I’ve got some weird booting issues. I’m on an iMac 12,2, and for some reason, under Manjaro, I have two boot options in my Mac’s boot menu (not counting the hard disk with MacOS on it, which I never boot into). The options in the boot menu (hold down alt a.k.a. Option while booting) are:
- Macintosh HD (old 500GB hard disk)
- EFI Boot
- Recovery 10.13.6 (a recovery partition on the 500GB disk)
- EFI Boot
I’ve got Linux on a 1TB SSD which I installed internally on the iMac
The first EFI Boot partition (which seems to be the default, for some reason) quickly flashes an error about boot order, then boots to a standard Grub prompt (says “GNU GRUB version 2.0.4” across the top, then “Minimal BASH-like line editing…”, then finally “grub> _”)
The second EFI partition requests the boot password (“Attempting to decrypt master key…”), but was failing with a weird error and bringing me also to a grub prompt. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of that, because when I was going through all the options to snap photos of it, it finally worked. It wasn’t the usual error I get when I flub the password, I don’t think.
Anyone have pointers on how to remove the bogus boot option, and what to do the next time the grub prompt decides to scare me to death (this is the machine I use for my business)
mods are on point!
Sorry for the scatterbrained/n00by post, this is my main work machine, and I fear to do too much tinkering & troubleshooting on it without knowing what I’m doing.
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Hello, no worries
That is why we are around. Reading trough the wiki to see if i can give some hints.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/IMac_Aluminum#The_imac12,2_27"_2011_model
Apparently there is a higher rate of success to have rEFIT installed as boot loader, from within MacOS or MacOSx prior to install the GRUB … But i need to read further in order to get the bigger picture. Probably you will get around it before me, since you have the device at hand.
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Sorry, I meant 12,1, but they’re mostly the same.
I forgot to include inxi (sorry!)
$ inxi -Fxxxza --no-host
System: Kernel: 5.8.1-3-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A
parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.8-x86_64 root=UUID=c3b1cff2-ed37-4ee0-af3b-d404097c96ef rw quiet
cryptdevice=UUID=eb7684b1-691d-476a-81d7-9f553231a205:luks-eb7684b1-691d-476a-81d7-9f553231a205
root=/dev/mapper/luks-eb7684b1-691d-476a-81d7-9f553231a205 apparmor=1 security=apparmor
resume=/dev/mapper/luks-1aa70ee5-d740-4f20-a0ae-699cefa5a54f udev.log_priority=3
Desktop: Xfce 4.14.2 tk: Gtk 3.24.20 info: xfce4-panel, plank wm: xfwm4 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Manjaro Linux
Machine: Type: Desktop System: Apple product: iMac12,1 v: 1.0 serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 13 v: Mac-942B5BF58194151B
serial: <filter>
Mobo: Apple model: Mac-942B5BF58194151B serial: <filter> UEFI: Apple v: 85.0.0.0.0 date: 04/16/2019
CPU: Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i5-2400S bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Sandy Bridge family: 6 model-id: 2A (42)
stepping: 7 microcode: 2F L2 cache: 6144 KiB
flags: avx lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 20010
Speed: 1635 MHz min/max: 1600/3300 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1600 2: 1600 3: 1600 4: 1600
Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: Split huge pages
Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT disabled
Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT disabled
Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp
Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling
Type: srbds status: Not affected
Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics: Device-1: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0
chip ID: 8086:0102
Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Whistler [Radeon HD 6630M/6650M/6750M/7670M/7690M] vendor: Apple
driver: radeon v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 1002:6741
Device-3: Apple FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in) type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus ID: 1-2:3 chip ID: 05ac:850b
serial: <filter>
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.8 driver: ati,intel,radeon unloaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa
display ID: :0.0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3840x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 1016x285mm (40.0x11.2") s-diag: 1055mm (41.5")
Monitor-1: eDP res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 103 size: 475x267mm (18.7x10.5") diag: 545mm (21.5")
Monitor-2: DisplayPort-0 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 103 size: 475x267mm (18.7x10.5") diag: 545mm (21.5")
OpenGL: renderer: AMD TURKS (DRM 2.50.0 / 5.8.1-3-MANJARO LLVM 10.0.1) v: 3.3 Mesa 20.1.5 compat-v: 3.1
direct render: Yes
Audio: Device-1: Intel 6 Series/C200 Series Family High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0
chip ID: 8086:1c20
Device-2: AMD Turks HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6500/6600 / 6700M Series] vendor: Apple driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
bus ID: 01:00.1 chip ID: 1002:aa90
Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.8.1-3-MANJARO
Network: Device-1: Broadcom and subsidiaries NetXtreme BCM57765 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe driver: tg3 v: kernel port: 2000
bus ID: 02:00.0 chip ID: 14e4:16b4
IF: enp2s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR93xx Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Apple AirPort Extreme driver: ath9k v: kernel
port: 2000 bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 168c:0030
IF: wlp3s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives: Local Storage: total: 8.64 TiB used: 5.92 TiB (68.5%)
SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD5000AAKS-402AA0 size: 465.76 GiB block size: physical: 512 B
logical: 512 B speed: 3.0 Gb/s rotation: 7200 rpm serial: <filter> rev: 1D02 scheme: GPT
ID-2: /dev/sdb model: Mercury Electra 6G SSD size: 931.51 GiB block size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B
speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: 7B0 scheme: GPT
ID-3: /dev/sdd type: USB vendor: Western Digital model: WD Elements 25A3 size: 7.28 TiB block size:
physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B serial: <filter> rev: 1021 scheme: GPT
Partition: ID-1: / raw size: 918.37 GiB size: 902.95 GiB (98.32%) used: 367.64 GiB (40.7%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-0
Swap: Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache pressure: 100 (default)
ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 12.85 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/dm-1
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 59.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 1199
Info: Processes: 255 Uptime: 1h 10m Memory: 11.68 GiB used: 2.81 GiB (24.1%) Init: systemd v: 245 Compilers: gcc: 10.1.0
clang: 10.0.1 Packages: pacman: 1547 lib: 375 Shell: Bash v: 5.0.18 running in: xfce4-terminal inxi: 3.1.05
Hey @bogdancovaciu,
I started playing around with this again. I looked up Refit, but it seems that Refind has superceded it.
I installed the package and ran the install script, and it seems that everything is set up, now.
Then I remembered that my /boot folder is under my / (root) partition, which is encrypted with LUKS.
Would you happen to know if Refind can deal with LUKS? I hate to reboot and then have to spend time troubleshooting my main machine 
I did some “ducking,” but didn’t find a definitive answer.
EDIT:
Well, it booted just fine, so I guess I’m ok 
The only problem I’m having now is that I have a bunch of old boot entries in my EFI, from Ubuntu and Debian. I have to figure out how to clear out old rEFInd entries.