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Dan Schrimpsher, PhD
Dan Schrimpsher, PhD

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Linux on a Macbook Pro

So after some worries and horror stories, I install a dual boot Pop OS 19.10 (Ubuntu basically) on my Macbook Pro.

If anyone is interested:

Pre-install steps:

  1. I wrote the PopOS image to a thumb drive using Etcher
  2. Under Disk Utility in OS X, I resized the apple partition down from 240GB to 170GB
  3. It wrote for like 12 hours then it hung. I checked the fdisk and it seemed fine so I killed the disk utility.

Install:

  1. I shutdown the computer and inserted the usb from step 1.
  2. I reboot holding the Option key, and selected the EFI
  3. It booted from the USB stick
  4. I selected manage partitions (not Completely remove and install fresh PopOS)
  5. I created an EFI partition at the end of the disk of 500 MiB (type: Fat32)
    1. OS X had an EFI partition but it was only 200 MiB which is not large enough for PopOS
  6. I created a Swap partition of 8GB (8192 MiB): type linux swap
  7. I created a root partition of the remaining (~69GB): type ext4

Post Install

  1. It rebooted to PopOS and I created my account and poof Linux on a macbook
  2. You sometimes have to boot with the "option key" pressed cause OSX and boot loaders don't play well together.

Top comments (2)

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mandarvaze profile image
Mandar Vaze • Edited

(Hoping against hope) is there a way to access the files across two partitions ? Specifically reading APFS (?) from linux ?
This could help keep the data on larger partition (apple partition in this case) and access from either OS

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tkjohnson121 profile image
KJ

Thanks for the info Dan! I've recently found myself in the same position as dual boot. How are you liking PopOS so far in comparison?