I was more motivated by boot issues on UEFI-based PCs, but rEFInd remains a way around the limitations of Apple's boot manager.Ī boot loader, by contrast, loads a kernel into memory and transfers control to it. I forked rEFIt into rEFInd after rEFIt fell into disrepair. I presume this is what motivated Christoph Pfisterer to create rEFIt. The Mac's built-in boot manager is awkward to access and limited in its capabilities. On a Mac, you launch the built-in boot manager by holding down the Option (or Alt) key as the computer starts up (when the startup chime sounds).

Most EFIs, including Apple's, include their own boot managers however, these built-in boot managers are usually very primitive. A boot manager presents a menu or some other user interface tool to enable you to select which OS to boot. diskutil unmount disk0s1īe aware that neither rEFIt nor rEFInd damages, much less 'wipes out,' the default Apple boot loader indeed, both rEFIt and rEFInd simply insert themselves into the boot process and then launch Apple's boot loader themselves.įundamentally, rEFIt and rEFInd are boot managers. Use the Finder application or enter the command below to unmount Note: When finished, you can use the Finder application to eject the mac-icns volume. This will add the following Ubuntu icon to the Startup Menu. cp /Volumes/mac-icns/OSX10.11.6/os_ubuntu.icns /Volumes/EFI/.VolumeIcon.icns The Ubuntu icon file os_ubuntu.icns to the EFI System partition. Use the Finder application to open theĭownloaded file mac-icns.dmg, then enter the command below to copy (Optional) Download a collection of icons from the sourceforge web cp /Volumes/EFI/EFI/ubuntu/grub圆4.efi /Volumes/EFI/EFI/Boot/boot圆4.efi This step can be accomplishedīy using the the Finder application or by entering the command givenīelow. Volumes/EFI/EFI/ubuntu to the folder /Volumes/EFI/EFI/Boot. mkdir /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BootĬopy the file grub圆4.efi from the folder YouĬan use the Finder application or enter the command given below. Mount the EFI System partition by entering the command givenĬreate a folder named Boot in the folder /Volumes/EFI/EFI. When finished, restart and hold down the option key to Therefore, Ubuntu 18 and later users should be able to skip steps 5 and 6.

Note: Starting with Ubuntu 18, the installer software should automatically create the files necessary to boot Ubuntu on a Mac. The process of making the Ubuntu appear on the Startup Manager is a fairly trivial. Normally, this is the first partition on a Mac computer. Ubuntu installs grub and other files in the first EFI System partition on a Mac computer.

Install linux on mac bootloader