Bootable Live USB for kali linux not detecting in macbook air m2

silicon05 wrote:

I have made my USB bootable I have gone through the instructions mentioned in the Kali Linux doc , for how to boot usb and flash it

But still it's not showing

I don't believe Kali has an ARM version which is necessary for an Apple Silicon Mac if you want to run it on bare metal. Even if Kali has an ARM version, it still may not be able to boot or work on an Apple Silicon Mac.

FYI, as of right now I am not aware of any Linux distribution being able to boot an Apple Silicon Mac....the only exception is the test distribution Asahi Linux which is not a real distribution since it is what the developers are using to test out the Apple Silicon Macs as they create the Linux Apple Silicon Mac drivers. Those developers recently announced they were going to create their own ARM Apple Silicon Mac version of Fedora Linux.

https://asahilinux.org

https://asahilinux.org/2023/08/fedora-asahi-remix/

The only way to use any non-Apple OS on an Apple Silicon Mac is by installing it into a Virtual Machine such as Parallels (paid app).

If you want to use the Intel version of Kali Linux on an Apple Silicon Mac, then you will need to use UTM instead since UTM is a machine emulator & virtualizer which can mimic an Intel computer so you can run an Intel version of an OS on an Apple Silicon Mac. Performance will be slower than a traditional Virtual Machine or running on bare metal.

With respect to Linux and *BSD Unix in general:

There are some issues you need to address to run any version of Linux or *BSD Unix on the bare metal of an Apple Silicon Mac, like the M2 MacBook Air.

One is that the version of Linux you're trying to install must be compiled for ARM CPUs. Although there are Linux, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD distributions for a number of processors, most pre-compiled distributions are built for use on Intel/AMD (x86/x64) CPUs. These will not run on the bare metal of a M2 CPU. If you have prepared the type of USB flash drive that you would use on an Intel-based PC or Intel-based Mac, that is a fatal problem right there.

Even if you are using a version of Linux that is built for generic ARM CPUs, it might not have all of the drivers that it needs to properly handle the hardware on an Apple Silicon Mac.

Finally, you'd need to convince the Mac to boot from the drive containing the ARM Linux distribution. With all of the ways that Apple has been locking down the startup process recently, that could be difficult

With respect to Kali Linux in particular:

https://www.kali.org/docs/arm/ appears to mention many Raspberry-Pi-type computers – but no Apple Silicon Macs or Apple Silicon CPUs.

https://www.kali.org/docs/installation/hard-disk-install-on-mac/ comes right out and says "IMPORTANT! Newer Mac hardware (e.g. T2/M1 chips) do not run Linux well, or at all. This is true for Linux in general, not just Kali Linux."

ku4hx wrote:

I'm curious how Kali Linux developers think their bootable flash will work on a bare metal Mac.

They don't think it will work on a bare-metal Apple Silicon Mac. The documentation says "IMPORTANT! Newer Mac hardware (e.g. T2/M1 chips) do not run Linux well, or at all." and also says that Macs running 10.7 or higher are more preferred, "as this means the hardware is Intel (and not a PowerPC CPU)."

https://www.kali.org/docs/installation/hard-disk-install-on-mac/

I didn't go through all of the steps they outlined for installing Kali Linux as a dual-boot OS, or as the only OS, but their instructions are meant for Intel-based Macs that do not have the T2 chip.

Very likely the OP has prepared a USB flash drive that would be suitable for some Intel-based Macs – and that is completely unsuitable for Apple-Silicon-based ones.

You may have much better luck with resolving your issue by checking out Kali or other Linux distro forums for a resolution for your issue as this is a macOS/Apple ecosystem centric forum.

FWIW, like @ku4hx, I run a couple different Linux distros on my M1 Mac using VMWare Fusion. You do need to make sure that any Linux distro supports the ARM64 platform (it didn't seem like Kali does).

If the drive is not made bootable by a Mac process ... it won't run.

Macs require a bootable drive, of any sort, to be formatted with an Apple format. If the drive is a Linux bootable drive it's never going to work.

I run Linux on my Mac under VMWare Fusion free .... a Virtual Machine: https://customerconnect.vmware.com/en/evalcenter?p=fusion-player-personal-13

"I have made my USB bootable I have gone through the instructions mentioned in the Kali Linux doc , for how to boot usb and flash it"

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Please give the address for the instructions.

I'm curious how Kali Linux developers think their bootable flash will work on a bare metal Mac.

Whatever ...