Installing Windows on your Mac is easy with Boot Camp, but Boot Camp won’t help you install Linux. You’ll have to get your hands a bit dirtier to install and dual-boot a Linux distribution like Ubuntu.
When installing GRUB, if it asks whether to install it on removable media, agree. This is very useful if the system does not show grub prompt after reboot from the hard drive. Booting From the Hard Drive. Reboot, select your new hard drive as a boot device. It should show grub command prompt. CLARIFICATION: The question is not about installing GRUB as a bootloader on the Mac. The question is about installing the GRUB command line tools to do things like create bootable disk images of other operating systems.
If you just want to try Linux on your Mac, you can boot from a live CD or USB drive. Insert the live Linux media, restart your Mac, press and hold the Option key, and select the Linux media on the Startup Manager screen.
We installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to test this process.
Bootable Mac Usb Install
- How to Install and Dual Boot Linux and Mac OS. The Mac is one of the most reliable computing platforms available, and can make a great platform for not only running the Mac OS, such as the current macOS Sierra, but also Windows and Linux. In fact, the MacBook Pro is a very popular platform for running Linux. Under the hood.
- Ubuntu installation on USB stick with pure EFI boot (Mac compatible) All I wanted was just: an USB key with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS installed on it, with /home and swap encrypted, that I could boot from any of my 2 Macs, by simply pressing and holding the “option” (or “alt”) key immediately after boot.
- Step 4: Installing Linux on that Mac! This is the fun part! Now we get to install the operating system that your Macintosh has been longing for. All hail Linux on a Macintosh! Using a USB or Thunderbolt Ethernet Adapter is going to save you a lot of headaches! Switch your Macintosh off completely.
Install rEFInd
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rEFInd is a boot manager that will allow you to choose between Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, and other operating systems when you boot your computer. Installing rEFInd makes the dual-boot process easier. (Some older how-to’s will instruct you to use rEFIt, but it’s no longer maintained. rEFInd is a currently maintained boot manager based on rEFIt.)
Full-disk encryption causes problems with rEFIt, so you’ll need to disable full-disk encryption or do some extra work before installing rEFInd.
First, visit the rEFInd page on SourceForge and click the Download button to download the latest refind-bin-[version].zip file. Open a Terminal window by pressing Command + Space and, typing Terminal, and pressing Enter. Drag and drop the install.sh file from the downloaded zip file into the terminal window and press Enter to run it.
Shut down your Mac — a full shut down, not a restart — and boot it back up again. You should see the rEFInd boot manager screen.
Partition Your Mac
You’ll now need to resize your Mac OS X system partition to make room for your Linux distribution of choice. From within Mac OS X, press Command + Space, type Disk Utility, and press Enter to open the Disk Utility. Select your Mac’s hard drive in the list on the left and select Partition on the right.
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Shrink the current Mac OS X partition to make space for your Linux system. How much space you want for Linux is up to you. Ubuntu’s system requirements say it requires at least 5 GB of space, but something like 20 GB is much more reasonable. Drag and drop the handle on the partition volume or enter a final size for the partition and click Partition to partition it.
Don’t create a new partition after shrinking your current partition — just leave the space empty for now.
Boot and Install Linux
You’ll need Linux installation media to continue. For example, if you’re using Ubuntu, you’ll need to download an Ubuntu ISO file — download the “64-bit Mac” version. Burn the ISO to disc or follow Ubuntu’s official instructions to create a bootable USB drive from the ISO file.
Restart your computer and rEFInd will appear. Select the USB or disc drive containing the Linux system and boot it on your Mac.
Launch your Linux distribution’s installer and go through the installation process. On Ubuntu, launch the Install Ubuntu application from the desktop and install Ubuntu as you normally would. Be sure to select the “Install Ubuntu alongside Mac OS X” option instead of overwriting your Mac OS X system with Ubuntu. The installation process should otherwise be normal.
Whenever you boot your computer, you’ll have the ability to choose between Mac OS X and Linux on the rEFInd boot manager screen.
Depending on your Mac, some hardware components may not work perfectly on Linux. This depends on the version of Linux you use, how recent it is, and what Mac hardware you’re using. If something doesn’t work, you may have to perform some Google searches with the model and year of your Mac as well as the name and version of the Linux distribution you’re using. Other users have probably dealt with the same problems before you, and they’ve probably written guides to making everything work.
How to Remove Linux and rEFInd
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Install Grub On Usb From Mac
If you decide you no longer want to dual boot Linux on your Mac, you can remove Linux fairly easily. Boot into OS X, open the Disk Utility, and delete your Linux partitions. You can also boot from your Linux USB media and use the GParted partition manager to remove these partitions. After the partitions are deleted, you can enlarge your Mac OS X partition afterwards from the Disk Utility in OS X to reclaim the space used for Linux.
If you installed Linux as the only operating system and replaced Mac OS X, you’ll need to reinstall OS X on your Mac if you want to leave Linux behind.
To remove the rEFInd boot manager, follow rEFInd’s uninstallation instructions. You don’t have to remove rEFInd — your Mac will continue working fine with rEFInd installed even if you remove Linux.
The rEFInd bit isn’t mandatory, but you’ll have to perform other tweaks to make Linux boot properly on a Mac if you opt to not use rEFInd. While Apple makes installing Windows easy through Boot Camp, they don’t provide any simple solution for installing Linux.
Image Credit: Brandon Nguyen on Flickr
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