
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro8-2/Raring

Edit: You need to switch to the intel gpu from OSX with gfxCardStatus before rebooting

This is my grub.cfg:

set timeout=30
set default=0

set gfxmode=${GRUB_GFXMODE}
outb 0x728 1 # Switch select
outb 0x710 2 # Switch display
outb 0x740 2 # Switch DDC
outb 0x750 0 # Power down discrete graphics
load video

menuentry "TAILS live" {
        fakebios

        search --set -f /live/vmlinuz
        linux /live/vmlinuz askmethod boot=live config live-media=removable nopersistent noprompt timezone=Etc/UTC block.events_dfl_poll_msecs=1000 nosplash debug nox11autologin module=Tails i915.lvds_channel_mode=2 i915.modeset=1 i915.lvds_use_ssc=0

        initrd /live/initrd.img
}

[dmitryd]

Old issue but you can be interested in a working solution: https://github.com/dmitryd/apple-tails-boot/blob/master/EFI/BOOT/liveamd64.cfg