Dual Boot Mac OS X and Linux

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It's quite easy to install Windows alongside Mac, unfortunately Boot camp does not allow you to install Linux with Mac. For this you'd want to install a third-party boot loader called rEFInd. Let's get started.

Installing rEFInd

rEFInd is a boot manager that allows you to choose between Linux, Mac OS X, Windows and other operating systems during startup(at boot time). Installing rEFInd makes dual-booting easier. You can download it from the rEFInd page on SourceForge which will be a zip file as refind-bin-<version>.zip. Open a terminal window by Command+Space and typing Terminal, and pressing enter. Drag and drop the install.sh file from the downloaded zip file into the terminal window to run it.


Shut down your Mac and then reboot your system. Remember it's a complete shut down and not a restart. Now you should see the rEFInd boot manager screen.

Partition your Mac

As always, you'll need to resize your partition to make room for Linux. To do this you need to open the disk utility by pressing Command+Space, typing Disk Utility and pressing enter. Select your Mac's hard drive in the list on the left and select Partition on the right.


Shrink the partition to how much you want. Ubuntu says it requires only 5 GB of space but some 20-25 GB is more reasonable. Don't create a new partition- just leave the space empty for now.

Boot and install Linux

You'll need Linux installation media for this. For example, if you are using Ubuntu, you'll need to download an Ubuntu ISO file like the 64-bit Mac version. Burn the ISO file to a disk and restart your computer. rEFInd will appear. Select the USB or disk drive containing the Linux system and boot it on your Mac.


Launch the installer of your Linux distribution and go through the installation process. Select Install Ubuntu alongside Mac OS X option otherwise you'll wipe out your Mac.


Now whenever you boot your computer you'll be redirected to the rEFInd boot loader where you will be able to choose which OS you want to work with. Remember that Linux does not work that well with Mac as much it does with Windows. Some components might not work perfectly so always prefer the latest version of Linux or you'll have to do a bit of google searches to resolve your problem.

Removing Linux and rEFInd

If you no longer want Linux with your Mac, it is a fairly easy process. Boot into Mac OS X, open the Disk Utility and delete your Linux partitions. After deleting the partitions, you can expand Mac to reclaim the space.

To remove rEFInd, follow the instructions on the rEFInd page for uninstallation. However there won't be any need as Mac OS X will continue working fine even with Linux removed but if you don't want to keep two boot loaders which actually is of no use, you can go ahead with the uninstallation.






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