Getting Trisquel 8 Working on Macs
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Loldier and I have been discussing our ongoing struggles with getting a Trisquel live disc (or USB) to boot on a Mac in the thread on the Flidas RCs. That discussion thread starts here:
https://trisquel.info/en/forum/trisquel-8-codename-flidas-release-candidate-ready-testing#comment-130320
I think this is important enough to have its own thread. Not being able to install Trisquel on a Mac means a significant chunk of PC users cannot use a 100% libre distro (unless there is another FSF-endorsed distro that does work on Macs?). There seem to plenty of people on the interwebs that successfully installed Ubuntu on a Mac. Surely it can be made possible with Trisquel, even if it requires a bit more tweaking of the RC? Let's not give up so easily!
Loldier:
>> There's something awry in Trisquel's UEFI/EFI implementation that mac's boot firmware doesn't recognize as bootable. <<
I had the same problem. The live USB that worked fine on my AA1 didn't appear as a boot option on my wife's Mac. I tried pulling it out and sticking it back in while the boot screen was up (apparently this has worked for some people), but no dice.
I believe that GrevenGull is using Trisquel 8 on a Mac, though maybe not from the latest ISO.
I have some friends with Macs, including one who has successfully installed Ubuntu. I'll see if someone will let me try booting into Trisquel.
Ubuntu boots and installs easily (17.10.1). Linux Mint 18.3 is as easy (my current installation on my Macbook Air). Even Puppy Xenialpup and Debian 9 work. Fedora, no problem. They all show up as EFI Boot in the boot manager. I use rEFInd to dual boot. But I cannot boot OpenBSD or Trisquel.
> Ubuntu installs easily
Then a temporary workaround could be to install 16.04 and migrate to Trisquel 8.
What is the earlist Trisquel 8 ISO you've tested?
It was the latest ISO, RC — release candidate.
I just tried the latest ISO on a friend's Mid 2012 MacBook Pro. I held "Option" while starting up. The USB drive showed up as "Windows", which I selected and was then able to boot into Trisquel with no problems.
"Windows"? Bootcamp?
The boot drive should show as "EFI Boot".
> Bootcamp?
She's never done a dual boot or messed around with EFI, so if bootcamp is the default with High Sierra then yes.
Ok, I understand now. I tried T8 DVD boot on my late 2009 Mac Mini (3,1). It works just like you said: "windows' boot device at boot screen. But my 2015 Macbook Air -- nope.
I think Mac Mini boots in BIOS mode ("windows"). Trisquel 8 EFI boot fails on my Macbook Air.
Does bootcamp the Mac Mini recognize other distros as Windows? I wonder if there is any way to fix this on Trisquel's end, or if bootcamp assumes that anything that isn't macOS is Windows. It's a cosmetic issue that can be clarified in the documentation, but it could confuse someone.
More importantly, it seems like Trisquel 8 has worked with - GrevenGull's iMac (2008)
- your Mac Mini (2009)
- GrevenGull's MacBook (2012)
- and my friend's MacBook (2012).
and has not worked with
- strypey's wife's MacBook (7-8 years old, so 2011-ish)
- your MacBook Air (2015)
If it weren't for strypey's wife's MacBook this would make me think that the problem is only with newer MacBooks. I have a friend with a MacBook retina (2015). I'll see if he'll let me try booting Trisquel on it.
I have another friend with a MacBook Retina from 2015. I'll see if he'll let me try booting Trisquel on that.
Have you tried bootcamp on your MacBook Air?
No, I haven’t tried Bootcamp on any of my macs. I booted the Mini the same way I booted the Air, with alt/option pressed and then power on/chime. The resulting boot screen is different, ”Windows” on Mini, EFI Boot on Air when detected (other than T8). I made a USB with Ubuntu 16.04 and my Macbook Air boots (EFI Boot). All recent distros seem to work but T8 won’t. These machines must have different firmware, and T8 must have something different from Ubuntu 16.04 in its EFI folder.
Does Bootcamp not work with newer MacBooks and/or have disadvantages?
Bootcamp is mainly for Windows drivers. It's unnecessary.
It took some time to boot the Mini again on Linux Mint. It shows both EFI and Windows as boot devices.
I'm quite positive that Win means BIOS. Trisquel ISO has an EFI folder but apparently no EFI files or they are incompatible.
