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- Mar 24, 2017
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- Asrock z270 Extreme 4
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- i7 7700k
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- Intel HD630 + GTX 980
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I recently went through the process of installing a multiboot system with Mac OS, Windows, and Linux Mint together. I didnt follow any guides out there so I thought I would explain some of the process I learned while getting it to work.
First of all, a quick explanation of my setup. I had originally used this computer as a dedicated gaming machine. So the Windows partition is on its own drive completely separate. These tips will be more focused on using dual partition of Mac OS and Linux Mint on a single drive. If you are planning to run all three partitions on one drive, you might have to adjust some things slightly.
The first thing to decide I believe is what operating system is going to control your partitions. If you partition with Linux, you will always have to use linux for any partition changes. If you partition with disk utility in Mac OS, you will always have to use disk utility. I have found apps like gparted in linux to be far superior to disk utility, so I personally chose this route. I also felt this was safer as well since linux is a cinch to load in any situation. If you chose disk utility route and in the future you are not able to boot in the mac os, then things might be a little more difficulty. Where as with Linux no matter what happens you can always live boot off of a thumb drive. Disk utility is not able to resize things as well after the partition is made. This is why i also like gparted and GPT partitions. You can pretty much rearrange anything after the fact.
The biggest struggle I ran in to was loading grub and clover on the same EFI. There were a couple of reasons for this when I attempted. First of all, there is usually not enough space on a standard EFI to have both of the loaders installed. I recommend manually creating your EFI partitions to around 512mb. In this case however, I decided it was easiest to have two different EFI partitions instead.
So start by loading up your Linux OS install off of a thumb drive. When Linux asks how to install, make sure you chose "Something Else" so that you can manage your own partitions. Start by creating two 512mb EFI's at the start of the drive. Next create a linux swap partition (I usually place this at the end of the drive). The swap size should be pretty much equal to the amount of system ram you have. Next create your partitions for Linux and Mac OS. You can split the size of the partitions to your own liking at this point. Set the format for the Linux partition as ext4 like normal, and the format for the Mac OS side as fat32. The FAT32 is necessary for the Mac OS side for doing the Mac OS install. When installing Mac OS later, disk utility will not recognize an ext4 partition and will not let you select it for reformatting.
Install linux mint as normal from here on the ext4 partition (you might have to set the root mount as /). You can try to install the boot loader path to the second EFI, but most likely it will bypass your selection. This is partly why I have decided to use two EFI's as well. Once linux installs and boots up for the first time. You will have to transfer your bootloader files from EFI 1 to EFI 2.
Open Linux terminal and follow these commands.
First create two directories for mounting your EFI's.
sudo mkdir /mnt/EFI1
sudo mkdir /mnt/EFI2
Next run
sudo blkid
This will give a list of all of your partitions and there ideas. Pay attention to the /dev/sda1 type information of the EFI's. You will need to get their identifiers for mounting. Next use these examples to mount your EFI's to the previous created directories.
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/EFI1
sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/EFI2
Just make sure to replace the /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2 to match the identifiers to your EFI partitions. Next you need to copy the EFI over.
sudo cp -R /mnt/EFI1 /mnt/EFI2
From here you can double check and make sure everything copied over by comparing the directories in a file browser or through terminal. EFI2 should be empty before the copy, so if there is an EFI file there then it should be good to go. Next clear out the original EFI1
sudo rm -R /mnt/EFI1/EFI
Check and see that EFI1 is now empty. If it has been deleted, then go ahead and restart the computer and see. You might have to change the boot bios in the motherboard to boot from the second partition, but everything should go as normal.
Now you should be totally clear to install Mac OS as normal. The first EFI is totally clean and ready for use so there shouldnt be any conflicting problems. After Mac OS and clover are installed with EFI1, clover should cleanly recognize grub on EFI2 which means clover will manage all of the boot loading of windows, linux, and mac os from this point on.
Im sure there are other methods for doing this, but this works very well for me.
First of all, a quick explanation of my setup. I had originally used this computer as a dedicated gaming machine. So the Windows partition is on its own drive completely separate. These tips will be more focused on using dual partition of Mac OS and Linux Mint on a single drive. If you are planning to run all three partitions on one drive, you might have to adjust some things slightly.
The first thing to decide I believe is what operating system is going to control your partitions. If you partition with Linux, you will always have to use linux for any partition changes. If you partition with disk utility in Mac OS, you will always have to use disk utility. I have found apps like gparted in linux to be far superior to disk utility, so I personally chose this route. I also felt this was safer as well since linux is a cinch to load in any situation. If you chose disk utility route and in the future you are not able to boot in the mac os, then things might be a little more difficulty. Where as with Linux no matter what happens you can always live boot off of a thumb drive. Disk utility is not able to resize things as well after the partition is made. This is why i also like gparted and GPT partitions. You can pretty much rearrange anything after the fact.
The biggest struggle I ran in to was loading grub and clover on the same EFI. There were a couple of reasons for this when I attempted. First of all, there is usually not enough space on a standard EFI to have both of the loaders installed. I recommend manually creating your EFI partitions to around 512mb. In this case however, I decided it was easiest to have two different EFI partitions instead.
So start by loading up your Linux OS install off of a thumb drive. When Linux asks how to install, make sure you chose "Something Else" so that you can manage your own partitions. Start by creating two 512mb EFI's at the start of the drive. Next create a linux swap partition (I usually place this at the end of the drive). The swap size should be pretty much equal to the amount of system ram you have. Next create your partitions for Linux and Mac OS. You can split the size of the partitions to your own liking at this point. Set the format for the Linux partition as ext4 like normal, and the format for the Mac OS side as fat32. The FAT32 is necessary for the Mac OS side for doing the Mac OS install. When installing Mac OS later, disk utility will not recognize an ext4 partition and will not let you select it for reformatting.
Install linux mint as normal from here on the ext4 partition (you might have to set the root mount as /). You can try to install the boot loader path to the second EFI, but most likely it will bypass your selection. This is partly why I have decided to use two EFI's as well. Once linux installs and boots up for the first time. You will have to transfer your bootloader files from EFI 1 to EFI 2.
Open Linux terminal and follow these commands.
First create two directories for mounting your EFI's.
sudo mkdir /mnt/EFI1
sudo mkdir /mnt/EFI2
Next run
sudo blkid
This will give a list of all of your partitions and there ideas. Pay attention to the /dev/sda1 type information of the EFI's. You will need to get their identifiers for mounting. Next use these examples to mount your EFI's to the previous created directories.
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/EFI1
sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/EFI2
Just make sure to replace the /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2 to match the identifiers to your EFI partitions. Next you need to copy the EFI over.
sudo cp -R /mnt/EFI1 /mnt/EFI2
From here you can double check and make sure everything copied over by comparing the directories in a file browser or through terminal. EFI2 should be empty before the copy, so if there is an EFI file there then it should be good to go. Next clear out the original EFI1
sudo rm -R /mnt/EFI1/EFI
Check and see that EFI1 is now empty. If it has been deleted, then go ahead and restart the computer and see. You might have to change the boot bios in the motherboard to boot from the second partition, but everything should go as normal.
Now you should be totally clear to install Mac OS as normal. The first EFI is totally clean and ready for use so there shouldnt be any conflicting problems. After Mac OS and clover are installed with EFI1, clover should cleanly recognize grub on EFI2 which means clover will manage all of the boot loading of windows, linux, and mac os from this point on.
Im sure there are other methods for doing this, but this works very well for me.