How to install EndeavourOS “Ganymede” Linux on an Intel Mac

This article is the lightly-edited script from a how-to video I posted.

For the purposes of demonstration, I’m installing EndeavourOS on a 2018 Mac Mini (because it was easy to record HDMI out for my video). But EndeavourOS really shines on laptops. I also run it on a couple of 2015 MacBooks: a 13" Pro and an 11" Air.

I’ll be installing EndeavourOS as the only operating system on this machine. I may follow up with a video on dual booting with macOS. But I wanted to go simplest first.

Before we start, one caveat with installing Linux on Macs is that their built-in wifi adapters often don’t work out of the box. If you’re going to start installing Linux distros—especially if you have multiple computers—I would definitely get a cheap plug-and-play USB wifi adapter. Or ethernet, if you prefer. It makes life easier, at least until you can get the native wifi working post-install. I may need to make a video on that process, too.

I use a Panda Wireless Ultra WiFi 2.4Ghz adapter. I bought it because it’s pretty much guaranteed to work with any Mac and any flavor of Linux. It’s not the fastest, but it’s never failed me. In fact, it’s the only wifi adapter I have that worked properly with the latest EndeavourOS installer. It’s usually about $20 at Amazon. The link above is an Amazon affiliate link, so I may get a commission on any sales.

Prep

Let’s start by downloading and preparing everything we’ll need. I’ll assume you’ve got macOS running on the computer you want to use. If not, you’ll need a computer where you can get EndeavourOS and flash it to a USB drive, following the steps I’ll be showing you.

Okay I’ve plugged in a USB drive, which I’m going to format as ExFAT in Disk Utility, just to start from scratch and make sure the system can recognize it.

Get EndeavourOS

In your web browser, go to endeavouros.com. That’s EndeavourOS with a “u.” Scroll down the page to find a download from your region. I went to North America, downloaded the ISO, which is the disk image, and also the sha512sum file, which we use to verify we’ve got a valid copy.

Get Balena Etcher

If you don’t already have a program for flashing ISOs to USB drives, we’ll download an app to do it for us. I’ll use Balena Etcher.

Go to etcher.balena.io. Click “Download Etcher.” And then download Etcher for macOS (not macOS Arm64).

Verify the ISO

In our download folder, we’ve now got three files: the Balena Etcher installer, the Endeavor ISO, and its SHA file.

Let’s verify the ISO. This step is optional if you like living on the edge. Open the Mac’s Terminal program. In here, type shasum -a512 followed by a space, and then drag your ISO file to the Terminal, click in the terminal window, and press return. While this runs, open the sha512sum file in a text editor. Compare the output from the terminal with the contents of this file. If they match, you’re all good.

Flash the USB with EndeavourOS

Now we’ll start Etcher. Here, I open the DMG file and drag the app to applications. Click on it, and jump through any hoops your Mac gives you.

  1. Click the “Flash from file” button and nevigate to your EndeavourOS ISO.
  2. Click “Select Target” and choose your USB drive.
  3. Click “Flash!”

Again, jump through whatever hoops you’re given. Now wait a few minutes for the file to write.

When it’s complete, you will get a message saying that the Mac can’t read this disk. That’s fine! It’s probably actually a good sign. It means the drive has been formatted for EOS.

Pre-install setup in macOS Recovery

Now we’re going to restart into macOS recovery mode. Here we’ll update the startup security settings, so we’re allowed to start from USB and install a non-macOS operating system. Then we’ll completely wipe the drive, to help us avoid any weirdness from Apple’s APFS partitioning scheme.

Restart your computer and hold down command-R until it loads in recovery mode.

Disabling startup security

Before wiping the drive, if your Mac is from 2018 or later, it may have some startup security options you’ll need to change, in order to successfully install a new operating system from USB.

  1. Ignore the window of applications. Instead look at the top menu of Recovery.
  2. There, under “Utilities,” select “Startup Security Utility.”
  3. If asked, enter your system password.
  4. In the new window that appears, under “Secure Boot,” choose “No Security” (the bottom option).
  5. Under “Allowed Boot Media”, choose “Allow booting from external or removable media” (again the bottom option).
  6. Quit Startup Security Utility.

Wiping the hard drive

Now, start Disk Utility from the list of application options.

In Disk Utility’s “View” menu, choose “Show All Devices.”

Click on the top level item in the “Internal” drives section to select your hard drive. Its name will probably begin with “Apple SSD” or some such.

Click the “Erase” button. In the modal that pops up, give the drive any name you want. It’s only temporary anyway. And choose ExFAT from the format selector. Click the “Erase” button and wait until the process is done.

Quit Disk Utility.

Get your wifi adapter info

One last optional thing. You may want info on your wifi adapter. It’ll make it easier to search for help online, if you have any issues after installation. Here’s how you can get the adapter info quickly:

  1. In the top menu of Recovery under “Utilities”, start the “Terminal” program.
  2. Type the following: ioreg -r -n ARPT | grep IOName
  3. Write down the results for later: “IOName” = “pci14e4,4434” (You can look up these numbers in a search engine or a site like Device Hunt to get more info.)

Installing EndeavourOS

Now we finally get to install EndeavourOS.

Restart from the EOS USB

With the EndeavourOS USB drive plugged in (and no other USB drives), restart your computer. At this point, your Mac would probably start from it automatically. But you can ensure it does by holding down the option key as we restart. At the startup screen that appears, choose “EFI Boot,” which represents your USB drive. Sometimes you’ll get two “EFI Boot” options. You can just pick one, or—weirdly—unplug and replug your USB drive and there will only be one left to pick.

You’ll come to an all-text boot menu, where you can either hit enter or just wait a few seconds for it to select the default EndeavourOS startup.

