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I've been trying to set up an Ubuntu 16.04 partition on my MacBook Pro (2017). I've created a 100GB partition for it (diskutil below). However when I try to install Ubuntu from my USB disk image, the installer can only detect the USB hard drive - it can't see the internal drive. Same problem arises if I try fdisk -l. Any help or advice would be much appreciated!

 /dev/disk0 (internal):
 #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
 0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         251.0 GB   disk0
 1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
 2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         150.0 GB   disk0s2
 3:       Microsoft Basic Data UbuntuPart              100.0 GB   disk0s3

 /dev/disk1 (synthesized):
 #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
 0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +150.0 GB   disk1
                          Physical Store disk0s2
 1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            108.2 GB   disk1s1
 2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 21.3 MB    disk1s2
 3:                APFS Volume Recovery                509.8 MB   disk1s3
 4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk1s5

 /dev/disk2 (external, physical):
 #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
 0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *16.0 GB    disk2
 1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
 2:       Microsoft Basic Data UBUNTU                  15.8 GB    disk2s2


 [X:~]$ diskutil info /dev/disk0s3
    Device Identifier:        disk0s3
    Device Node:              /dev/disk0s3
    Whole:                    No
    Part of Whole:            disk0

    Volume Name:              UbuntuPart
    Mounted:                  Yes
    Mount Point:              /Volumes/UbuntuPart

    Partition Type:           Microsoft Basic Data
    File System Personality:  ExFAT
    Type (Bundle):            exfat
    Name (User Visible):      ExFAT

    OS Can Be Installed:      No
    Media Type:               Generic
    Protocol:                 PCI-Express
    SMART Status:             Not Supported
    Volume UUID:              D571AF1C-6074-3F47-AF60-B2987240331B
    Disk / Partition UUID:    036C0F0D-3771-4562-A55F-67642719B407

    Disk Size:                100.0 GB (99998498816 Bytes) (exactly 195309568 512-Byte-Units)
    Device Block Size:        4096 Bytes

    Volume Total Space:       100.0 GB (99994304512 Bytes) (exactly 195301376 512-Byte-Units)
    Volume Used Space:        9.6 MB (9568256 Bytes) (exactly 18688 512-Byte-Units) (0.0%)
    Volume Available Space:   100.0 GB (99984736256 Bytes) (exactly 195282688 512-Byte-Units) (100.0%)
    Allocation Block Size:    131072 Bytes

    Read-Only Media:          No
    Read-Only Volume:         No

    Device Location:          Internal
    Removable Media:          Fixed

    Solid State:              Yes
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  • 3
    Hey did you ever get this to work?
    – Eric
    Aug 1, 2018 at 6:34
  • 3
    Did anyone ever solve this? Having the same problem... Aug 24, 2018 at 5:18
  • 2
    has anyone solved this?
    – quinn
    Jun 20, 2019 at 17:27
  • 2
    I have this same problem: I partitioned my macbook HDD using disk utilitiy and created a 117GB FAT32 partition. Ubuntu live CD can't see either partition. It simply tries to use the USB drive as the installation target complains there isn't enough room.
    – quinn
    Jun 20, 2019 at 17:29

1 Answer 1

1

I think I finally figured this out...

The NVMe storage used in the newer MacBooks isn't supported in the versions of the Linux kernel currently used in most distributions. This support wasn't added until kernel version 5.1.5, which won't be packaged with Ubuntu until version 19.10 (currently in beta using kernel version 5.2.0).

Right now the options seem to be:

  • Make your own bootable image of your distro of choice using a kernel version of 5.1.5 or higher
  • Used a pre-patched version of a distro (example)
  • Wait for 19.10
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  • Suggestion: This part, "the newer MacBooks" should mention which year models are applicable--whether this is also applicable to OP (MacBook Pro 2017)? In fact, the linked project on GitHub has NVMe section in README that mentioned "works out of box" for MacBook Pro 13 and 14 series, which makes the compatibility issue confusing overall.
    – user37165
    Aug 27, 2019 at 15:43
  • So now that 19.10 is available, I haven't had any luck with it. Was this support pushed back or something? Dec 8, 2019 at 23:40

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