Think you can just plug a standard Linux live USB drive into your Mac and boot from it? Think again. You’ll need to go out of your way to create a live Linux USB drive that will boot on a Mac.
How to Create Bootable USB Drives and SD Cards For Every Operating System. How to Create a Bootable Linux USB Flash Drive. From Mac OS X Installation Files. Nov 30, 2014 - Create a Bootable Ubuntu USB Drive in Mac OS X. Step 1: Format the USB drive. Step 2: Download Ubuntu. Step 3: Convert ISO to IMG. Step 4: Get the device number for USB drive. Step 5: Creating the bootable USB drive of Ubuntu in Mac OS X. Step 6: Complete the bootable USB drive process.
This can be quite a headache, but we’ve found a graphical utility that makes this easy. You’ll be able to quickly boot Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Kali Linux, and other mainstream Linux distributions on your Mac.
The Problem
RELATED:How to Create Bootable USB Drives and SD Cards For Every Operating System
Apple’s made it difficult to boot non-Mac OS X operating systems off of USB drives. While you can connect an external CD/DVD drive to your Mac and boot from standard Linux live CDs and USBs, simply connecting a Linux live USB drive created by standard tools like Universal USB Installer and uNetbootin to a Mac won’t work.
There are several ways around this. For example, Ubuntu offers some painstaking instructions that involve converting the USB drive’s file system and making its partitions bootable, but some people report these instructions won’t work for them. There’s a reason Ubuntu recommends just burning a disc.
rEFInd should allow you to boot those USB drives if you install it on your Mac. But you don’t have to install this alternative UEFI boot manager on your Mac. The solution below should allow you to create Linux live USB drives that will boot on modern Macs without any additional fiddling or anything extra — insert, reboot, and go.
Use Mac Linux USB Loader
RELATED:How to Use Your Mac’s Disk Utility to Partition, Wipe, Repair, Restore, and Copy Drives
A tool named “Mac Linux USB Loader” by SevenBits worked well for us. This Mac application will allow you to create USB drives with your preferred Linux distro on them from within Mac OS X in just a few clicks. You can then reboot and boot those USB drives to use the Linux distribution from the live system.
Note: Be sure to move the Mac Linux USB Loader application to your Applications folder before running it. This will avoid a missing “Enterprise Source” error later.
First, insert the USB drive into your Mac and open the Disk Utility application. Check that the USB drive is formatted with an MS-DOS (FAT) partition. If it isn’t, delete the partition and create a FAT partition — not an ExFAT partition.
Next, open the Mac Linux USB Loader application you downloaded. Select the “Create Live USB” option if you’ve already downloaded a Linux ISO file. If not, select the “Distribution Downloader” option to easily download Linux distribution ISOs for use with this tool.
Select the Linux distribution’s ISO file you downloaded and choose a connected USB drive to put the Linux system on.
Choose the appropriate options and click “Begin Installation” to continue. Mac Linux USB Loader will create a bootable USB drive that will work on your Mac and boot into that Linux distribution without any problems or hacks.
Before booting the drive, you may want to change some other options here. For example, you can set up “persistence” on the drive and part of the USB drive will be reserved for your files and settings. This only works for Ubuntu-based distributions.
Click “Persistence Manager” on the main screen, choose your drive, select how much of the drive should be reserved for persistent data, and click “Create Persistence” to enable this.
Booting the Drive
RELATED:How to Install and Dual Boot Linux on a Mac
To actually boot the drive, reboot your Mac and hold down the Option key while it boots. You’ll see the boot options menu appear. Select the connected USB drive. The Mac will boot the Linux system from the connected USB drive.
If your Mac just boots to the login screen and you don’t see the boot options menu, reboot your Mac again and hold down the Option key earlier in the boot process.
This solution will allow you to boot common Linux USB drives on your Mac. You can just boot and use them normally without modifying your system.
Exercise caution before attempting to install a Linux system to your Mac’s internal drive. That’s a more involved process.
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Linux has long been synonymous with bootable flash drives, whether it’s to fix some sort of problem with your primary OS, or for trialling and installing distros like Elementary or UbuntuThe 5 Best Linux Distros to Install on a USB StickThe 5 Best Linux Distros to Install on a USB StickUSB are great for running portable versions of Linux. Here are the most useful Linux distributions to run from a USB drive.Read More.
There are a few ways to get a create live USB sticks that will boot on your Mac. You can go the freeware route for an easy option, or put a little bit of time into creating the drive yourself using Terminal.
Today we’ll cover both these methods!
