In order to successfully boot to Ubuntu, you should install Ubuntu at first, then install rEFInd. Please finish reading this article before actually perform the installation. Additionally, I have tried install Ubuntu to an external drive for multiple times, but every time Mac would fail to boot into Ubuntu. Download the latest LTS version of Ubuntu, for desktop PCs and laptops. LTS stands for long-term support — which means five years, until April 2025, of free. How to get Ubuntu 18.04 (Linux) on a Mac running macOS or Mac OS X. This process is called a dual boot. Links: My website to get the bootable drive maker: ht. This is for installing Ubuntu 13.10 on mac as the main OS (no refit or refind or dual boots) from an external usb drive, using OSX to prepare the media. Create two partitions on an external usb drive via Disk Utility. Format them both MS-DOS and name the first BOOT and the second UBUNTU.
Ubuntu 20.04 just released and I can’t wait to try it out and install on my MacBook Pro 14.1 model. I am going to tell you what works and what doesn’t work, as well as any workaround to fix those issues.
The install steps are simple:
- Download a copy of ubuntu 20.04 iso image;https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop
- Get a USB drive. Format it to FAT format via mac os disk utility tools
- Using Etcher to create bootable USB drive. You can download the software here: https://www.balena.io/etcher/
- After you fresh the drive with the iso image, reboot your Mac and pressing Option key to select boot from a USB drive.
Once you start to boot up from USB drive, you would notice something doesn’t work already: the track-pad. It doesn’t respond, but never mind, we can either use an external mouse or continue the installation via keyboard. (And we can fix the driver issue later as per the steps below). Follow the instructions and you may boot to ubuntu operating system now. One thing I like for this version is the boot screen is black install purple in the previous version.
Out of the box, here are what’s working:
- Keyboard with backlight
- Screen display and graphic card
- Wifi to connect internet
- USB ports
- Battery
What doesn’t work out of the box:
- Speaker (a workaround to use external headphone, or HDMI at an external monitor, or fix with this: https://github.com/leifliddy/snd_hda_macbookpro
- Trackpad (a workaround to use an external mouse, or install the driver here:https://github.com/roadrunner2/macbook12-spi-driver
- Bluetooth (it can be fixed by installing driver:https://github.com/leifliddy/macbook12-bluetooth-driver Note that if you hit error 404 to download 5.4.0 version, edit the script to 5.4.1 instead would work.)
- Camera (It can be fix by install driver: https://github.com/patjak/bcwc_pcie/wiki/Get-Started In case you hit an error:
make -C /lib/modules/5.4.0-26-generic/build M=/home/Workspace/bcwc_pcie modules_installmake[1]: Entering directory ‘/usr/src/linux-headers-5.4.0-26-generic’INSTALL /home/Workspace/bcwc_pcie/facetimehd.koAt main.c:160:
![Ubuntu mac install usb Ubuntu mac install usb](/uploads/1/1/9/8/119844539/567977371.jpg)
SSL error:02001002:system library:fopen:No such file or directory: ../crypto/bio/bss_file.c:69SSL error:2006D080:BIO routines:BIO_new_file:no such file: ../crypto/bio/bss_file.c:76sign-file: certs/signing_key.pem: No such file or directoryDEPMOD 5.4.0-26-genericWarning: modules_install: missing ‘System.map’ file. Skipping depmod.make[1]: Leaving directory ‘/usr/src/linux-headers-5.4.0-26-generic’
You could get rid of that error by not using modules_install in your Makefile.
Dual Boot Ubuntu And Mac
Change:
to
Other customization I like after installation are:
- Switch to dark mode.
- Show battery percentage:
$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface show-battery-percentage true
- Install gnome tweak
- Install ubuntu restricted extras:
- Install atom editor
$wget -qO - https://packagecloud.io/AtomEditor/atom/gpgkey | sudo apt-key add -$sudo sh -c ‘echo “deb [arch=amd64] https://packagecloud.io/AtomEditor/atom/any/ any main” > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/atom.list’$sudo apt-get update$sudo apt-get install atom
- Disable trackpad while typing
So now everything works. And you have a secure and high performance operating system. It’s painful but fun with Linux since it’s open-source and allow you to do all kinds of customization. You can create all the bugs and crash your operating system if you don’t know what you are doing, not just frustrating but also rewarding experience to learn something new through troubleshooting the issues. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to get in touch.
Originally published athttps://victorleungtw.com.
With a bootable Ubuntu USB stick, you can:
- Install or upgrade Ubuntu, even on a Mac
- Test out the Ubuntu desktop experience without touching your PC configuration
- Boot into Ubuntu on a borrowed machine or from an internet cafe
- Use tools installed by default on the USB stick to repair or fix a broken configuration
Creating a bootable USB stick is very simple, especially if you’re going to use the USB stick with a generic Windows or Linux PC. We’re going to cover the process in the next few steps.
Apple hardware considerations
Ubuntu For Mac Installer
There are a few additional considerations when booting the USB stick on Apple hardware. This is because Apple’s ‘Startup Manager’, summoned by holding the Option/alt (⌥) key when booting, won’t detect the USB stick without a specific partition table and layout. We’ll cover this in a later step.