Initial network setup

Unless you’re already hooked up to Ethernet, you’re likely to get a popup saying you have no internet connection. If you’re on ethernet and don’t see this message, you can scrub past this section of the video right to the install. You can do an offline install, but that limits your options, so we’re not doing it here.

Here’s where we’ll find out if your built-in wifi adapter is compatible out of the box.

  1. Press the exit button to exit the installer for now.
  2. Down in the bottom right corner of the taskbar is a networking symbol. Honestly, I’m not even sure what it’s a picture of. A monitor with an ethernet cable or something. But it’s down there.
  3. If you see WiFi networks, you may be lucky enough to have an adapter that’s compatible with no setup. Try connecting to your network.
  4. If you don’t see any wifi networks—or if you see your network, but you keep getting password prompts or other failures when you try to connect—your adapter probably doesn’t work. This Mac Mini doesn’t show any networks, my MacBook Pro shows networks but doesn’t connect by default, and my MacBook Air works fine. So it’s a crapshoot.
    1. If you have a USB ethernet adapter, you can plug it in now to connect.
    2. Or as I mentioned earlier, you can use a USB wifi adapter. I’ll plug in my Panda Wireless Ultra adapter. Once your adapter is plugged in, click the network symbol again and connect to your network.
  5. Now, we’re ready to install.

Install

  1. On the left side of the taskbar click the install icon. That’s the icon with a downward-facing arrow pointing at what I assume is a little computer. These icons are hard to decipher.
  2. After several seconds, a new popup will appear.
  3. Click the first button: Start the installer.
  4. Choose online installation, so you get the latest system and can customize some options, like your desktop environment.
  5. It might take about 10 or 15 seconds for the next step to start, so be patient.
  6. The first step in the new window that appears is where you can choose your preferred language. I’ve got American English. Click next.
  7. Then you can pick your region and zone. The installer’s already got mine correct, so click next again.
  8. Now, you can choose your keyboard model. I’ll choose Apple.
  9. Here’s the biggest decision you’ll be making: your desktop.
    1. If you’re all terminal, all the time, then you can choose no desktop.
    2. Otherwise, you’ve got plenty of options. You can find YouTube videos, and Distrowatch Weekly issue 1073 from June 3, 2024 had a good writeup of many major options. I’ll add a link in the description. Clicking on any option here also gives a brief description.
    3. I prefer the i3 Window Manager, which is the last option. Know that, if you pick a tiling window manager like this, it’s not as mouse-driven as the Mac or Windows desktops you might be used to. But nor is it as spare as a text-based interface. I’m trying to get better at relying on my keyboard, so it’s what I go with.
  10. The next step gives you options for what you want installed. I keep all the defaults checked, and then also check the LTS kernel box. LTS means that you’re installing an extra long-term-support version of the Linux kernel that isn’t so cavalier about updating. It’s handy as a backup. If you ever break something when updating your regular kernel, you can boot with LTS. Unless you’re super-short on space, you might as well add it.
  11. On the next screen, I leave the bootloader as-is. You’ll just get a simple startup menu when starting your machine.
  12. Now we partition the disk. This step is more complicated for dual booting EndeavourOS and MacOS. But for our purposes here, it’s pretty simple.
    1. Choose the Erase Disk radio button.
    2. In the select menus that appear, I’d choose either Swap with or without hibernate, depending if you want your system to have hibernate options. As opposed to sleep, hibernating is saving your current state to swap space and then shutting down the system. I don’t use it, but I see the appeal. Swap space lets you extend your virtual memory to hard disk when needed.
    3. Like with the added LTS kernel, I enable it as insurance, since hard drive space is not at a premium for me.
    4. Leave the other select dropdown as ext4 for your filesystem, unless you have some reason to want another option. Like someone on the EndeavourOS forums who has an avatar of Bender holding a machine gun says, it’s the Toyota Camry of filesystems.
  13. Time to set up your account and computer name
    1. Enter the username you want to use. I’m just putting greg for both my real name and username
    2. “eos” for the name of my computer.
    3. And a very secure password. (Not really in this case)
    4. I’m not checking the auto-login button, because I prefer using a password to log in. And I am leaving the checkbox for the same password for the admin account, because I’m the only person who will be using this computer.
  14. On the confirmation screen, you can verify all your previous selections and then install, go back, or cancel. I’ll install.
  15. Wait out the process, and then restart your machine without the installer USB. Once it reboots, we’ll do a few post-install tasks.

Post-installation

  1. Sign in.
  2. If you were connected to WiFi during install, EndeavourOS is pretty good about remembering that connection.
  3. Firefox opens automatically on i3wm. To switch to the desktop view with our startup options, hit command-tab.
  4. Update mirrors, so your system knows where to best connect for software and updates. You will need to enter your password.
  5. Now, I close this dialog and do the rest in the terminal, to get some practice there.
  6. Let’s see if we need to update the system.
  7. Open your terminal. In i3wm, command-return opens it.
  8. Type yay. This command updates everything it can. You’ll get asked for your password.
  9. Now let’s install a program: fastfetch. You haven’t really installed Linux until you’ve made a fetch program happen. Fastfetch shows you some system info at a glance. Type yay \-S fastfetch, and follow the prompts.
  10. Once it’s done, type fastfetch to run it.

Default load option

Finally, remember when we rebooted in LTS mode by default? Here’s how to change that.

  1. In the terminal, type sudo -s.
  2. Type nano /efi/loader/loader.conf. This will open the Nano text editor.
  3. In the first line of the file that opens, after the asterisk (*), type -*-arch?-?.conf.
  4. Press control-o and then return to save.
  5. Press control-x to exit.
  6. Back at the terminal prompt, type systemctl reboot to reboot.