First: Prepare Your USB Drive
Make sure you choose the right USB drive for the job, and that it’s formatted correctly to avoid any problems. Some Linux variants may require larger volumes, so pay attention to the requirements when downloading. Others don’t have any strict requirements, but formatting to FAT beforehand is a good idea:
Warning: Everything on your drive will be erased if you do this!
- Insert your USB drive into your Mac and launch Disk Utility (under Applications > Utilities, or Spotlight query it7 Good Habits Every Mac User Should Get Used To7 Good Habits Every Mac User Should Get Used ToToday we're going to share our favourite good Mac habits, while desperately trying to forget the bad ones.Read More).
- Select your USB device in the menu on the left, then click Erase.
- Give it a name (or not) and choose MS-DOS (FAT) under “Format” and GUID Partition Map under “Scheme.”
- Hit Erase to apply the changes. If it fails, try again — sometimes the system doesn’t unmount the volume in time and the process will be unable to complete.
Generally speaking anything above 4GB will do the job (I used an 8GB Lexar for this tutorial). If you have persistent problems, try another USB drive.
Method 1: Create a Live USB Using Etcher (Easy)
Etcher is a free open source tool for burning disc images onto USB and SD drives. It’s a relatively recent addition to the open source Mac line-upThe Best Mac-Only Open Source SoftwareThe Best Mac-Only Open Source SoftwareWhen most people think open source, they think Linux. But Mac OS X has its share of quality open source programs as well — and a bunch of them aren't available for Linux or Windows.Read More, and it makes creating bootable devices completely foolproof:
- Grab your desired Linux image, then download Etcher and install it.
- Insert your USB stick, then launch Etcher.
- Click Select image and find the Linux image you downloaded — Etcher supports .IMG, .ISO and .ZIP among others.
- Ensure the correct USB device is selected — hit Change to see a list of connected devices.
- Finalize the process by clicking Flash! and wait for the process to complete.
You’ll likely see an error message warning you that your USB drive isn’t compatible with your Mac. That’s normal — simply eject and go. Your bootable Linux USB drive is now ready, you can now skip to the Booting Your USB Drive section below.
Method 2: Create a Live USB Using the Terminal (Moderate)
If for some reason you don’t want to use Etcher (maybe you’re on an incompatible version of macOS), you can accomplish this task using the command line. This is possible using Terminal, your Mac’s built-in command line interface.
While this method requires a little more thought and patience on your part, it’s actually pretty straightforward. You might even learn a thing or two, plus you’ll feel smart afterwards. Assuming you’ve formatted your drive as per the instructions at the start of this tutorial, here’s how it works:
1. Convert Your .ISO
Launch Terminal and take note of where your Linux disc image is stored in Finder. Convert your image (usually an .ISO) to an .IMG file using the
hdiutil convert
command:Replace
/path/to/downloaded.iso
with the location of your own .ISO (you can drag and drop directly into the Terminal window if you want) and /path/to/newimage
to wherever you want the new image file to be created.Note: Modern versions of macOS will automatically create a .DMG file. If your version doesn’t do this, try appending .IMG to the end of your new image file name, e.g.
/path/to/newimage.img
2. Write the Image to USB
Next we’ll need to identify your drive’s mounted location so that we can tell the Mac which drive to use. With Terminal open, use the following command to list all connected drives:
You’ll likely be able to identify the drive by its name, it’s format, and its size using a process of elimination. Take a note of the listing under the IDENTIFIER column, then unmount the drive using the following command:
You’ll need to replace
diskX
with the corresponding number, e.g. disk3
— if successful Terminal will report that the disk was unmounted. If you’re having trouble unmounting a drive, you can launch Disk Utility, right click on a drive, then choose Unmount (don’t eject the drive, though).The final step is to write the image to your USB stick, using the
dd
command:Replace
/path/to/newimage.dmg
with the path to the file we created in step 1 (again, drag and drop works best), and diskN
with the location we identified earlier. You’ll need to authorize with your administrator password immediately afterwards, since we used the sudo
command.You’re done, and your drive is ready for booting.
Booting Your USB Drive
Assuming all went well, you’ll now have a USB drive that will let you boot Linux. You can plug it into the Mac you want to use it on, then shut down the computer.
In order to access your Mac’s boot menu, you’ll need to hold the option (alt) key while it boots. The best way to do this is to shut down, hold the option key, start your Mac, and wait. If you did it correctly you’ll see a few options including your built-in hard drive, and the USB device we created earlier titled “EFI Boot.”
To boot into Linux, select the USB device and click the arrow (or double click). Depending on what you’re using, you may get another menu which acts as a bootloader for your particular flavor of Linux.
