Boot Into Recovery Partition After Installing Linux I want to install Linux on my mid 2014 Macbook Pro for educational purposes. However, I don't want this to be permanent. I've tried to partition the hard drive and install both OSs but I have not been successful and I would like to avoid using a virtual machine. 

If I install linux onto the main partition that currently contains mac OS X and leave the recovery partition, will it be possible for me reinstall OS X from the recovery partition when I'm done with linux? I don't fully understand the process and therefore I am concerned that installing linux will install a new boot loader or something other software in the booting process that will prevent me from booting into the recovery partition. 

Can I still boot into the recovery partition after install linux on a mac?
Short answer:
It will be possible.

More elaborate answer:
If you leave the Recovery HD intact, you can still boot from it later on as the boot process Linux uses (usually GRUB these days) will not touch the ability to use the Alt key to boot from any attached bootable partition.

So, pressing Alt at computer startup will then present you with two options:


Windows (even though Linux is installed; some distributions may show their name though)
Recovery HD-&lt;version&gt; (&lt;version&gt; is the version of OS X at the time you installed OS X, which created the Recovery partition)


Additional:
You have a MacBook Pro (Mid 2014).  So, you can always reinstall the original version of OS X (which may be either OS X 10.9 Mavericks or OS X 10.10 Yosemite), which came with your computer as you can use the Internet Recovery even if your internal Recovery HD is gone entirely.

To start the recovery process, hold down Cmd+R at computer startup.  If a Recovery HD is found, it will be used.  Otherwise, the Internet Recovery is used.  To specifically force the Internet Recovery, hold down Cmd+Alt+R at computer startup until you see a spinning (or blinking) globe.

More information can be obtained here: OS X: About OS X Recovery