[RESOLVED] 15.2 Lite install. fails on a 2009 17" MacBookPro

Hello all,

I've been trying to install Zorin OS 15.2 Lite 32 bits on an old 17" MacBookPro from 2009, and I can't get it to work. Here my configuration:

• I have partitioned the disk to get about 70 Gb of free space for Zorin OS, which should be more than enough. The rest is taken by macOS, that I'd like to keep.
• The Mac could not boot on a USB flash drive, so I've already installed a boot loader, which is rEFInd, that allows me to do that.

So I can boot on the USB flash drive where I've put the ISO for Zorin OS 15.2 Lite, I get to the desktop with the installer and I can run it.
The problem is, whichever partition map I configure, I can't get GRUB to install; I always end up with an error:

The 'grub-efi-amd64-signed' package failed to install into /target/. Without the GRUB boot loader, the installed system will not boot.

followed by:

We're sorry; the installer crashed. After you close this window, we'll allow you to file a bug report using the integrated bug reporting tool. This will gather information about your system and your installation process. The details will be sent to our bug tracker and a developer will attend to the problem as soon as possible.

And then... nothing. I don't get any bug reporting tool and I can't send anything.
I redid the process with quite a few configuration for the partitions:

• First, the default, by just selecting the option 'install alongside macOS';
• Then one single ext4 partition for Zorin OS, and I select it for the partition where GRUB should be installed;
• I also tried one ext4 partition for /boot and another for /, with GRUB on the same partition as /boot;
• I also tried to install GRUB on its own partition, but I'm not sure which type I should select there (I tried ext4, it ends up wih the same error).

There's also something quite strange about the name of the package: it's 'grub-efi-amd64-signed', when I'm installaing a 32 bits version of the OS. Is this normal?
Moreover, I actually don't think I need GRUB at all. It's not my first Linux install on a Mac and it is a classic problem. But usually, rEFInd does the job and once Linux is installed, I can boot on it without any problem. But here, it seems the failure to install GRUB aborts the installation process, and the system is not correctly installed, and therefore not bootable.
Does anybody have any idea about how I can make it work?
Thanks!
- Eric -

Have you enabled LEgacy instead of UEFI in BIOS?
Also, ensure that you leave "install third party software" UNCHECKED when you try the installation- you can always go back and install them after everything is proper, but it can interfere with the OS installation on some machines.

That last option is to create an EFI partition manually and then install- though let's try the above first.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questio ... lin/280194

2nd answer down with vote of 1 next to it on left.

And I'm as puzzled as you are about 32-bit - is the MacOS 64-bit? That might be why it is doing it?

Swarfendor437 wrote:And I'm as puzzled as you are about 32-bit - is the MacOS 64-bit? That might be why it is doing it?

eb303 wrote:There's also something quite strange about the name of the package: it's 'grub-efi-amd64-signed', when I'm installaing a 32 bits version of the OS. Is this normal?

The pacakge carries the amd64 name because it is the commonly selected package, but contains both 32bit and 64bit. The installer is supposed to respond to the hardware and select the appropriate package to install.
You can find this information in the Debian help pages about i386 install, but I am not quite free enough at the moment to look it up...

Hi Aravisian,

I'm hoping the link I gave earlier (also same issue, different Mac) will resolve the issue as it did for the user of Ubuntu 16.04 who experienced the exact same issue and solved it.

Aravisian wrote:Have you enabled LEgacy instead of UEFI in BIOS?

It's a Mac, there's no BIOS, I don't have any way to do that...

Also, ensure that you leave "install third party software" UNCHECKED when you try the installation- you can always go back and install them after everything is proper, but it can interfere with the OS installation on some machines.

That I didn't do; I'll try it. Though I think my WiFi hardware was actually not recognized, so the network was off, so not sure it'll change anything. But I'll try.

That last option is to create an EFI partition manually and then install- though let's try the above first.

That I didn't dare doing, since I already have one (the one rEFInd uses, obviously) and I wasn't sure it would be OK to have 2 (I'm not a EFI specialist by far ). Though it would seem normal to have something named grub-efi-... installed on a EFI partition, I guess...

Thank you!

Swarfendor437 wrote:https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/237571/the-grub-efi-amd64-signed-package-failed-to-install-into-target-during-lin/280194

2nd answer down with vote of 1 next to it on left.

Thanks for that, I would never have thought creating a swap partition would have anything to do with it. One more thing to try, thank you!

And I'm as puzzled as you are about 32-bit - is the MacOS 64-bit? That might be why it is doing it?

Nah, very old Mac, the version of Mac OS I have installed on it is 10.5, and it's definitely 32 bits.