Then again, sometimes the same Mini won't see any boot devices other than the Macintosh HD and Recovery. It seems to be critical about when the alt option is pressed.
In system preferences, there's a boot disk selection available to avoid pressing option. It's pretty selective. Sometimes it won't detect the disc. It's also possible to boot into recovery and select the boot disk from there.
Maybe try an earlier ISO, perhaps the 12/24 one that worked for GrevenGull?
I've managed to get Debian 9, Mint 18.3 and Trisquel 8 to boot. Trisquel is the only that shows up in the system preferences Startup Disk window. Debian and Mint have three boot options (win and EFI Boot 2x). Trisquel only has "Windows". <-- This is all Mini.
Macbook Air boots everything except T8. I could try an earlier ISO.
> I've managed to get Debian, MInt and Trisquel to boot.
Trisquel 8? What did you have to do?
I have two macs, a 2015 Macbook Air and a late 2009 Mini.
The Air boots everything, USB or DVD, so far but not Trisquel. Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora.
Mini boots Trisquel and also Debian and Mint. I haven't tried anything else. These are all from a USB DVD drive.
I didn't do anything special to boot T8. Alt-option at boot chime or Startup Disk from System Preferences.
Trisquel 8 is very responsive on the Mini. I might do a complete reinstall, wipe El Capitan. The Mini has 4 GB memory and a fast SSD.
Sorry, I didn't see your full post. All that was included in the message sent to the mailing list was "I've managed to get Debian, MInt and Trisquel to boot." This post is also missing the last paragraph in the email. Are you editing your comments after posting? If so, replying to your posts instead would be less confusing for mailing list users.
This page[1] seems to be down at the moment, but when it's back up I do suggest trying an earlier ISO. There have been changes from ISO to ISO that caused booting issues[2] for me until it was fixed in the 4/2 ISO. Maybe similar changes have affected booting on Macs. I'm totally guessing, though.
[1] http://jenkins.trisquel.info/makeiso/iso/
[2] https://trisquel.info/en/issues/23638
I usually edit my posts a few times in a row. I never seem to get them right at once.
Although
http://jenkins.trisquel.info/makeiso/iso/
currently displays the FSF home page for some reason, you can still find the 12/24 ISO here:
http://jenkins.trisquel.info/makeiso/iso/20171223/
I wonder if you'll have more luck with it.
They are still there but one has to know the exact name of directory.
The December upload ISO makes no difference. Etcher claims it's non-bootable.
I don't think it's a question of "luck". These images won't boot on a recent mac out of firmware mismatches or incompatibilities. The EFI folder of the ISO should be edited to make it compatible but I don't know how.
what is that jenkins list?
is that somebody who keep a database of historical Trisquel iso releases?
> what is that jenkins list?
Did you not use it to get Flidas beta images?
> is that somebody who keep a database of historical Trisquel iso releases?
If you want to try an older ISO that is where you'll find it. I'm not sure why you'd want to do that now that Flidas is officially released. If there is something wrong with the new ISO, it would be better to make sure the issue gets fixed than to revert to an earlier ISO.
Here's Fedora install media boot screen on my Macbook Air (2015). Alt/Option down and power on.
USB media, Fedora Media Writer.
Just love rEFInd that's my favourite EFI manager. :)
Under rEFInd Trisquel just boots w/o any issues under my experience, but minor BSDs just like NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFlyBSD maybe are still facing EFI issues, so I just run TrueOS as the only BSD on real hardware i.e. my real SAMSUNG amd64-efi laptop, but will taste NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFlyBSD virtually.
I think I need to ask LibertyBSD for changing platform to FreeBSD-amd64 instead of OpenBSD, that the OpenBSD kernel can be a GNU package at all. :)
Also read this for info to Libreboot support on Macbooks, https://wiki.parabola.nu/Macbook
When I first switched to Trisquel I tried with Trisquel 7 on MacBook Pro 9,1. That did not work.
So I tried Trisquel Mini, which worked.
Later I downloaded Trisquel 8 (2017-12-24 04:46, I actually noted time and date because of logging purposes) and burned it on a DVD (I've always used DVD, didn't have luck with USB in the beginning, so I just stuck with DVD).
This Trisquel 8 DVD have been my companion since then and also worked on my iMac from 2008 :)
I thought one of my friends had a Mac from 2015 but it's actually from 2012 like the one I already tested, so I still don't have a way to replicate the problem you two (loldier and strypey) are having.