If you have problems, or your USB drive won’t show up, try running the process again, try using an alternative method above, try a different USB stick or port, and consult your respective distro’s help documentation.
The Best Way to Try Linux on Your Mac
Assuming all went well, you now have Linux running on your Mac and you can test it out or install it outright if you’re tired of macOS. You still have an Apple recovery partitionHow to Delete (or Repair) Your Mac's Recovery PartitionHow to Delete (or Repair) Your Mac's Recovery PartitionIf you are looking to ditch macOS, you may want to delete your recovery partition for some extra disk space. Later you also may want to restore it. Here's how to do both.Read More which can be accessed by holding command+r while your machine boots. This can help you reinstall macOSHow to Reinstall macOS for a Fast and Squeaky Clean MacHow to Reinstall macOS for a Fast and Squeaky Clean MacNeed to restore your Mac to factory settings? Here's how to install a fresh copy of macOS and erase everything.Read More among other things if you decide to go back.
There are other tools that claim to help you do this, but not all of them work, and some cost money. Unetbootin is still a popular choice for Linux and Windows users, but it hasn’t been able to create Mac-bootable USB drives for years. I tested it again for this article, it failed miserably and was generally unpleasant to use.
There’s also our old favorite Mac Linux USB Loader, which is open source and actively maintained. It’ll cost you $5 for a pre-compiled binary, assuming you don’t want to download Xcode and compile it yourself. This low entry fee helps keep the project maintained, but it’s hard to justify paying for something Etcher or Terminal can do for free.
And, if you need help installing macOS from a USB flash driveHow to Install macOS From USBHow to Install macOS From USBWant to install macOS from a USB drive? We'll walk you through this alternative method for installing macOS.Read More, we have you covered there as well.
Explore more about: Linux, USB.
- Great, thank you.
- Doesn't work - tried all combinations of MBR GUID FAT32 extFAT and none boot under El Cap with latest Ubuntu dist 18.04.1
- Hi,First: FORGIVE ME FOR MY ENGLISH!I'm a quite old Gnu Linux (now Debian) user and I use to make my bootable usb sticks using dd. I use bootable usb sticks a lot because I need them to repair PCs, recover data, make diagnostics etc...
Now I need to boot a live on a Mac.
My question is: if I make a bootable usb on Linux using Etcher, is it bootable on a Mac? In other words, if I want to boot a Linux Distro on Mac do I need to use Etcher on a Mac or it is the same if I create it on Linux?Thank you! - People were attracted to Macs because they were simple. Linux should be the new Mac but it's always such a tedious process just to get the freaking thing installed. Or to get it not-quite-installed and then give up, yet again.Is there no Steve Jobs of the Linux world to give us one simple solution that actually, and effortessly, works?!
- Everything went well, but trying to use the USB boot using the Option key gives only the normal boot from HD option, so I can't boot from the USB.2009-era Macbook pro. GUID partition of 8 GB USB worked fine (although overwriting with dd pretty much negates whatever partition is in place prior). Coversion of Puppy Linux Precise 5.7.1 ISO went fine. DD to USB worked fine. Doing a diskutil list afterwards shows /dev/disk1 as a single partition CDROM 8.1 GB. It appears Mac OSX 10.6.8 cannot see this USB at all any more - while running the OS or while trying to boot.Help?
- Uh oh. I may have spoken too soon. Everything seemed to be working, but now all I have on the MacBook Pro is a non-blinking hyphen. 'Houston, we've got a problem.'
- I LOVE YOU, MAN!
My brain was about to explode because I kept following all the various steps on every other 'how to' article about this on the internet, and none of them worked! I don't think any of the other authors actually tried the steps they were explaining, because if they had, the would never even have gotten a bootable stick! (There's a 21st-Century phrase for you.)
THANK YOU MANY TIMES! - Will this work on both Windows and Mac or would you need separate ones?
- Is it possible to make live USB that can run on Mac and windows computers?
- ????
- hello?
- Hi there,
I have found this page: //www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-boot-a-linux-live-usb-stick-on-your-mac/
Would like to ask you a question about it.
You say that Macs cannot boot from the SD card. Are you sure about that?
I’m using a macmini with El Capitan on a SD card (no HD or SSD installed). It works great. However, I am now trying to boot a linux system from another SD card and it’s not working. The SD card image is not appearing when I start up with the option key pressed down. I have tried the same exact process with a USB stick and it works… So I’m confused about the possibilities here. I really need the computer to boot the linux system from the sd card. Do you know what should be done?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you. - This doesn't work on 10.11.6. When I get to the part where I have to click on 'Partition' I cannot click it (It was grey from being deactivated). Can anyone tell me why and how to get around this problem.