Aravisian wrote:

Swarfendor437 wrote:The pacakge carries the amd64 name because it is the commonly selected package, but contains both 32bit and 64bit. The installer is supposed to respond to the hardware and select the appropriate package to install.
You can find this information in the Debian help pages about i386 install, but I am not quite free enough at the moment to look it up...

Ah OK, thanks for the info. So that's not the issue here.

eb303 wrote:

Aravisian wrote:Have you enabled LEgacy instead of UEFI in BIOS?

It's a Mac, there's no BIOS, I don't have any way to do that...

-facepalm-
This is one of those things that I read it and I remember reading it- but my tired brain did not register it. Sorry about that.

Well, no luck. I tried to install with 'install third party software' unchecked and I did create a swap partition, but I'm still getting the same error message.
I also tried to create a second EFI system partition on my disk and install GRUB on it: same error.
I even tried to install GRUB on a USB key instead of the Mac's disk during install - since I'm still quite convinced I don't even need GRUB at all with rEFInd installed - but nope: same error...
I'm out of ideas here, I just don't know what else to try... Any ideas?

Damn it... By searching the web with various keywords, I finally found this page https://linuxbsdos.com/2017/08/29/solut ... to-target/ that gave me a big hope, since the Mac's WiFi did not seem to be recognized by the Live Zorin and I wasn't connected to the internet. So I plugged a network cable in the Mac and tried again but, nope, still the exact same error message...
This just doesn't seem to work, I feel like Zorin is not the distro for me after all...

eb303 wrote:Well, no luck. I tried to install with 'install third party software' unchecked and I did create a swap partition, but I'm still getting the same error message.
I also tried to create a second EFI system partition on my disk and install GRUB on it: same error.
I even tried to install GRUB on a USB key instead of the Mac's disk during install - since I'm still quite convinced I don't even need GRUB at all with rEFInd installed - but nope: same error...
I'm out of ideas here, I just don't know what else to try... Any ideas?

What if you create a bootable medium with refind and boot in,
http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/getting.html
then install grub?

Code:

sudo grub-install

Are you dual booting into both Mac and Linux or has Mac been wiped? Are you able to boot at all?

EDIT: Yes, I agree that refind would replace grub in your use and you would not Need Grub when using refind. Iam not sure on this, but installing it may be part of the Ubuntu Installation resulting in an installer failure whether you need grub or not.
I did some net searching and I came across a few posts mentioning that they were having the same issue but discovered corrupted data in the EFI partition that was the culprit. Booting into a LiveCD media under "Try 'distro'" and then using a tool like Gparted was how they fixed it. Until that partition was repaired, they kept getting the error. That May relate to your experiences.

EDIT (again) :

eb303 wrote:This just doesn't seem to work, I feel like Zorin is not the distro for me after all...

I know that I would be feeling that way.
But I must point out that Zorin is based on Ubuntu and uses the Ubuntu installer. This implies that you may have this same trouble installing any of the many Ubuntu derivatives out there.

If you check that link I gave you it suggests not using rEFInd.

Aravisian wrote:What if you create a bootable medium with refind and boot in,
http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/getting.html
then install grub?

Code:

sudo grub-install

I'm confused. How would that help? My problem is basically that when the Zorin installer fails to install GRUB, it seems to abort the installation and leaves the system in an unbootable state (I can't see it when I reboot the Mac in rEFInd). Installing GRUB outside of the installer wouldn't really help there, would it?

Are you dual booting into both Mac and Linux or has Mac been wiped? Are you able to boot at all?

I am dual-booting and I am still able to boot on macOS with rEFInd.

EDIT: Yes, I agree that refind would replace grub in your use and you would not Need Grub when using refind. Iam not sure on this, but installing it may be part of the Ubuntu Installation resulting in an installer failure whether you need grub or not.

As I said in my initial post, it's not the first time I get that: I installed an openSuse Linux on an iMac a few months ago and I got the exact same problem. Except the failure to install GRUB did not abort the installation as a whole, I just got an error message saying that 'your system will probably not be able to boot', and it continued. And in the end, openSuse appeared as an option in rEFInd and it worked perfectly. Sadly, they don't have a 32 bits version anymore, and even if I really like openSuse, it probably would be too complicated anyway: the Mac I'm installing is for my 10 years old daughter, so it needs to be very simple.

I did some net searching and I came across a few posts mentioning that they were having the same issue but discovered corrupted data in the EFI partition that was the culprit. Booting into a LiveCD media under "Try 'distro'" and then using a tool like Gparted was how they fixed it. Until that partition was repaired, they kept getting the error. That May relate to your experiences.

It's possible indeed. I guess I can actually do that with Zorin since the installer is also a live distro; I'll give it a try.

But I must point out that Zorin is based on Ubuntu and uses the Ubuntu installer. This implies that you may have this same trouble installing any of the many Ubuntu derivatives out there.

