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clean install prior to setting up a dual boot

I have a mid 2012 MacBook Pro running Catalina. The machine is running extremely slow and I think I might have installed a virus. I want to do a clean install of MacOS and I plan to dual boot the machine with linux. I have not decided on a Distro yet but I'm thinking Ubuntu Studio. I have been reading that High Sierra run the best on this old hardware. I've also read that due to security patches don't run anything lower than Mojave. What is the best way to go about what I want to do? Do I setup a partition for linux when I'm doing the clean install of OS X? What Distro should I go with? There are so many different ways of doing all this i'm confused and overwhelmed.

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Dec 3, 2019 6:17 PM

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3 replies

Dec 3, 2019 6:41 PM in response to Davesnotherenow

I'm running High Sierra/10.13.6 & not going any further down the rabbit hole.


Maybe before a clean install...


EtreCheck is a simple little app to display the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac.

http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck


Pastebin is a good place to paste the whole report...

https://pastebin.com/


Workable but harder for me to work with...the Note tool on the bottom of this editor's toolbar, as shown in the image, to copy and paste the output from EtreCheck.


There is also Malwarebytes which may take care of it...

https://www.malwarebytes.com/mac/


If you've got enough RAM Parallels is great run several other OSes at the same time without rebooting...


Dec 16, 2019 11:03 AM in response to Davesnotherenow

OH OH... Failing hard drive - This machine has a hard drive that appears to be failing.


Might be the whole cause!


Delete these Files & restart...


/Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist


~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.CSConfigDotMacCert-***@***-SharedServices.Agent.plist


/Library/LaunchAgents/com.motorola.MDMUpdater.plist


~ indicates your hidden Home Library folder


Apple hid the Users' Library folders...


Method 1:

1 From the Finder, select the Go menu at top of the screen, and choose Go to Folder.

2 In the window that opens, enter ~/Library, and click Go.

 

Method 2:

1 Go to the Finder (or desktop).

2 Hold the Option key on your keyboard, and click the Go menu at the top of the screen.

3 With the Go menu open, you'll notice that pressing and releasing Option will display or hide the Library choice in this menu.

4 Select Library from the Go menu (while holding down Option) to access the hidden folder.

Method 3:

1 Click anywhere on the desktop so Finder is the name of the foreground app shown at the upper left.

2 Press Command+Shift+H

3 With your home folder open, press Command+J. This the only place you'll see a check box to Show Library Folder. Turn it on.

Method 4: Press ⇧⌘. —the command-shift-period chord—to toggle the display of the hidden files, and the Library folder will then become visible in your home directory. And will become invisible, when you press that chord again.

From now on, your user account Library folder will be visible without having to use special keys or commands to get there.


clean install prior to setting up a dual boot

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