- If you are talking about the internal drive (where OS X/MacOS reside on), you have to click on the parent one (Mine says 'APPLE SSD SM0256G Media', yours may differ). If you are trying to partition the 'Macintosh HD' part, it won't work, because you need to go to the parent part (one level above 'Macintish HD').If you are talking about the external drive (USB drive), you need to format it first then partition it while in the process of formatting, not after.
- Thanks a lot for your article! It has great contents!
I have a problem with my dual boot installation. I'm trying to install Ubuntu in my Mac with an USB, and when clicking in the Ubuntu installer, it does not recognize the Mac OS, but I want to maintain it. There are only two options: to delete all the other OS or 'Other option', instead of 'Installing Ubuntu alongside MacOS'.
Do you know what the problem is? Can you help me? - Has the Mac Linux USB loader been updated since 2015? I don't see any updates in the last 18 months or so. I'd like to use just part of an external SSD hooked to my MBP (mid-2015 model) to run Ubuntu 16.04 from. Will it support the latest versions?
Thanks! - Hi Justin,I’m the author of Mac Linux USB Loader. The application is now at version 3.3. Its user interface has been totally re-designed since this article was posted and it has new features too! I recommend that everyone try it out: https://www.sevenbits.io/mlul/
- Hi, thanks for the article. THough I came in quite late in doing this, it works ok. My question pertains to downloading drivers on my Macbook Pro. Everytime I would log out, and would again log in using Linux, my wifi cannot be detected, and I still have to download the drivers again thru the net. IS there a way to wake the need to download disappear, and save the drivers, so that next time I wanna use Linux, don't have to download anything anymore.. Thanks
- If you’re setting up Ubuntu on your USB, you can use persistence to save drivers (for wireless, etc.) between runs. Mac Linux USB Loader can set it up for you.
- Hi,
I have followed all the instructions but when i boot in and pick the USB option, the Mac OS X loads and not linux. any idea what I am doing wrong? any help would be greatly appreciated.- What model of Mac are you trying to boot on?
- I can't select WiFi. Please help
- I want to create a USB stick from my Mac to install on a headless NUC. I assume I format per your directions and then manually drag and drop the relevant iso file, correct?
- Thanks for the article. Really helpful. But I was wondering how to make it so that my mac always starts up with OSX, but I can use Linux if I just press the option key when it starts up. In other words, how do you get rid of that screen on startup that asks what you want to boot with?
- When you reach the boot volume selection screen, hold down the Control key before hitting Return. On most Macs that should turn the arrow into a circular arrow, indicating that the selected volume will be automatically booted from thereafter.
- Just tried ubuntu (latest version) with Mac Linux USB loader (latest version) but it has problems with loading kernel. It just never want to boot. Manually downloading Linux Mint and see if that will work with the USB loader.
- Hello, is it possible to install Linux on a usb with more than 4GB of persistence?
- No, I'm afraid FAT32's max file size if 4GB http://www.genie9.com/support/kb/KnowledgeArticle.aspx?KBID=113
- Hi Justin, good to see you still writing. Thought I'd point out that the name of the boot loader depends on the architecture of the EFI rather than the operating system. So, bootX64.efi will only work on Macs with 64-bit EFI (2008 & later), earlier Macs would require bootIA32.efi.
- Why the hell must apple f*** someone so hard? Why isn't it possible to just create a regular bootable usb drive, boot of it and install a damn distro? Honestly I don't get it. Hell I wouldn't even complain if I actually bought one, but my girlfriend has one and honestly, I think mac os sucks just to bad to get used to. So I've installed a couple of month ago windows via boot camp ( still don't get the sense of that) because she play wanted to play some games. Unfortunately she doesn't like windows (just like me...) for regular use. Ok to be honest I'd prefer windows over mac but that's another topic. So I wanted to install a nice easy Linux distro additionally. Why? Because Linux just runs. And I'm quite shure it's way faster as macos (which is on her Macbook painfully slow). Hell even windows manages to run faster and with more performance. And now I'm reading stuff and watching how in the sake of satan I'm supposed to install a God damn Linux distro additionally. Why the hell must apple make this process hard and annoying? On every damned regular pc it's easy as pie. I'm sick of apple. I'd never ever buy apple PCs (and yes an apple computer is nothing more than a damn PC) after facing all this crap when using my girlfriends laptop.
- Mac OS isn't bad, it just stops you from doing some things at times.
