How to create linux USB discs that do work on Apple Macs

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It seems that there are several problems releated to incompatibilities between Apple-EFI and UEFI that do prevent Apple users from easily using USB drives to install or even run other operating systems.

I am planning to make this a quick guide, so others will not loose precious time encountering the same problems as me.

It seems that the latest ISO of Ubuntu that has the UEFI removed in order to be able to boot on Macs is 12.04.3

What I did so far:

  • Tryed YUMI with mac blend of the ISO and it produces a disc that is recognized by rEFInd but that gives "Missing Operating System" when trying to load it..
  • unetbootin tool works on OS X, Linux or Windows BUT it will not create USB disks that will work on Macs.
  • Tried penguintosh.com with both Ubuntu ISOs and none of them works, it does run and creates the USB disc but it's not recognized by Mac EFI or rEFInd.

So, how can I create an USB disk that will install Ubuntu on Mac, preferably latest version Ubuntu.

Note: Assume that I do not want to keep anything on the Mac, the USB has to be bootable and any use of DVD drive is excluded.

Best Answer

When first posted in 2013, this question never received an answer, because there is no answer. In other words, Intel Macs can not BIOS boot from flash drives. I make the BIOS boot assumption based the the following phase from the OP's question:

"UEFI removed in order to be able to boot on Macs"

If the OP assumes the UEFI boot method has been removed, then the only remaining boot method must be by using a BIOS. Let me explain this further.

When Apple started building Intel Macs with 64 bit processors, most (if not all) models contained firmware with 32 bit EFIs. This prevented the EFI booting of 64 bit operation systems (including OS X). However, these models could BIOS boot 64 bit operating systems. This led to the creation of special Ubuntu installation ISO files designed to install a BIOS booting GRUB. These files can be identified by names ending with the sequence -amd64+mac.iso. The correct procedure was to burn the ISO file to a DVD and use the DVD to install a 64 bit Ubuntu on an Intel Mac. Eventually, some users are still installing Ubuntu this way. For example, see the question Booting 64-bit Ubuntu Images on a First-Generation Mac Pro 1,1.

Unfortunately, you can not transfer these types of ISO files to USB flash drives and successfully boot using an Intel Mac. Basically, you can not BIOS boot Intel Macs from a USB port. However, you can install a BIOS booting Ubuntu as a dual OS X/Ubuntu boot. This can be accomplished without using a DVD or USB flash drive. For a example, see the question Installing Ubuntu without DVD or Flash Drive.

Both bmike (in a comment) and kenorb (in a answer) have correctly pointed out that Ubuntu can be installed using a USB flash drive. In both cases, the flash drive is used to install Ubuntu for a EFI boot. As I stated earlier, I do not believe the OP wanted an EFI install of Ubuntu.

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