Ubuntu For Mac Air

Linux support for the Keyboard & Trackpad, the networking drivers, and the T2 security chip only just recently got merged into the mainline Linux Kernel. I'm fairly sure you need at least kernel version 5.4+ to get some of these features working and I believe v5.6 may be necessary for T2 support. I don't recall which of the post v5.4 releases has T2 support.

Choose the Right Desktop Flavour. There are several variants for the desktop environment like. How-to-enable-wifi-macbook-mac-mini-air-ubuntu-linux-debian-mint-mate-os.md How to Enable Wi-Fi on MacBook, Mac Mini, MacBook Air for Ubuntu/Linux OS By default older Mac computer models have driver issues with the Broadcom Wi-Fi chip. Installing Ubuntu 17.10 on MacBook Air. After a Saturday of disk partitioning, a trip to CVS for an emergency thumb drive, and much Googling, I'm writing this blog post from a MacBook Air running Ubuntu 17.10.


Ubuntu for mac iso

Pick the Right Desktop Environment. To achieve the most Mac-like look on Linux you.

Currently you cannot easily install Linux onto an Apple computer which uses the T2 security chip because the Linux Kernel with the T2 support is not included in any of the currently released distributions as a default kernel. If you want to run Linux on this laptop, then you will most likely need to first install Linux to an older Mac or other UEFI booting PC and install the latest v5.6 kernel. I would suggest trying to boot this customized Linux boot disk externally to confirm you use the built-in keyboard, trackpad, and either WiFi or ethernet. Then clone the Linux install to the internal SSD (again you will need a boot disk with support for the T2 security chip).


I do not recommend dual booting this laptop with both macOS and Linux unless you have good backups and are prepared to perform a clean install or restore from backup since you will at some point most likely do something which will prevent either OS from booting and possibly risk losing access to all the data in one or both operating systems.


You cannot disable the T2 chip as it is an integral part of the system. The most you can do is disable some of the security settings to allow a non-Apple OS to boot and to allow booting from an external drive.

Ubuntu For Mac Air


Apr 9, 2020 5:20 PM

Below are simply my notes on installing Ubuntu on a Macbook Air as I couldn’t find one clear or up-to-date source.My Macbook is a mid-2011 (4,2) so your mileage may vary if you have a different model.

NB: If you try to follow these instructions you do so at your own risk; I make no guarantees that these instructions work or even that they won’t brick your Macbook.Needless to say, make a backup of anything you need before you begin.

There are essentially three stages to the installation:

  1. Download the necessary software
  2. Install rEFInd
  3. Install Ubuntu
  4. (optional) Tweak your Ubuntu installation

Download software

We need to download two packages, Ubuntu itself and rEFInd.

  1. Download Ubuntu from the Ubuntu website.
    1. I strongly recommend you use the latest Long Term Support (LTS) version.
    2. You almost certainly want the desktop version.
    3. You want the 64-bit version.
  2. Download the binary zip version of rEFInd.

Install rEFInd

Ubuntu For Mac Usb

rEFInd is the software that allows your Mac to boot a different operating system.This is an absolutely necessary step to boot Linux so don’s skip it!There are installation instructions in the zip folder you downloaded, but essentially you need to:

  1. Extract the rEFInd zip.
  2. Reboot, and at the chime hold Command + R.
  3. Open the Terminal from the Utilities menu. Navigate to where you unzipped the folder to (it’s probably /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/your-user-name/Downloads/refind-folder/). Replace ‘Macintosh HD’ if necessary, and the refind folder usually has a version number.
  4. Install rEFInd with ./refind-install. You might get a warning about secure boot, but if you choose to proceed the installation should still work.
  5. Restart your Mac and you should be presented with the rEFInd menu, demonstrating it worked. You should now boot back into your Mac.
Ubuntu For Mac Air

Install Ubuntu

  1. Prepare a USB stick that’s bootable for a Mac.
    1. The USB stick should be at least 4GB in size.
    2. To make it bootable, first format it as ‘MS-DOS (FAT)’ or ExFAT (not sure if it makes a difference).
  2. Open a terminal in (or navigate to) the folder containing your Ubuntu iso.
  3. Convert the .iso into an .img with: hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o ubuntu-16.04-desktop-amd64.img ubuntu-16.04-desktop-amd64.iso
  4. Unmount (but do not remove) the USB drive to be able to copy the .img onto it.
    1. Find out your USB drive’s drive identifier with diskutil list. It might be /dev/disk2, for example.
    2. Unmount it with diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2 (replacing /dev/disk2 with the actual disk identifier from step 7.1.
  5. Copy the .img with sudo dd if=ubuntu-16.04-desktop-amd64.img.dmg of=/dev/rdisk2 bs=1m (replacing rdisk2 with the drive identifier obtained in 7.1).
  6. Eject with diskutil eject /dev/disk2 then remove the drive.
  7. Shutdown your Mac. Insert the USB drive and turn the computer back on (you don’t need to hold option at the chime). The rEFInd menu should have an option to boot from USB.
  8. I suggest trying the live environment first to make sure everything boots and works correctly. You can then begin installing Ubuntu from the live environment once you’re happy.
  9. Begin the installation by clicking on the icon on the desktop.
  10. Set up options as you wish. Once you get to the ‘Installation Type’ option choose ‘Something else’. Select the partitions based on how you want your installation (I install just Ubuntu but remove everything else).

Warning: do not remove the efi partition, which is at the beginning of the drive and about 200MB.You can work with the rest of the drive, but this is what boots your Mac.

You should now be able to complete the installation and boot into Ubuntu as normal.

(Optional) tweak settings

Almost everything works out of the box, including wi-fi, but there are a few things that I found I wanted to tweak.

Function key behaviour

Apple’s default is to have the Function keys (F1 for example) work as media keys (so on my keyboard F1 decreases the brightness of the screen).To be consistent with my desktop computer I prefer to have the function keys work as function keys rather than media keys.To change the behavior open a terminal and run:

Ubuntu For Mac Air 13.3

Then reboot.

Install Mac Os On Ubuntu

More information and other options should this not work are on the Ubuntu community documentation Apple Keyboard page.