Ascertaining The Best Linux Distro is fully involving everyone taste, thus best for one, could be worst for others. For me, Gentoo is best linux distro for most machine, due to great to be configured and customized. However, installing gentoo is really painful and spending a lot of time. I always giving advise : All linux distro is best, we just need to choose which one is FIT for our need or taste :=)).
Below is purely my personal opinion and experience toward installing Linux on MacBook 2.1. But I want have SINGLE BOOT without rEFIT as final goal.
1. Ubuntu on MacBook 2.1
I tested Ubuntu (8.10 and 10.04) on MacBook 2.1 both are run well, but 8.10 is better in stability. Its normal since at the point of time 10.04 is in hard development. Ubuntu 8.10 (i386 and amd64 version) easily to be installed, minor tweaking is necessary for satisfy run and hardware functionality. Many web pages will guide you to have good set up. This Page will help a lot.
The result is : very annoying Long Delay of booting, therefore Ubuntu is Not fit for my goal :=)) . I have to remove mouseemu package to make capslock light working with pommed installed.
2. Gentoo i386 on MacBook 2.1
Its really painful installing gentoo on MacBook 2.1, the first disaster is MACBOOK KEYBOARD IS COMPLETELY NOT WORK this is the way I installed gentoo on MacBook 2.1
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I need to attach USD Keyboard on the Machine .... its really funny. The result also LONG DELAY booting without help of rEFIT, and hard tweaking for most keyboard functionality working.
3. Fedora 12 on MacBook 2.1
Have been long time I did not having contact with Anaconda since I falling in love with gentoo and ubuntu. Gentoo installer is your finger, and ubuntu using debian installer. Both debian installer and Anaconda are great installer. Choosing Fedora 12 netinstall iso for having latest applications.
I admitted that only Fedora 12 having working built-in boot-Efi among the three distros. First try is with help of rEFIT :
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Above is rEFIT face ready to boot Fedora 12 -i386 with OSX (Tiger) installed. Installation goes well, most hardware almost working out of the box, very little tweaking is required but really far from pain.
I do try to wipe OSX and EFI Partition, for having Pure Linux Box on MacBook 2.1. Without rEFIT we must hold OPTION key or C key to ensure the Machine booting from CDROM.
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With 768 kbps internet connection, Kambing Fedora Repository to be used, and Installing Gnome-core, openOffice, inkscape, GIMP, epiphany web browser, claws-mail mail client (No Evolution package) and basic administrative tools speding 5.5 hours to download and install.
4. Fedora 12 amd64 on MacBook 2.1
I really want to have Fedora 12 amd64 on this MacBook, even I realize the system will run on 32bits mode. However, look like efi.32 on the box is preventing installation CD Fedora 12 amd64 to boot.
with rEFIT
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Fedora 12 amd64 Not Booting
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without rEFIT
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Fedora 12 amd64 Not Booting
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CONCLUSION
For the time being, in my personal opinion the best Linux Distro for MacBook 2.1 is Fedora 12 i386. With the target : FULL LINUX BOX : No rEFIT, No Long Delay Booting, Very Little tweaking, without help of OSX DVD Installer for setting up :=))
Fedora 12 i386 on MacBook 2.1 in action
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Why don't you try Debian? There is a quite comprehensive guide on all install options here: http://wiki.debian.org/MacBook
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