running Linux from external USB flash drive

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running Linux from external USB flash drive

Greetings

I have used a number of flavours of Linux over many years on all the Intel Macs I have owned.

I now have a new 27" iMac 2020 running Catalina, and I am trying to run the Linux installer from an external USB flash drive, but the iMac does not show the external Linux drive when using the start up drive selection process (alt key then power on). shown below:

I have changed the settings in the start up security utility to "allow booting from external media" and with the "No Security option"

The same flash drive that I'm trying on the 2020 iMac works as expected on the old iMac but does not display on the new 2020 iMac.

I can't find any guidance for installing Linux on a 2020 iMac, so I'm trying here for suggestions.

thanks

Posted on Jan 17, 2021 4:06 PM

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HWTech

Level 9

68,642 points

Jan 17, 2021 5:23 PM in response to beyik_lmd

Linux doesn't really work well on the USB-C Macs. Too much of the hardware doesn't have a working driver for Linux. I know that to boot a USB-C Apple laptop requires at least kernel version 5.9 as well as needing to install the Thunderbolt utilities. Even then half the hardware is not functional. Here is the only list I know which mentions what hardware is supported by Linux, but it gives you an idea of how incompatible Apple hardware is right now:

https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux

At this point you will most likely need to settle on just using Linux within a Virtual Machine.

It may be possible to get Linux working on bare metal on a 2020 iMac, but you will most likely need to search online for clues. There isn't a whole lot of information out there. It probably won't be easy to achieve. Also keep in mind Macs can be very picky about the USB sticks used for booting so you may want to try using another brand of USB stick.

Also keep in mind most Linux boot drive will only appear as "EFI" or "EFI boot" in the Apple boot picker menu. Plus I have found that sometimes a Mac will only show a Linux boot drive when the Linux bootloader & folder is named "boot" and "boot_x64.efi" instead of the default "ubuntu" and "grub_x64.efi" (a quirk of Apple's broken UEFI implementation).

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running Linux from external USB flash drive

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