How can I troubleshoot successfully installing CachyOS on my 2012 Macbook Pro

Issues & Assistance
1

Hi,

I’m new to Linux, and I am trying to dual boot CachyOS onto my old 2012 Macbook Pro 9,1.

specs:

  • mid-2012, 15 inch
  • 2.3GHz Quad core Intel i7
  • 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
  • Dual graphics: Intel chip and NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M
  • 1TB SSD

I’m not sure where to begin. I was able to run the install from a bootable USB with an Ethernet connection, and used rEFInd and the default filesystem BTRFS. Install was successful, but when I select CachyOS on the rEFInd menu on bootup, I get a glitchy loading screen and nothing else from CachyOS.

2

The specifications you provided differ in every respect from those of my MacBook Pro 9,1 (Mid-2012).
I only have an Intel graphics card. I have never used rEFInd, nor do I dual-boot with Windows or OS X.
I would therefore have to do some research myself, but unfortunately, I don’t have the time for that right now.

3

I appreciate your reply nonetheless. I’m guessing the graphics card could be the issue, but I’m not sure. Could you suggest a way I could move towards a diagnosis for this issue?

4

I installed Cachy on my MacBook Air 2015 & MacBook Pro 2012 using the Limine bootloader. No dual boot. I wiped the entire SSD on install. I haven’t had any issues.

5

Do you have the dedicated Nvidia graphics card on your 2012 machine?

6

Get your drives mounted in the Live USB.

Go into your rEFInd config and set spoof_osx_version to whatever MAC OS version you want, preferably whatever was on your device.

This will make your dGPU actually work and should let you boot into Linux.

If you have further problems, then you should pacman -Qs nvidia and make sure you have the nvidia-470xx-dkms package installed.