- Thanks for the help but i have a problem, there is no usb choice that i can select for destination for mac linux usb loader. I'm using the latest version and I've also tried the one before and still the same problem.usb is formatted as you instruct but just not showing up.Please helpcharles
- Hi,Problem: Kali boots fine, however when I view my drive on Kali, it only has about 970 MB for disk storage even though my USB drive has nearly 60 GB of free space. I cannot update Kali or do anything that takes up storage because of this.Info: I am running Kali Linux on my MacBook Air using Mac Linux USB Loader. I have formatted the USB drive to FAT and set up persistence (which isn't working either). Kali is bootable but only able to use 970 MB of storage. I am hoping to have the OS recognize the USB drive so I can save files and update Kali. Please help!Thank you.
- So.. You guys are awesome! :) I've been looking for a way to run Kali Linux on my Mac for a while. My first attempt was at dual booting which resulted in me mucking about in terminal, following the instructions on the Kali website, following those instructions precisely, only to have a different response in terminal than the one outlined on the Kali website. Which ultimately resulted in a lot of wasted time and effort. Fast forward to now.. and here I am witnessing a beautiful sight to behold. Kali Linux running perfectly on my Mac computer. The screen I'm looking at right now is something I've wanted to see for a long time. And I would not have been able to were it not for this article and the wonderful software Mac Linux USB Loader. I think this process was actually even easier than the last OS X update I installed. So a very sincere thank you to both the software developer and to the author of this article for making a complicated process so incredibly easy. Cheers!!
- Hi, this is the problem I run into 'The installation failed because the Enterprise source that you have selected is either incomplete or missing.' when I try to install on my USB.I am admittedly as uneducated as it comes to computers so this may be a simple fix that I just don't understand so any help would be appreciated greatly!
- while i press option key , its just take me to a grey screen with a lock icon enter a password. i tried my passwords ..but yet none works!! plz help
- When I tried to load kali onto a usb, It would say that there was a mount error. That or it would just go to my regular boot screen
- Mine worked perfectly. Make sure you partition it exactly as stated above, and make sure you have the latest release of Kali. Hope that helps.
- OK solved: just had to take another USB stick
- Hi,
I have a problem at step 2: after clicking 'Create Live USB' I cannot see any disk, even though I have a freshly formatted USB drive in my machine. I am running OSX 10.10.2. Have tried reformatting several times. It is MBR formatted in FAT32. Any idea what could be the problem?
Thanks in advance. - Thank You so much! This is the only WORKING tutorial I could or can find.
- Thank you!
Now i have a live distro in my MBP pro middle 2009
Just a little problem...I can't have a persistent mode...
I've used ubuntu 14.10 with mac linux usb loader V 3.0.2 (8093) - I am having problems with the USB loader. It wont let me choose the destination that i should instal the ISO to (i think that is the USB but i cant select it). Anyone know what to do?
- is not working anymore with the new version of MacLinux USB.
- I have reformatted the memory stick several times and it is not possible to get it to mount. Due to a faulty graphics card I am running in safe mode, that could possibly be the reason? I wanted to test Linux as a last resort. I did burn a disk with Linux 14.4 but the screen went black when it started to load the Live files.
- Hi and thanx for the response.
The 4GB memory stick was formated and partitioned correctly, it simply will not mount on Yosemite.P.J. - Hi.
How can I mount the FAT formatted usb stick on my Mac? I see the stick in the Disk Utility but I can't mount the volume(showed as BOOT in the instructions).Thanx.
P.J. - Using Mint, receive error message 'no suitable video mode found'. After that just a screen with multiple black and white stripes.
- I can't get it to work at all. I'm running Mountain Lion on a mid 2012 15' Retina MacBook Pro. Why won't it work?
- Which version of Linux are you trying to boot?
- For some reason, it didn't quite work for Mint 15. Gonna try it with Ubuntu now.
- Can u use this for Kali linux?
- Hello Justin!
Booted 'fine' with Ubuntu on Mac Book Pro retina late 2013
(standard Config 16gb 500GB 2,3GHz i7)
But: does not start X, lot of lines in logs. Are you interested in logs, I could copy them. Which files specifically would interest you or seven bits?
Thanks for your work!
Wouldn't have dreamt it was such a hassle to get a linux up and running.Thanks a lot!AndiSH- I'm just some guy who wrote about this, and am not behind the software in any way – I don't think logs will help me very much. You could let the developer know what's up, but if you're getting that far into the process I'm fairly certain the problem is with Ubuntu itself. Your hardware isn't yet supported by the OS, would be my guess.It's astounding how complex getting Linux onto a Mac is. It never used to be this bad, but drivers were always an issue with brand new ones.
