Dual Boot Linux Mint 21.2 and macOS with OpenCore Legacy Patcher and OpenCore Bootpicker

[PatiB]

Update: No luck. Tried several things:
- Installing mint via "ubiquity -b" ergo without boot loader => no luck

- In Linux "sudo systemctl disable systemd-boot-check-no-act.service" => failed.. does not exist, since I got no boot loader

- In Linux "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_backlight=vendor nvram_modify_on_write=0"" was a suggestion, together with "sudo apt purge os-prober -y" and "sudo update-grub" => All yielded the same result.

- In macOS "sudo bless --mount /Volumes/EFI --setBoot --file /Volumes/EFI/EFI/OC/OpenCore.efi" gave me an error: "could not set boot device property: 0xe00002e2"

- Also tried in Linux "sudo apt remove efibootmgr -y", and blacklisting efi changes via "echo "blacklist efivarfs" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nvram.conf" and "sudo update-initramfs -u"

Now Gemini suggest to place an additional boot loader IN FRONT of OCLP... I don't know... that doesn't seem right.

 

[NightSwing]

Update: No luck. Tried several things:
- Installing mint via "ubiquity -b" ergo without boot loader => no luck

- In Linux "sudo systemctl disable systemd-boot-check-no-act.service" => failed.. does not exist, since I got no boot loader

- In Linux "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_backlight=vendor nvram_modify_on_write=0"" was a suggestion, together with "sudo apt purge os-prober -y" and "sudo update-grub" => All yielded the same result.

- In macOS "sudo bless --mount /Volumes/EFI --setBoot --file /Volumes/EFI/EFI/OC/OpenCore.efi" gave me an error: "could not set boot device property: 0xe00002e2"

- Also tried in Linux "sudo apt remove efibootmgr -y", and blacklisting efi changes via "echo "blacklist efivarfs" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nvram.conf" and "sudo update-initramfs -u"

Now Gemini suggest to place an additional boot loader IN FRONT of OCLP... I don't know... that doesn't seem right.

I had lost all hope on attempting to get a dual boot to work until I came across your comments. I have endeavorOS(arch based) installed and blacklist efivars worked for me to not have to reinstall opencore after every linux boot. I cant imagine what else you could do. Are you using the ext4 driver in opencore or another boot manager to boot linux.

 

[PatiB]

I had lost all hope on attempting to get a dual boot to work until I came across your comments. I have endeavorOS(arch based) installed and blacklist efivars worked for me to not have to reinstall opencore after every linux boot. I cant imagine what else you could do. Are you using the ext4 driver in opencore or another boot manager to boot linux.

I just yesterday in the evening found the seemingly real reason. I will try to get it fixed today/tomorrow and post an update for if other tinkerers experience the same pain!

 

[PatiB]

I found the solution. Finally.
The main issue is: in EFI in the folder OC/Kexts/AppleUSBTopCase.kext/Contents/PlugIns/ the file "AppleUSBTcKeyboard.kext" was missing after booting Linux, but instead I got an additional "FSCK000..." folder.

Not 100% sure but it seems that Linux did some scan and maybe considered that file corrupted and removed it.

Solution is very simple:
- Boot Linux
- sudo nano /etc/fstab
- Change "/boot/efi vfat umask=0077 0 1" to "/boot/efi vfat ro,nosuid,nodev,noauto 0 0" which prevents Linux from farting around in there

Then for me to finally get it working after this, since the boot I used to adapt this had already broke it again:
- Plugin OCLP USB drive
- Hold alt, power Mac on
- In boot picker, select USB (orange icon)
- In second picker, select internal ssd/drive
- Boot macOS, wait 1-3 min for OCLP to detect that you booted from USB
- let OCLP reinstall itself into your internal drive
- Reboot (not 100% needed, maybe)
- You might only be able to boot macOS from bootpicker now, so carry on:
- back in macOS do "sudo diskutil mount disk0s1" to mount your EFI partition
- in finder go into EFI partition
- download "ext4_x64.efi" from here: https://github.com/acidanthera/OcBinaryData/tree/master/Drivers
- add that file to EFI partition folder: EFI/OC/Drivers
- edit EFI/OC/config.plist
- find entry "OpenLinuxBoot.efi"
- Duplicate that whole XML-section and replace "OpenLinuxBoot.efi" with "ext4_x64.efi" so that both are loaded
- NOW you should in reboot finally see both OS in bootpicker