Mac Os X Start To Bios: How?

[gl556tr]

Coming from Ix and Win, I am stumped with the Mac OS X (10.6.8) my mother has. With so much rubbish on the HDD, I want to start a USB flash drive running Linux and a Partition program. Then I can flatten the HDD and re-install OS X 10.6.8. _Q1_ I see the HDD has the format "MAC OS Extended (Journalled)". Presumably, this format can be selected in Partition Magic (I think its called). _Q2_ Would there be problems in formatting, or would that automatically be dealt with when I start the OS X installation (as for Win)? Thank you.

[Buenchico]

You can't access the BIOS on a Mac because it doesn't exist.

Unlike an IBM-compatible machine, which is designed to allow any suitable OS to run on it, a Mac has hardware which is specifically designed to run Apple's own operating systems and nothing else.

You can get a Mac to boot from external media
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255
but if the relevant device doesn't have Apple software on it your chances of getting it to work aren't high.

[Tuvok]

If you have the installation files eg. cd/dvd etc. then you start the mac from there. Then follow the onscreen instructions to reinstall, fresh install etc.

[Tuvok]

What "rubbish" are you meaning - some of it may be part of the operating system

[Fitzer]

Actually, since about 2009/10 you have been able to use Apple's Bootcamp to run Windows on compatible machines. I'm not sure what advantage you think Linux would give you, Mac OS is essentially Unix with a GUI on top. Fire up Terminal and Bash & Sudo to your heart's content :-)

[gl556tr]

_Thank you all for your answers.

_Buenchico_ I will try out your suggested use of external media + link. By the way, how does one generate ITALIC text? Then one must surely be able to activate BOLD and UNDERLINE?

_Fitzer_ I've peeped at Bash & Sudo from Ix, but would the terminal be started under Mac? And which Bash/Sudo commands would one need? -> I haven't a clue here, only using Sudo, for instance, when the command sequences are listed "idiot-safe".
(Reply delayed due to illness.)

[Buenchico]

This site used to accept some HTML coding in posts, so that underlining and bold text, etc could be used but the system was abused by some people who 'forgot' to enter the code to revert to normal text at the end of their posts, meaning that entire pages of content here ended up being in (for example) bright green, italicised, bold text. So that system was abandoned.

All that you can do these days is to enter italic text. (There's no way of using coloured, bold or underlined text). Further, you need to note that it only works once in each post.

The method is simply to type [i] immediately before and after the word(s) you wish to appear in italics.

[gl556tr]

_Buenchico_ Thank you very much. I can well imagine some people abusing these little, but useful, features.