Have either of you tried the ISO that was uploaded today?
Yes, that did it. DVD is detected, is bootable and the desktop (X) works. I think we can conclude this issue is solved.
> Yes, that did it. DVD is detected, is bootable and the desktop (X) works. I
> think we can conclude this issue is solved.
Awesome!
Loldier:
"Yes, that did it."
Are you using the amd64 or i686 version of the .ISO? When I tried to boot on my wife's Mac I was using the USB I made for my AA1 using the i686 version. Let me know if I need to be using the amd64 version, otherwise I'll download the more recent i686 RC and try again.
Amd64
I recently got Trisquel 7 on my macbook pro mid-2010 by first installing Ubuntu 14.04 then using the "Trisquelize" script to migrate Ubuntu 14.04 to Trisquel 7. I am currently tryign to work out some issues with the Desktop environment that happen when I attempt a Trisquel 8 update, but in general, I have to say the whole process was painless and drama-free.
I recently got Trisquel 7 on my macbook pro mid-2010 by first installing Ubuntu 14.04 then using the "Trisquelize" script to migrate Ubuntu 14.04 to Trisquel 7. I am currently tryign to work out some issues with the Desktop environment that happen when I attempt a Trisquel 8 update, but in general, I have to say the whole process was painless and drama-free.
Trisquel 8 Final works fine with Macbook Air (2015) apart from the screen brightness which has issues: working indicators and hotkeys seeminly sliding the bar but nothing happens, no effect.
There's a solution here (mba6x_bl).
https://github.com/patjak/mba6x_bl
More info on the subject here (Fedora, but partly relevant to trisquel).
http://atodorov.org/blog/2015/04/29/fixing-display-brightness-on-macbook-air-with-rhel-7/
http://mattoncloud.org/2014/02/05/fedora-20-on-a-macbook-air/
I'm looking to install GNU/Linux on a mid-2009 MBP (5,4). Which distribution would you recommend in terms of the greatest compatibility with the hardware? Ideally, I would want T8, but if certain hardware is not recognised by it, I would be stuck, wouldn't I?
Also, for those who have GNU/Linux installed, did you keep the macOS partition or did you erase everything? I'm asking because I'm wondering, in relation to the latter scenario, from where I could get a copy of macOS, assuming that I did not clone the macOS partition, if I decide to install it again?
> I'm looking to install GNU/Linux on a mid-2009 MBP (5,4). Which distribution
> would you recommend in terms of the greatest compatibility with the
> hardware? Ideally, I would want T8, but if certain hardware is not
> recognised by it, I would be stuck, wouldn't I?
I've never owned a crapbook, but I have helped two friends install GNU/Linux on theirs.
The first installed Ubuntu, keeping a macOS partition. The only issues he's had have been adjusting screen brightness, which he fixed by switching to an older kernel, and hibernation, which I'm not sure if he's figured out by now.
The other got rid of macOS completely and installed Trisquel 8. The only hardware that didn't work was WiFi, as expected.
> Also, for those who have GNU/Linux installed, did you keep the macOS
> partition or did you erase everything? I'm asking because I'm wondering, in
> relation to the latter scenario, from where I could get a copy of macOS,
> assuming that I did not clone the existing partition, if I decide to install
> it again?
The friend who attemped to completely remove macOS and install Trisquel has found that he can still go into a "recovery boot" mode that resembles macOS. His WiFi card even works in recovery mode, so the proprietary firmware too is still on his system. In recovery mode, there is an option to reinstall macOS.
MBP 2009 is too old. It has no Internet recovery, and it cannot be upgraded to run Internet recovery.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202313
I couldn't make it work on my 2015 MBA. There's a spinning globe but it only gives an error message after I erased the whole disk.
loldier, which GNU/Linux distribution do you recommend for greatest hardware compatibility, given my case?
Do you dual-boot, or have you replaced macOS with GNU/Linux? Which distribution have you chosen, and if you replaced macOS with GNU/Linux, do you still have a copy of macOS?
I have a Mac Mini late 2009 and Trisquel 8 works just fine on it. Yours is about the same time period. Why not give it a go. I'd try T8 if I were you and I had MBP 2009.
That said, I've tried Ubuntu 18.04, Mint 18, Trisquel 8 and Fedora 28 on my MBA 2015. They all work.
