Kali boot usb not showing up in boot menu

GAMER8736 wrote:

However, I am not sure if the M1 Macs allow for booting from an external drive.

They do.

Please, what security settings do I have to change to allow myself to boot Linux or Kali Linux from a USB Drive?

Change security settings on the startup disk of a Mac with Apple silicon - Apple Support

FWIW, to boot an Apple silicon Mac from an external Linux drive it has to be an ARM64 version of Linux.

As far as Kali Linux, you have to check with Kali Linux support/forums.

Linux support for booting on bare metal Apple Silicon Macs is still a work in progress with a lot of things still not working. The only Linux "distribution" at the moment which I know "works" is the one the developers are using to test their drivers which is Asahi Linux, but I don't believe this does much else. While some of the changes the Asahi developers had made have gotten into the mainline Linux kernel, there is still much that is not. Plus it usually takes the traditional Linux distributions a while before the most recent Linux kernel is added to their distribution.

At this point you will have much better luck using an ARM version of Linux within a Virtual Machine, although you can use an Intel version of Linux if you want to use the UTM app instead. UTM utilizes the QEMU open source project and is a machine emulator & virtualizer, so it will emulate an Intel computer environment on Apple Silicon. There is likely to be a more significant performance impact compared to running an ARM version within a VM.

GAMER8736 wrote:

A portable version mate.

Just curious as to what security settings I need to change and how I could get it to work mate.

There aren’t any external startup settings on an Apple Silicon Mac. The boot process is different. The applicable authorization to boot is written to the drive when you create it on that Mac. I’m not sure there would be any way to create a non-macOS boot drive for Apple Silicon.

The security levels allow for not verifying the signature on the OS, so perhaps dropping them to the lowest level. In any case, I doubt it would show up in Startup Disk. You would need to start up using the Startup Manager by starting from shutdown, then press and hold power until you see the Options screen.

Asahi is just the "distribution" the developer's created for testing their work on creating the Linux drivers for the Apple Silicon Macs. "Distribution" is in quotes because It is not a full blown distribution with all the regular features and apps, but just a bare bones OS meant to test the newly developed drivers. Linux support for Apple Silicon Macs is still very much a work in progress. I am not aware of any Linux distribution actually supporting Apple Silicon Macs at this time because all of those apps would also need to be recompiled for Apple Silicon Macs which is a time consuming process for which there is not enough perceived need or desire at this time.

This is one of the reasons why it was recommended for installing Linux into a VM.

While Linux does support a wide range of devices, it is up to the user to do proper research to make sure the device they want to run Linux on is compatible or at least know the limitations of Linux on that system. The Asahi website clearly mentions that it is not a full/real distribution (notice the sections I highlighted in bold).

from:

https://asahilinux.org/about/

Is this a Linux distribution?

Asahi Linux is an overall project to develop support for these Macs. We will eventually release a remix of Arch Linux ARM, packaged for installation by end-users, as a distribution of the same name. The majority of the work resides in hardware support, drivers, and tools, and it will be upstreamed to the relevant projects. The distribution will be a convenient package for easy installation by end-users and give them access to bleeding-edge versions of the software we develop.

We expect that support will eventually trickle up and back down to other distributions. Advanced users will always be free to use the distribution of their choice and add the necessary patches/software themselves before this happens.

Keep in mind that Linux hardware driver support for the Intel 2018+ Macs is very spotty at best and they have been around for over four years. Even Linux support on a two year old non-Apple Intel PC can be hit or miss...again for the same reason, some hardware just is not compatible with Linux due to the manufacturer using proprietary tech and not sharing details on how that hardware works in order to develop a proper driver for it.

If you want or need to run Linux on bare metal, then install Linux onto an older computer.

GAMER8736 wrote:

Thanks your your response mate.

If I reduce my security to permissive security, by running “csrutil disable” in the terminal in RecoveryOS, and by installing reFind, which is a boot manager, will that work.

I want to try, but I am afraid that installing a boot manager that can recognise ARM64 burned USB’s will not allow me to uninstall the boot manager and go back to the normal one.

rEFInd does not work like you think it does. The rEFInd "app" just installs the bootloader to the hidden ESP (aka EFI) partition. That is the only time the "app" works (is used except to uninstall the bootloader) within macOS. Once the rEFInd bootloader is placed with the hidden ESP partition, it will appear as another bootable option.

To remove the rEFInd bootloader can be done either through the rEFInd app or just by mounting the hidden ESP partition and deleting the rEFInd folder.

I've never tried to boot an external drive from an Apple Silicon Mac so I'm not entirely sure how things work there, nor do I know whether rEFInd is even compatible with an Apple Silicon Mac. Assuming there is an ARM version of rEFInd compatible with Apple Silicon, then it should theoretically be possible to make the rEFInd bootloader the default Startup Disk option so you have a graphical boot menu to select which OS you want to use.

FYI, if rEFInd is compatible with an Apple Silicon Mac, then you should be able to make a bootable rEFInd USB stick to use for testing to make sure everything is functional. I know there was a standalone rEFInd image available for Intel systems which could be "burned" to a USB stick using Etcher (Mac/Windows/Linux). Of course this will be cumbersome on Apple Silicon Macs due to the One True Recovery boot option, but this rEFInd USB stick would be just for testing anyway.

Edit: I would highly recommend you take any old UEFI booting computer and experiment with rEFInd to see how it works on an Intel/AMD system. Any 2007-2020 Intel Mac will suffice or any non-Apple Windows PC which is configured to boot using UEFI instead of the legacy boot mode.

Edit#2: Do not reduce system security with "csrutil disable". That is a recipe for disaster. Here is what a simple Google Chrome update did to people's systems with "csrutil disabled":

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/09/no-it-wasnt-a-virus-it-was-chrome-that-stopped-macs-from-booting/

Just adjust the boot settings using the Startup Security Utility as mentioned in the article linked earlier in the thread.

In that case use the link @dialabrain provided to adjust the Apple Silicon Mac's security settings to allow booting from USB.

In order to boot from a USB drive, you will need to access the One True Recovery mode like you did to adjust the security settings and select the USB drive. Holding the power button will get you access to the One True Recovery mode.

Are you planning to use the portal version where you run Kali from the USB stick/drive, or do you plan on installing Kali?

Here is the Asahi page which identifies what hardware works with various Apple Silicon Macs and the Linux kernel version needed for that support:

https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-Support

GAMER8736 wrote:

A portable version mate.

Just curious as to what security settings I need to change and how I could get it to work mate.

@dialabrain provided a link to an Apple article on how to modify the Apple Silicon Macs to allow booting external drives in the first reply on this thread.

If I reduce my security to permissive security, by running “csrutil disable” in the terminal in RecoveryOS, and by installing reFind, which is a boot manager, will that work.

I want to try, but I am afraid that installing a boot manager that can recognise ARM64 burned USB’s will not allow me to uninstall the boot manager and go back to the normal one.

I don't know if it will work or not. With Apple Silicon, the authorization to startup is stored on the internal drive. The OS has to write the authorization to the internal. I have created a bootable macOS external from another (Intel) Mac. When it started the boot sequence, it asked to authorize the external. I don't know the boot manager could override all of that.

FWIW, in much less time than this discussion took I installed Kali Linux in Parallels Desktop on my M1 MacBook Air.

GAMER8736 wrote:

I saw that, I don’t think that will work mate.

FWIW, that is the only way to allow booting from an external drive on Apple silicon Macs. That doesn't mean a Kali ARM64 USB drive will boot.