- @Andi and anyone else: please contact through my site at SevenBits.GitHub.io and we can chat about any issues that we are helping. I think the author of this post should put that URL in his post to direct people my way.
- Great read and program! worked 1st time with mint 15 on a intel macbook running 10.7. Now i just need to find a program that lets you load and save from a usb stick.thanks again!
- Hey. I followed the instructions and am trying to use the USB loader but when I try to create the live USB for whatever reason the software does not recognize or see the usb drive. It only sees my SD card, which I do not want to use. I am using a SanDisk and I followed the formatting instructions you provided. Any ideas? Thanks.
- Does this work for Intel-based macs. followed everything to a T but even though it probes the usb ports it does not recognize the partition. Does it not need to be GPT partition?
- This does work for intel-based Macs, though some readers are reporting problems with Mavericks. Haven't gotten around to testing that yet.In my experience you need an MBR partition for this to work, but you could try GPT if you like. Report back.
- Hey. I followed the instructions and am trying to use the USB loader but when I try to create the live USB for whatever reason the software does not recognize or see the usb drive. It only sees my SD card, which I do not want to use. I am using a SanDisk and I followed the formatting instructions you provided. Any ideas? Thanks.
- Everything worked up until it got stuck booting the kernels. Any idea on how to fix this?
- Not specifically, sadly – it's all very guess and test. What distro were you using?
- Thanks for the article.
Just managed to boot Mint on my mini MAC by usb.Cheers - Hi, nice article!
Is it possible to use (start linux) the stick at other PC's? (Windows)Greetings- Just tried to boot on my other PC with an 'old' BIOS & Debian.
No success there.
- Doesn't seem to be working on Mavericks- app runs, but it can't see my USB stick and therefore can't do its thing.
- Have you formatted like it shows in the article?
- Running no problem, just one question whats the password for supperuser in terminal? What it so i can run android studio. Oh and great articale
- There is no superuser in Ubuntu, just the main user. You can type 'sudo -i' in the terminal for a similar function, however.
- Thanks, as you can tell I'm more at home with android. Next question is bit more of a difficult one, how do I make it persistent from USB?
- If and when I figure that out I'll let you know. I haven't yet.
- Ya thought it be a bit of pain alright, trying to make it for the brother. Only starting messing with linux last week and have puppy running from usb like a charm and got mint running alongside my win7 without having to format the harddridve, then i hit the wall that is Apple. Thanks for you help, keep me up to date.
- JK read the first comment; step one is a must if your USB has been windows-formatted in the past. Don't skip it; spay and neuter that USB drive.
- Yeah, skipping that step can cause exactly the problem you had, and pet neutering is important if we want to maintain a balanced ecosystem free of stray cats and dogs.
- Trying to boot BackTrack 5 R3 from an 8g usb using this program on a MacBook Pro (2011 I believe), the process hangs on 'OK, fasten your seatbelts...'
I let it sit there for about 15 minutes before I assumed it wasn't going anywhere and had to hard-power-off the laptop.How long does the boot generally take from the seatbelt message? - A complete nubee question - would a USB DVD be a work around? If you got the -mac edition? I have a iMac with a dvd , and booted Ubuntu to it, but I never noticed the -Mac in the name...
- If you have Apple's USB DVD drive booting from it should not be a problem. Older Macs may not need the Mac-specific ISO, either.
- Thanks! I was looking for this GUI. Everywhere else they used the terminal method!
- Yeah, it's a little-known tool but it sure makes life a lot easier.
- Apologies - formatting was lost - doh !
- Hey Justin/SevenBits
Firstly thank you for all your respective time and effort.
- greatly appreciated.
Attempting to create a ubuntu USB install on the following system:
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,4
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.53 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP53.00AC.B03
SMC Version (system): 1.49f2
Memory 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB
OS: OS/X 10.8.5 (Mountain Lion)USB: SanDisk 32GB 2.0
Mac Linux USB Loader v1.1Followed the excellent instructions provided by Justin, 'exactly'.
- Clean erase/partition/format of USB -used (ubuntu-13.04-desktop-amd64+mac.iso)
- Create Live USB: result no GUI was loaded only CLI.
Dropped into bash environment, not being a Unix guru, i decided to try alternate *.iso's...
After repeated try's only got past the dreaded 'fasten you seat belts' once, the first time all subsequent attempts froze at the the 'fasten seat belts phase' .
( Attempts were via the Mac Linux USB loader app - download distribution icon)Thus given my system, is it the recommendation to acquire a 'PC' and install Ubuntu that 'just works?' or have I missed something obvious...
