Comments for https://heeris.id.au/2014/ubuntu-plus-mac-pure-efi-boot/

I love this old blog post, still very valuable to me! I just installed ubuntu 18.04 on my mac mini :-)

Hi Jason:

Great article. Do you think this procedure could work with a MacPro 1,1 ?

Its my understanding that the EFI Boot for this late 2006 Macs is 32bit, although their Intel Xeon's are capable of 64bit, and for this issue, you are supposed to use the ubuntu 14.04.5 amd64 Mac ISO (Desktop or Server).

Your comments are appreciated.

Thank you again

Thanks for this excellent article. I'm triple-booting Win10 (Legacy, not EFI), Ubuntu 18.04 (EFI), and High Sierra (MacPro 4,1 -> 5,1 through firmware upgrade). Following this procedure [1], I can install and boot all three operating systems. I can boot into all three by holding "ALT/OPTION" at startup. After I move mach_kernel into the proper location on the Ubuntu EFI, Ubuntu appears in High Sierra's "Startup Disk." However, if I ask Startup Disk to reboot, it gives me an error: "Running Bless to move the boot files failed" as detailed in link [2].

I've tried creating a separate Mac formatted EFI partition for Ubuntu (both iMacOS' Disk Utility and in Ubuntu) but I see no difference.

I can use the BootCamp Control Panel in Win10 to successfully boot into Ubuntu - however, the corresponding option in High Sierra's "Startup Disk" does not work.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

[1] https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/332516/how-to-install-ubuntu-on-mac-with-high-sierra-and-legacy-bios-booting-windows-10/332517#332517

[2] https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/332742/macos-startup-disk-error-running-bless-to-place-boot-files-failed-triple-boo

Thanks for putting this together. I'm trying to run Ubuntu from an external hdd without using rEFInd. However Ubuntu 18.04 is complaining that the repository for mactel-utils is insecure as it does not have a release file. I'm going to try to work out the options I need to bybass the security, but it may be advantageous to add a release file so that it works seemlessly on 18.04 as it did when I tried it on 16.04. Thanks again :-).

Excuse my lack of knowledge but can the EFI be modified after the system has been installed?

I have a headless Mac Mini 2-1 (2007) and installed Leopard, Snow Leopard and Ubuntu 16 Desktop (and rEFInd – yes, I know...) on it which I VNC into with NoMachine from a Mac Mini 2014 (yes, I know...) with a monitor.

Basically, I would like the ability of rebooting the headless machine into Ubuntu or even OS X and then control it with NoMachine. Whenever I type reboot in Ubuntu terminal, it restarts in OS X Startup Disk. Possible with no keyboard or re-installation?

Hi! Thanks a lot for this tutorial. i've followed it to install Linux in an external USB drive, in my iMac, but I always bump into a problem when installing grub. When I run the

sudo grub-install --target x86_64-efi --boot-directory=/boot --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id="$(lsb_release -ds)"

command, I get this error:

Installing for x86_64-efi platform.
grub-install: error: cannot find a GRUB drive for /dev/sdb1. Check your device.map.

I have been looking through forums but I can't figure out what the problem is. I checked and there is no /boot/grub/device.map file. I generated one, which looks like this:

(hd0)   /dev/disk/by-id/nvme-APPLE_SSD_SM0128L_S3CWNY0J946857
(hd1)   /dev/disk/by-id/ata-APPLE_HDD_ST2000DM001_Z8E0TGLL
(hd2)   /dev/disk/by-id/usb-USB_External_Disk_3.0_987654321010-0:0
(hd3)   /dev/disk/by-id/usb-USB_2.0_USB_Flash_Drive_0000000050B5A2A7-0:0

but it didn't help. I still got the same error message.

Can it be because /dev/sdb1 is not a drive but a partition? But, if that's the issue, how come this procedure works for everyone?

I tried adding the right entry to /boot/grub/device.map, so I checked what the mapping would be:

miguel@linMac:~$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/usb-USB_External_Disk_3.0_987654321010-0:0-part1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 dic  2 20:03 /dev/disk/by-id/usb-USB_External_Disk_3.0_987654321010-0:0-part1 -> ../../sdb1

so I added this line to /boot/grub/device.map:

(hd2,1) /dev/disk/by-id/usb-USB_External_Disk_3.0_987654321010-0:0-part1

which, according to the grub documentation, is OK, but then I got this error message:

Installing for x86_64-efi platform.
grub-install: warning: the device.map entry `hd2,0' is invalid. Ignoring it. Please correct or delete your device.map.
grub-install: error: cannot find a GRUB drive for /dev/sdb1.  Check your device.map.

Any idea about how to fix this?

Thanks for your help!

Miguel

Thanks! I just used this to install Ubuntu 18.04 on a 2009 Macbook pro 5.5 (13.3").

I admit that I skipped some of the steps as I did most of the boot setup from the install dvd after the installation was complete, but the base steps were really invaluable -- again big big thanks!

Dear Jason,

Thanks for your post. I have just installed Ubuntu on my Macmini 2012 (End). Things were a bit differend, easier in fact than in your post. But your post gave me the confidence to take this step.

Many thanks!
Frank