FacetimeHD web camera needs drivers and I suppose they are proprietary. The wifi card of course won't work either without blobs. Oh yes, and screen brightness needs a hack. Check patjak on Github for MBA 2015.
By "works just fine", regarding T8 on the Mac Mini, do you mean that all the hardware is recognised and working?
Does running any of the distributions you mentioned via a Live USB/DVD give an accurate indication of what hardware works or not, or is it the case that post-installation things that might have worked during the live session might not work properly when the system is fully installed?
Did you keep a copy of macOS?
Mini I only ran T8 live from a DVD, never installed. It still has El Capitan on it.
For the MBA, I now have Ubuntu 18.04 installed on it, before that Fedora 28 and before that Trisquel 8. MBA still has MacOS on the side, dual boot. With T8 I used rEFInd, Ubuntu and Fedora both recognize and boot MacOS (MacOS has an entry in the Grub Menu). That was new to me. I guess you'll have to use rEFInd with your older MBP.
Most things work on MBA. I didn't see any issues with Mini. Hard to say about post-installation as I never proceeded to put it on the hard disk. Fedora was nice, one of the best looking smooth distros ever. I installed Ubuntu because I wanted to use fvwm as Window Manager and I knew that the latest Ubuntu has a nice version in the repos.
I am considering installing Ubuntu 18.04.1 alongside macOS El Capitan. Did you follow a particular guide for installing Ubuntu on the MBA?
Also, when booting Ubuntu via a live USB, before it reaches the Ubuntu splash screen, I get the following error (which does go away):
Couldn't get size: 0x800000000000000e
MODSIGN: Couldn't get UEFI db list
Couldn't get size: 0x800000000000000e
Couldn't get size: 0x800000000000000e
From what I read online, it seems to be related to the kernel. The forum posts are a year old, and the kernel has been updated from the version they are referring to, but the issue seems to remain. What do you think, and have you experienced it?
I used trial and error.
You could use rEFInd or wipe the whole disk, then install Trisquel or another distro.
MacOS Diskutility can be used to diminish the partition and create a new one alongside.
You don't need rEFInd if you never dualboot or if you choose the loader each time manually (option/alt @ boot).
"You don't need rEFInd"
I intend to dual boot. So, you're saying that rEFInd isn't really necessary, and I can rely only on macOS' Startup Manager. Would macOS' Startup Manager require extra tinkering on my part to get it to work, or does it work 'out of the box'?
Also, when using macOS' Startup Manager to boot from the live USB, I see, in addition to my macOS HD, two EFI boot options, similar to post #25. Why is that, and which should I choose?
Finally, I read somewhere that one could initiate the Ubuntu install without also installing GRUB. Do you recommend that (in order not to have multiple boot managers)?
Those EFI options must be separate entries in the boot loader: install,live etc.
Ubuntu needs a boot loader. If you don't install Grub, you have to configure another boot loader.
Mint community has instructions on Macbook pro w/Mint 17.
So, I installed Ubuntu 18.04 on the MBP. What doesn't work are the iSight camera (which did work when running Ubuntu from the live USB), the sleep function when closing the lid (which did work once when I restarted the computer after the installation had completed) and the brightness keys/slider. The only proprietary driver that's installed is that of the Wi-Fi (I also installed the proprietary nVidia driver to see if it would make a difference, but it didn't, so I removed it). Could you give me any guidance on how to solve these issues?
On a different note, on which partition did you install the boot loader? I installed it on the Ubuntu root partition, but I’ve read that others installed it on the hard disk.
I think I had a /boot partition on the hard disk.
Screen brightness:
https://github.com/patjak/mba6x_bl
FaceTime camera:
I'm trying the camera fix. Under "Firmware extraction", I'm at the stage where, under bcwc_pcie/firmware, I type "make". I get the following error:
Checking dependencies for driver download...
/usr/bin/xzcat
/bin/cpio
Makefile:34: recipe for target 'AppleCameraInterface' failed
make: *** [AppleCameraInterface] Error 1
EDIT: I just checked the camera via Cheese, and magically it works...
Your Mac could have another hardware. Macbook Air 2015 uses FaceTimeHD and this driver works with that piece of hardware.
That said, the driver must be loaded every time the OS is rebooted.
Cheese is the software that uses the webcam. Launching Cheese is the only way to know if the LED lights up (meaning: works).
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