- apologies for the long post, appreciate you taking the time reading this,
any and all advice appreciated and welcome.ps. like (most) others have searched extensively on alternate methods and sunk a lot of time on what I would have hoped to be a rather straightforward procedure. :-)
pps: me suspects I have the *wrong* macbook pro :/
Cheers !- I'm not sure what could be causing the hangup in your case. Have you verified that an actual CD will boot? I know it sucks, but it might help us know if this is an Ubuntu problem or a USB-boot problem...
- Thanks. If *you* have tried and haven't succeeded, it ain't gonna be easy as 1-2-3 ;-)
I'll put this on hold for a while. Is there a way to get notifications, or subscribe to this article? One more note. Replacing the optical drive with a HD/SSD, would that allow me to boot (Linux) from it?-Serge- I'm just a guy who enjoys writing about technology, I'm sure if you gave it a shot you could figure out how to do this just as quickly as me.You can boot Linux from a second drive on your Mac, sure, and also from a partition on your primary Mac drive. I installed to a partition, myself.
- I'm afraid that persistence really hasn't been messed around too much on Linux when booting in UEFI mode. The steps are as easy as 1, 2, 3 - assuming you don't have extra needs, of course.You can boot Linux from an SSD, as Justin said, and you can install to a partition, and choose whether to want to boot with BIOS mode or UEFI.. I, however, would leave the optical drive in place so that you can boot Linux distributions that don't work with Mac Linux USB Loader.
- Great read.
What are my options to boot into a (persistent) Linux on a 2011 13' MBP?
I have a Bootcamp setup at the moment that I cannot afford to lose, w/ virtualized Debian.SD card seems to be disfunctional on recent models, and this article is about live Linux.I'm thinking (internal) optibay, (external) TB, FW, ...
Your suggestions for working (and proven) setups highly appreciated.-Serge- I've yet to get a persistent install to work on an external drive, and I've tried. So I'm afraid I can't help right now, but expect an article on this site as soon as I get it working.
- Fail. I could not go past step 1 because what I see on my screen doesn't match the screen here in this tutorial. See the screen in step 1 that has buttons for 'First Aid', 'Erase' and 'Partition'? My buttons differ; I don't have 'Partition'. Please help as I'm about to return my MacBookPro. Oh, it's running Mountain Lion.
- You need to click the drive you want to partition before those buttons will come up, if I'm understanding correctly.
- Hi ! Very nice GUI app
In few steps can be dual bootable and installable this way :
Resize your mac partition and leave free space for linux using diskutils( select your hardrive in diskutils and click on partiton and resize with the mouse.install refit : http://refit.sourceforge.net/doc/c1s1_install.html and then just simply after having plug the usb stick :
$ diskutil list
$ diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskX (disk number that is the usb stick)
sudo dd if=/Users/username/Downloads/linuxlivecd.iso of=/dev/rdiskX bs=1mreboot press ALT and choose your usb for an install of linux- I see this thread is 17 months old, but the above procedure posted by maxou worked for my old 2006 Pro 1,1 a few weeks ago. I had to download a package called 'macfancltd' to get my cpu fans up to speed. Linux out of th box (Mint) doesn't govern fan speed, and overheating can become an issue.
- A small inaccuracy:
'Note that Macs cannot boot from the SD card reader'This general statement seems not correct. I've just copied (using dd) a converted ubuntu-12.04.2-desktop-amd64.iso to a SD memory card, and it is well booting on MacBookPro5,5 (Mid 2009) from SD card slot.And you can also install Mac OS X on an SD storage device and use it as a startup volume.- I just tried booting Ubuntu (above version) on Macmini6,1 (Late 2012) from SD card slot and it doesn't work. Booting from the same SD card using an USB card reader actually works well.So you're right, it affects only newer newer Macs.
- This actually did work! Much to my surprise after spending hours on gamer apps that didn't. BUT now for stupid questions...why can't I save anything?
- Been trying to use this software with a 500GB Seagate drive but the loader does not see this hard drive at the Make Live USB screen. I tested it with a 1GB thumb drive which was recognized with no problem. Perhaps the program cannot handle a large external HD? Any guidance?
- This is great! Very very cool, and exactly what I needed to find after 4 or 5 hours of trawling the internet and formatting my USB umpteen zillion times for various ways to get around the efi problem. Nice easy, logically laid out, I like it!The catch for me is that I'm running 10.6.8 and so miss out, just ;-) is there a mailing list or something I can subscribe to in case it becomes backwards-compatible? I'd really love to get a good version of linux up and running on my Mac, and Mint looks soooo good :-( *tear* ;-)That said, keep up the good work!!!
