Can a Linux Live distro from USB mess with my MacOS?

[Almarma]

Hi,

I just wanted to give a try to Linux Mint booting from the USB (not even from Clover, I pressed F12 after rebooting and booted directly from the USB UEFI firmware).

Then I shut it down after the test (without installing a single thing or even touching the installed drives). I even was cautious not to reboot, but shut down, wait a minute and turn it on again.

Well, after doing it, MacOS was really slow, like if the GPU drivers were disabled and even my iCloud session expired and I had to introduce the password again. After checking Clover settings and confirming everything is there, I saved its Config.plist just in case, and I decided to reboot one more time. Then I got a kernel panic during boot (first time ever) and I went to the BIOS settings, simply saved the settings (I saw everything as normal there) and booted again one more time. This time it seems ok and iCloud is down again, and the crash report from the previous kernel panic says the cause was the well know "don't steal" kext.

Maybe Clover settings were not properly loaded the first time and my serial numbers changed and that triggered the whole thing? I'm using custom serial number and UUIDs because I messed with the original ones years ago and they were blacklisted. The ones I have now have been working flawlessly for 3 years or so.

I'm going to use Onyx now to clean all the caches and everything and cross my finger in the hope that I don't have to create custom serial numbers again because it's a painful process

 

[P1LGRIM]

Moved to Multi Booting.

 

[Almarma]

Moved to Multi Booting.

Sorry, thank you

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Hi,

I just wanted to give a try to Linux Mint booting from the USB (not even from Clover, I pressed F12 after rebooting and booted directly from the USB UEFI firmware).

Then I shut it down after the test (without installing a single thing or even touching the installed drives). I even was cautious not to reboot, but shut down, wait a minute and turn it on again.

Well, after doing it, MacOS was really slow, like if the GPU drivers were disabled and even my iCloud session expired and I had to introduce the password again. After checking Clover settings and confirming everything is there, I saved its Config.plist just in case, and I decided to reboot one more time. Then I got a kernel panic during boot (first time ever) and I went to the BIOS settings, simply saved the settings (I saw everything as normal there) and booted again one more time. This time it seems ok and iCloud is down again, and the crash report from the previous kernel panic says the cause was the well know "don't steal" kext.

Maybe Clover settings were not properly loaded the first time and my serial numbers changed and that triggered the whole thing? I'm using custom serial number and UUIDs because I messed with the original ones years ago and they were blacklisted. The ones I have now have been working flawlessly for 3 years or so.

I'm going to use Onyx now to clean all the caches and everything and cross my finger in the hope that I don't have to create custom serial numbers again because it's a painful process

Okay, maybe you are not actually installing Linux Mint so what follows is irrelevant:

From my own experience using Linux Mint you will probably need to reflash your motherboard BIOS. If you check the small-print in the Mint installer it tells you it will change vital boot areas. You can opt out of this but it is easy to miss - I know I did first time round.

Just reflashing with the same version will not work. I had to reflash to an earlier version, then back to the latest, to completely flush it out.

Also you might need to double-check your EFI partition for unwanted modifications. I learned the hard way, always disconnect the macOS drive when installing Mint.

Then you can safely use F12 to select your Mint drive at boot time.

Obviously YMMV and if you created the Live Linux system elsewhere this is not any use to you, but, well that's my experience.

 

[Almarma]

No, no, what amazes me is that I simply wanted to try Linux Mint booting from USB, I didn't want to install it, just try it from the USB, that what really got me defenseless.

After this experience I will simply stay away from Linux even more than before.

But thank you for that information, is good to know what I may have to do if I ever consider installing it.

About my iCloud issue, it seems that after Onyx cleanup, restart, deleting the two "iMacs" connected to my iCloud account and reconnecting it one more time has done the trick and it works now as a trusted device again. Maybe the fact that I'm paying a 2TB iCloud plan makes Apple more permisive with my experiments as their are getting my money and keeping me inside their ecosystem anyway