Clean install Manjaro on a macbook air 2016 with a broken display

[yannickhk]

Hi,

So I’ve messed up my OS so bad that I have to re-install. But here is the problem that I have, my laptop display is broken and use an external monitor. During boot-up, I can use the command key to go to the boot selection as normal but I can’t see anything because the display is broken. I tried a few tricks that I found online, like closing the lid during boot up, connect the monitor during boot-up, etc… nothing worked.
Next up I tried to use the efibootmgr --bootnext XXXX command but the bootable USB is not listed. I looked around to see if there was a way to start the installation process from within manjaro or to tell the bootloader to start from the USB for the ext boot up but couldn’t find anything.
Do you have any ideas how I could achieve that? Clean install of course.

[Olli]

i’m not firm with macbook’s only with imac’s but is there a apple-specific-hotkey switching to external display ? this is what i found:

Try turning it on and then immediately close the lid once it's on. Make sure you've got power and the display cable connected of course.

Force display to external monitor on boot

fingers crossed that it helps.

[yannickhk]

I tried that, it didn’t work for some reason. Maybe the computer doesn’t detect that the lid is closed maybe, not sure

[6x12]

Reset NVRAM, that should get your second monitor back in mirror mode.

Still not completely able to get your issue, though, but to get the usb to boot should be Option and about 3 taps on the ‘right’ arrow key (the ‘efi usb’ is usually on the far right), then hit Enter.

[yannickhk]

OOh it’s on the right side. I tried blind but with the up and down arrow keys. I am gonna try

[6x12]

The number of boot options in the pic seems a bit excessive, I have only 2 or 3 but I wiped MacOS a long time ago.

You could also try Cmd + F1 which is the default display mirroring shortcut on MacOS.

[yannickhk]

It worked, you are a life saver. Fresh install up and running woohoo