KDE (Ubuntu) install crashes when installing next to macOS

Claryn · August 21, 2017

I am trying to install KDE Neon (Ubuntu 16.04) next to macOS on a MBP. I have allocated space for the Ubuntu install. During the installation, I set the bootloader to install on /dev/sda1, which is a 209MB partition that the Mac has its bootloader installed. Rest of the system is installed to the ext4 volume I made earlier.

During the install, GRUB says it could not be installed to /dev/sda1, and the installer crashes. I now realised that the EFI partition is full, only containing macOS's bootloader.

I also tried installing GRUB to /dev/sda but it gave the same error.

What should I do? I cannot resize /dev/sda1 without removing the macOS installation on /dev/sda2.

Seeboooo · August 21, 2017

I had to use another tool to deal with the mac EFI bootloader. I don't think you need a specific boot partition in that case but you might want to read the manuals before installing).

You can check up rEFInd to replace the mac boot loader and allow you to boot your linux partition. Few things you need to know is that rEFInd has a few bugs. It sometimes keep old installations boot info (I did a few distro tests in the past) and removing them isn't easy. It is hard to remove once installed (you need to reinstall your mac os to overwrite it). As per the creator's website, it is still in a "beta version" state. You can still access the default mac loader option by pressing the option key (I think it's called the option key) like you did before.

The good thing is that you can mod the appearance as you want, I personally use a minimalistic theme (it exsist in both light and dark color).

Perhaps other users were able to dual-boot using some other software / method that are easier to setup.

Claryn · August 22, 2017

22 hours ago, Seeboooo said:

I had to use another tool to deal with the mac EFI bootloader. I don't think you need a specific boot partition in that case but you might want to read the manuals before installing).

You can check up rEFInd to replace the mac boot loader and allow you to boot your linux partition. Few things you need to know is that rEFInd has a few bugs. It sometimes keep old installations boot info (I did a few distro tests in the past) and removing them isn't easy. It is hard to remove once installed (you need to reinstall your mac os to overwrite it). As per the creator's website, it is still in a "beta version" state. You can still access the default mac loader option by pressing the option key (I think it's called the option key) like you did before.

The good thing is that you can mod the appearance as you want, I personally use a minimalistic theme (it exsist in both light and dark color).

Perhaps other users were able to dual-boot using some other software / method that are easier to setup.

I already have a triple-booting Mac. The problem here is not booting into Linux, it is installing Linux. The installer crashes because GRUB can't be installed to /dev/sda nor /dev/sda1