Linux on a Macbook Pro

So after some worries and horror stories, I install a dual boot Pop OS 19.10 (Ubuntu basically) on my Macbook Pro.

If anyone is interested:

Pre-install steps:

1. I wrote the PopOS image to a thumb drive using Etcher
2. Under Disk Utility in OS X, I resized the apple partition down from 240GB to 170GB
3. It wrote for like 12 hours then it hung. I checked the fdisk and it seemed fine so I killed the disk utility.

Install:

1. I shutdown the computer and inserted the usb from step 1.
2. I reboot holding the Option key, and selected the EFI
3. It booted from the USB stick
4. I selected manage partitions (not Completely remove and install fresh PopOS)
5. I created an EFI partition at the end of the disk of 500 MiB (type: Fat32)
   1. OS X had an EFI partition but it was only 200 MiB which is not large enough for PopOS
6. I created a Swap partition of 8GB (8192 MiB): type linux swap
7. I created a root partition of the remaining (~69GB): type ext4

Post Install

1. It rebooted to PopOS and I created my account and poof Linux on a macbook
2. You sometimes have to boot with the "option key" pressed cause OSX and boot loaders don't play well together.

Comments

[Mandar Vaze]

(Hoping against hope) is there a way to access the files across two partitions ? Specifically reading APFS (?) from linux ?
This could help keep the data on larger partition (apple partition in this case) and access from either OS

[Kuhree]

Thanks for the info Dan! I've recently found myself in the same position as dual boot. How are you liking PopOS so far in comparison?