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Unable to to boot Qubes USB installer on Hackintosh with Clover

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Apr 6, 2020
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Motherboard
Gigabyte Z390 Designare
CPU
i9
Graphics
RX 580
Mac
  1. Mac Pro
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
Has anyone been able to successfully boot Qubes OS (https://www.qubes-os.org) with their Hackintosh? I want to use it for online financial transactions, but I can't get it to boot. I'm installing it on a separate drive in my system, but when I click on the Linux logo on the Clover boot loader, nothing happens. (I'm guessing that Qubes has it's own EFI which is in conflict with the Clover EFI.) I have a dual-boot laptop that runs Windows and Linux, and I'm able to get Qubes to boot there, but not with my Mackintosh. Qubes is a Linux-based OS, so one would think it would be easy to get it to work with a Hackintosh, but no luck so far.

I'm running a GIGABYTE Z390 DESIGNARE LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel Z390 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Intel Motherboard; Intel Core i9-9900K Coffee Lake 8-Core, 16-Thread, 3.6 GHz (5.0 GHz Turbo) LGA 1151 (300 Series) 95W BX80684I99900K Desktop Processor Intel UHD Graphics 630; SAMSUNG 970 PRO M.2 2280 1TB PCIe Gen3. X4, NVMe 1.3 64L V-NAND 2-bit MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD); Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 580 8GB GDDR5 PCI-E Dual HDMI / DVI-D / Dual DP OC w/ Backplate (UEFI); with a CORSAIR RMx Series RM850x CP-9020180-NA 850W ATX12V / EPS12V 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Power Supply; and Noctua NH-C14S 140mm SSO2 C-type Premium Quiet CPU Cooler; in a Thermaltake View 51 Snow Motherboard Sync ARGB E-ATX Full Tower Computer Case with 2 White 200mm ARGB 5V Mobo Sync RGB Fans + White 120mm ARGB 5V Mobo (not connected to the MB). With the exception of the 2 CPU cooling fans, the case fans are connected to the controller on the case, not the MB.

Note: I also posted this thread in "General Help" section of the forum before I noticed the section for other operating systems.
 
look at your config.plist entries in your Clover Scan section. You may need a custom entry to designate the path to the Qubes EFI boot file.
 
I looked at my config.plist file and saw a possible area for Clover Scan. However, the last time I messed with my config.plist, I couldn't boot my computer for two days! What specific modification are you suggesting?
 

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I looked at my config.plist file and saw a possible area for Clover Scan. However, the last time I messed with my config.plist, I couldn't boot my computer for two days! What specific modification are you suggesting?
Screen Shot 2020-05-02 at 9.31.23 PM.png
 
Ahhhh... If only it were that easy. So I made this change and still no luck. I tried both f12 boot menu and Clover. The boot menu method results in what appears to be a kernel panic and it tells me it will restart in 5 seconds, which never happens. Then I tried the Clover boot. When I select the Linux boot disk (usb), the screen clears for just the Linux logo, but nothing happens. When I hit a key, I'm right back to the clover menu. Frustrating.
 
I should add that this Linux Boot USB does work; I used it to do a test install on an external drive with my Windows laptop. Not sure why the new computer doesn't like it. However, I will say that Qubes OS is very finicky. The irony is that my new computer meets all of the criteria specified on the Qubes website, but the laptop is old and does not. So, Qubes shouldn't work at all on the laptop, but work beautifully on the new system. NOPE!
 
I should add that this Linux Boot USB does work; I used it to do a test install on an external drive with my Windows laptop. Not sure why the new computer doesn't like it. However, I will say that Qubes OS is very finicky. The irony is that my new computer meets all of the criteria specified on the Qubes website, but the laptop is old and does not. So, Qubes shouldn't work at all on the laptop, but work beautifully on the new system. NOPE!
Where is Grub? To boot on the new UEFI systems with Clover it must be in the EFI partition.
Try uninstalling Grub and re-installing it in UEFI mode.
 
Yes --this is what I meant when I said I messed up my config.plist. I used this method to install grub (https://www.aioboot.com/en/boot-ubuntu-linux-from-clover/) and ended up without a computer for two days. Is there an easier more effective way to accomplish this, perhaps with Clover Configurator or Xcode like you showed me for the Clover Scan. (Sorry for the basic questions, but I only know enough to be dangerous!). I do appreciate your assistance.
 
Double check the SSD EFI partition EFI folder - is there a Qubes boot folder present in the EFI folder along with the Clover folder?
 
I created a Linux boot folder in Clover containing the grubx62.efi and grub.cfg files, but I still don't have any success.

My computer won't even recognize the installation usb. When I do a diskutil list in terminal, the usb shows up as:
/dev/disk8 (external, physical):


#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *30.8 GB disk8
1: 0xEF 29.9 MB disk8s2

It doesn't appear to have an EFI partition. But the USB definitely works on my laptop. If I try to boot directly from BIOS, the computer freezes. It doesn't make any sense to me.
 
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