I own a macbook pro (Fourth generation) and I triple boot Microsoft XP, Leopard, and Ubuntu 8.10. I have installed rEFit to boot these and when I hold down "alt" at start up I have no trouble finding the option to select "boot Ubuntu from hard drive" but whenever I do it shows the penguin on a white screen then turns to a black screen with just a blinking "_" in the top left corner.
Here is the report Partition Inspector gave me if it's any help.
* Report for internal hard disk *
Current GPT partition table: # Start LBA End LBA Type 1 40 409639 EFI System (FAT) 2 409640 413024295 Mac OS X HFS+ 3 413286440 444743719 Basic Data 4 445005864 488397127 Basic Data
Current MBR partition table: # A Start LBA End LBA Type 1 1 488397167 ee EFI Protective
MBR contents: Boot Code: None
Partition at LBA 40: Boot Code: None (Non-system disk message) File System: FAT32 Listed in GPT as partition 1, type EFI System (FAT)
Partition at LBA 409640: Boot Code: None File System: HFS Extended (HFS+) Listed in GPT as partition 2, type Mac OS X HFS+
Partition at LBA 413286440: Boot Code: GRUB File System: ext3 Listed in GPT as partition 3, type Basic Data
Partition at LBA 445005864: Boot Code: Windows NTLDR File System: FAT32 Listed in GPT as partition 4, type Basic Data