Yes, I know. And 32 bits distributions are becoming rare these days, so I don't have a lot of choices. Zorin looked nice since it's actively developed and still has a 32 bits version, which is why I tried it in the first place and really wanted to get it to work...

Swarfendor437 wrote:If you check that link I gave you it suggests not using rEFInd.

I did check it, and that's not what I understood. They say they tried it at first with and without rEFInd, and that didn't seem to make a difference. In the end, they managed to make it work while not using rEFInd, but I'm not sure at all rEFInd had anything to do with it. And they didn't seem to say or even imply that.
Besides, I'd really like to keep rEFInd: as I said in my previous post, the Mac is for my 10 years old daughter, and rEFInd has a nice simple interface where she would just have to move the circle around the penguin and press enter. Much simpler than the kind of text-based menu GRUB has...

eb303 wrote:

Aravisian wrote:What if you create a bootable medium with refind and boot in,
http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/getting.html
then install grub?

Code:

sudo grub-install

I'm confused. How would that help? My problem is basically that when the Zorin installer fails to install GRUB, it seems to abort the installation and leaves the system in an unbootable state (I can't see it when I reboot the Mac in rEFInd). Installing GRUB outside of the installer wouldn't really help there, would it?

When you go to install, a computer program really is similar to people in some way. If it does not need to work a task, it will prefer not to. If the information is present, recognizable and installed on the partition, it will use it rather than replace it.
This is why corruption on a disk can create problems as well. The software tries to use existing corrupted data instead of replacing it with good data. In order to repair it, you must manually go in and order it to replace the data.
When you go to run the installer, it warns that it will "wipe the drive" sometimes. This is not really an accurate statement, just a simplified one. The data remains, it merely will ignore any markers for them. However, installers actively seek out markers that will make their task easier.
This is in place for a reason: Engineers prefer the numbers. Odds are that existing grub data is in good working order where a fresh install has a chance of corruption. On a fresh install, however, you are left with No Indicators of the hardware other than reading it directly from the motherboard. This means that an installer will have better odds hitting existing data that probably works than guessing at what may work. Which is often true, and why most installs go smoothly, making the developers and engineers look good and field less questions.
All that said- it still is a Numbers game of hitting the odds. What I suggested can work and MAY work but also may not. It is a shot at trying to help you overcome an installation issue.

And I made it work! I did try to run "sudo grub-install" from a terminal while in the live Zorin, but it wouldn't work, I got a message:

Code:

grub-install: error: failed to get canonical path of '/cow'

I searched for this message and got these messages from people who had got the same issue:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/254491/ ... ath-of-cow
https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... ath-of-cow

So I tried out more or less the same solution as they did:

• I installed Zorin OS the normal way, which failed because GRUB could not be installed;
• In a terminal and as root, I mounted the partition onto which Zorin had been installed to /mnt;
• I mounted /proc, /dev and /sys to /mnt/proc, /mnt/dev & /mnt/sys resp. by using 'mount --bind';
• I chroot'ed to /mnt;
• I ran "update-grub";
• I ran "grub-install --force /dev/sdaX" (with /dev/sdaX being the partition where Zorin OS had been installed). I had to use the --force flag since without it, I got a warning about "blocklists" that prevented the install because they were unsafe.

And that seemed to do the trick: if I reboot the Mac, I do get a penguin icon in rEFInd and I'm able to boot Zorin OS! \o/

Thank you so much for your advice, I definitely couldn't have done it without your help!

And now, I have to figure out how to make my WiFi work.

eb303 wrote:Thank you so much for your advice, I definitely couldn't have done it without your help!

This is one of many cases where what I said pointed in the right direction, rather than giving any direct help.
I'm ok with that. I may not be an expert that solves problems, but a novice that helps bumble to the solution still results in a solved problem.
Thanks for sharing your solution. Hopefully, this will help others prevent baldness.

eb303 wrote:And now, I have to figure out how to make my WiFi work.

You probably need to connect to the net wired, first. Then get the proper drivers since you are on a macbook.
Open Software and Updates, then move to the Additional Drivers Tab.
You will need to select the Proprietary Drivers (sorry).

If no proprietary drivers are shown, you can try to run from terminal with:

Code:

sudo apt-get --reinstall install bcmwl-kernel-source

Code:

sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb wl brcmfmac brcmsmac bcma

Code:

sudo modprobe wl

Reboot your computer, log in to Zorin, then check if your wifi is working. If not, please update...

Glad you got sorted friend!

Aravisian wrote:You probably need to connect to the net wired, first. Then get the proper drivers since you are on a macbook.

Actually, the installation I did was not completely satisfactory - especially regarding the partition layout I created -, so I plugged in a network cable and redid everything, this time asking to install third party software. After that, I redid the hack to install GRUB properly and it worked just as before, and now my WiFi is working.

Thanks again!