**Post updated with Chameleon RC4 files**

The most widely used and probably the best bootloader out for OSX86 systems, Chameleon, is out with yet another update. This latest version ditches that ugly, white text and black background junk from Chameleon 1 and upgrades to 100% sexy. But not only sexy was added to the latest version. Now, you will see a logo for the OS you select to boot from which only increases the sexy. Plus, non-bootable partitions are no longer displayed and Snow Leopard support has been added. Additionally, you have the option to hide partitions. RC4 mostly boasts behind the scenes updates, with the exception of the new hidden partition option.  You can see the official release notes here. To be honest, I’m still waiting for a final release as Chameleon is in its 4th Release Candidate!!!

So now that you know about the update, go ahead and download the file and then follow the instructions below. Pay close attention as these instructions have changed from previous versions of Chameleon.

1. Make sure the untarred folder is on your desktop.

2. Open Terminal and type “diskutil list” w/o the quotes

3. Find the partition with OS X installed on it and remember its identifier ie. rdisk0s1

4. Type cd /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Desktop/Chameleon-2.0-RC3-r658-bin/i386 but replacing YOURUSERNAME with, you guessed it, your username.

5. Copy and paste the following commands into terminal but replacing DISK_IDENTIFIER with the code you were supposed to remember before (Don’t forget the r in the front of the disk identifier)

sudo fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk0

sudo dd if=boot1h of=/dev/rDISK_IDENTIFIER

sudo cp boot /

6. Reboot

***For those of you that had any custom settings in com.apple.boot.plist – this file will remain untouched so any boot flags or other stuff you may have added will still be used at boot***

If you found this guide useful then feel free to make a donation by clicking the link at the end of the Authors Mini-Biography. Any amount truly does help.

Ubuntu and Chameleon, wouldn’t it be great if they just got along? That way you could boot to Ubuntu directly from the Chameleon Bootloader without having to change the boot partition every time (or whatever you used to do). The issue itself is actually between Grub (not Ubuntu itself) and Chameleon fighting to see who has the bigger cojones.

Grub and Chameleon both install themselves onto the MBR (Master Boot Record). Since they both try to install to the same place, whichever is installed last is able to stay on. This means that if you install Ubuntu and then you install OS X, you will be able to get into Chameleon to choose which OS you would like to boot to. The problem with this is that because you just installed Chameleon to the MBR, Grub was replaced at the top of the list and you can no longer boot to it. If you install OS X and then Ubuntu afterwards, you can boot to most other OS’s with Grub, but not OS X.

To have both Grub and Chameleon satisfied, you just need a couple of commands in the Ubuntu’s Terminal and everything can be fixed and working smoothly. So today, I’ll tell you how to move Grub from the MBR directly to the Ubuntu partition so that it remains intact when Installing Chameleon, but also so that you can boot Ubuntu directly from Chameleon. To do so:

1. Boot into Ubuntu like you normally would.

2. Launch Terminal.

3. Type df and press RETURN or ENTER.

4. Note the first entry on the list – the one mounted as /. This is the one we want. In my case it was /dev/sda3.

5. Type sudo grub-install /dev/sda3 – replace /dev/sda3 with the correct entry for your system.

6. Enter your Password and press RETURN or ENTER.

7. Close the terminal window and restart your system.

8. Boot into OS X and reinstall Chameleon.

9. Leave a comment below about how everything went for you.

While you’re at it, you may want to access your Ubuntu files from within OS X.

If you found this guide useful then feel free to make a donation by clicking the link at the end of the Authors Mini-Biography. Any amount truly does help.