I have a Macbook Pro that is currently running OSX. I installed ubuntu on a Windows laptop I had lying around to try it out. I liked it a lot but I didn't want to commit any space to it on my internal storage on my Macbook Pro (my internal storage is not very large to begin with).
I wanted to install ubuntu to a larger external (bootable) hard drive. I downloaded ubuntu 12.04 (.iso file), and then I burned the image to a DVD. I booted up my Mac in the "try ubuntu" mode. Then I setup my wireless connection and clicked "install ubuntu". Then I clicked the "something else" option.
This is the guide I used to partition my hard drive
Note: I made sure to select my external hard drive (Seagate 500 gb external drive) for the boot loader installation
Once I had everything partitioned correctly, I started the installation which took about 15 minutes. I rebooted my Mac and it booted directly into ubuntu. I installed a bunch of updates and then I shut my computer down. I wanted to boot up OSX again so I removed the hard drive and turned my computer on. It came up with the no such device: grub rescue
error.
Here is a question about the error for those who are unfamiliar:
So what this means is that even know I told the installer to put the boot loader on the external hard drive, it put it on my internal hard drive. It took me days of screwing around to try to get grub off, I ended up just restoring my Macbook from my Time Machine.
This is obviously a problem in ubuntu 12.04. It seems like if you want to install ubuntu 12.04, you should probably just partition your internal because it has issues with installing to an external hard drive. I don't want to install ubuntu on my internal hard drive because if I do that neither OS will have a practical amount of space.
Now here is my question:
Is the problem fixed in ubuntu 13.04? If the problem is not fixed in 13.04, is there a build of ubuntu where it is not a problem?
BOUNTY
How can I install Ubuntu on an external USB Hard drive WITHOUT installing Grub (or Grub2) onto my Mac internal storage?