Cheers from NZ
Dean- Hello Dean,Sorry, there's no mailing list. I am considering a solution for you guys running older OS X releases, as I have received numerous requests about this. However, a full port is unlikely to occur unless a generous Internet user wants to oblige.Are you sure that you can't upgrade to at least Lion? Lion is 100% supported.
- Hi Justin,
Thanks for the article. I was trying to create usb for Kali-Linux. -I tried using Linux Mint and Win 7 but neither was recognized by Mac OS 10.8Does Kali Linux have or need a Mac Distro?- It doesn't:/ Also I wouldn't recommend using Kali on Mac hardware unless you have an external wireless interface (ie: usb, pci, etc.) because the Broadcom cards don't have monitor support currently, or even an open source module in the kernel for that matter.
- I cannot get this to work. I beleave i have correctly follwed the instructions, but the computer just does not see the USB stick as a start up disk, I am trying to boot a 64 bit Intel Core 2 duo Mac Mini. The USB stick has been formated to MS-DOS (FAT32)2 and i have tried with several versions of linux including two downloaded with the app.
- It worked!I have been playing around with linux live usb on a mac for a while, with little joy. I found another app called 'Linux USB Builer' but I couldn't get it to work on Mountain Lion.So far I have tried Ubuntu and Mint. Main issue I have so far is that they only work with ethernet and not the wireless connection.Thanks for the tutorial Justin! It was very clear. And thanks to SevenBits for the code. I am going to have a look now at their github page and follow this app's progress.
- Glad it worked for you, Troy! Always happy to make tools that help people.WiFi is always an issue when running Linux on Apple hardware. You'll need to install non-free drivers to get it working (hint: the wireless cards are largely Broadcom devices).I hope you continue to use Mac Linux USB Loader - a plethora of new features are planned for future releases!
- Unfortunately I can’t seem to get this to work. Followed the steps to the letter and it just hangs on the black “fasten your seat belts” screen.I have a 64bit capable Mac, downloaded the Mac version of Ubuntu from the USB loader app, have a properly formatted USB thumb drive (San Disk Cruzer Glide 32GB) but Fail for me.One note: your instructions say “When it’s done you’ll see there are only two new folders and three new files on your drive.” but I only see two folders and TWO files, not Three. Was this a typo or is there supposed to be three files? (your screen shot only shows two as well.)Any further help greatly appreciated!
- Nobody? No help at all?
- So I followed the instructions very carefully but after I selected my USB it showed up with the black screen in the tutorial only after that, it said it couldn't find my boot.iso file, help?
- So I have gotten everything to work fine... except when it boots I am at the GNU Grub screen and dont know where to go from there :(
- Thanks very much for this software. Works great and very easy to setup. One question though: Is there capability to create a persistent live usb linux boot? Which gives the ability to retain any settings or app installs.
- Just found that you had posted this… thanks a lot for reviewing my tool and your kind words, and your in-depth instructions and explanations are great. I'm really happy that this has helped you! I think I'll link this in the wiki - you wrote a better article than I could have… :)
- Right now I don't have any PCs around to try this on but will it also boot on PC? or would this one be mac specific. Is there a way to do both?
- Found out what it was! It seemed that I had a windows partitioned usb drive, and thought it would be okay and dandy to use it, however, Mac didn't like that partition , so creating a new one (once again) with the steps above, worked awesome. Ubuntu booted fine! Awesome eh! Thanks for the quick reply! You guys rock!
- Weird, it worked all the way to .. the black hold on and seatbelts screen, then nothing, black screen, waited 10 mins and nothing happened. I'm running a awesome MAC with everything (yes it even has the latest OSX) - But all in all, FAIL. Thought i'd leave a comment for anyone else trying. Maybe it will work for them , but bummer!
- Exactly the same with me. I'm running os x 10.7.5 on a 2.66GHz Core i7 (only dual core I believe). 4GB ram.I tried the Linux Mint 15. Will now try the ubuntu for Mac. tbh all I want is somewhere I can format my external HDD to back up my linkstation!
- Right so the ubuntu did the same. I was using an 8GB stick so tried with a 1GB one and different errors:With ubuntu it would actually launch into the OS, but the display is all wrong - i could just about make out the 'ubuntu' with the dots counting up to launch. But once it launched it was all scrambled. Could only make out loads of pixels moving around when I moved the mouse, but couldn't do anything useful.With the linux mint 15 - same result as using 8GB stick. I think the issue is the display...