How to configure dual boot NixOS with Mac OS X on an (U)EFI MacBook?
This is an updated version of my initial answer, it should work for NixOS 15.09. It contains minor modifications compared to the initial version which i used to install NixOS 14.04 with some help from nix-dev mailing list.
Initial setup
MacBook 5,1 (2008) with Mac OS 10.9 and hard drive partitioned as follows:
a) 200MB EFI System Partition labelled "EFI".
b) Two partitions used by Mac OS (10.9).
c) Two empty ext4 partitions labelled "nixos" and "home", and a Linux Swap partition labelled "swap".
I used the following tools:
GPT fdisk (from under Mac OS),
mkfs.ext4(from under NixOS on a bootable USB drive),mkswap.
Here is my partition table as printed by
gdisk:Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name 1 40 409639 200.0 MiB EF00 EFI System Partition 2 409640 104603575 49.7 GiB AF00 Untitled 3 104865720 261418767 74.7 GiB AF00 Untitled 4 261680912 287071535 12.1 GiB 8302 home 5 287071536 307888927 9.9 GiB 8300 nixos 7 307888928 312581774 2.2 GiB 8200 swapCable Ethernet Internet connection.
A USB drive formatted as FAT with MBR and labelled
NIXOS_ISO, with a copy (dragged and dropped) of the content of the NixOS 15.09 64-bit ISO image (Live CD or Minimal).The label of the USB drive must be
NIXOS_ISO(i tried withFLASHonce, it didn't work).It seems that NixOS 15.09 ISO images cannot be mounted under Mac OS. If the image cannot be mounted, it is enough to extract its contents. I could extract the contents of the ISO image with Keka file archiver.
Installation
Boot from the USB drive by holding down the Alt/Option key when rebooting and by selecting the USB EFI Boot. Log in as "root" (without password). Make sure the Internet connection is working. Internet connection is necessary for the installation.
Execute
swapon /dev/disk/by-label/swap mount /dev/disk/by-label/nixos /mnt mkdir /mnt/boot mkdir /mnt/home mount /dev/disk/by-label/EFI /mnt/boot mount /dev/disk/by-label/home /mnt/home nixos-generate-config --root /mntAdd
nixpkgs.config.allowUnfree = true;in the generated /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix file.
Execute
nixos-installReboot:
reboot
Booting
(This was my experience with 14.04.)
After rebooting, the computer booted into NixOS. I rebooted again, holding this time the Alt/Option key. The boot menu showed two identically looking "EFI Boot" items. It turned out that one of them is Mac OS, and the other is NixOS. (Strange -- before the one with Mac OS was named after the Mac OS partition.) Ok.
I mounted and inspected the content of the EFI system partition out of curiosity:
§ tree /Volumes/EFI/
.
├── EFI
│ ├── APPLE
│ │ ├── EXTENSIONS
│ │ │ └── Firmware.scap
│ │ └── FIRMWARE
│ │ └── MB51_007D_03B_LOCKED.scap
│ ├── Boot
│ │ └── BOOTX64.EFI
│ ├── gummiboot
│ │ └── gummibootx64.efi
│ └── nixos
│ ├── 5683z247xmsrh4lyr2hgpxwlb9gg5wyl-linux-3.12.20-bzImage.efi
│ └── mmjxbf6vwp5mwb384yfd6c8vkhd19gx8-initrd-initrd.efi
└── loader
├── entries
│ └── nixos-generation-1.conf
└── loader.conf
Everything there but /EFI/APPLE and its content has been created by NixOS installation.
Making Mac OS default again
(This was my experience with 14.04.)
To make Mac OS default again and to make the corresponding item in the Option-key boot menu named after the Mac OS partition, it was enough to go to System Preferences... > Startup Disk under Mac OS and select the partition with Mac OS. Strangely, it required entering the admin password twice, and the partition was still not shown as selected, but otherwise it worked.
Other instructions
To always see gummiboot menu, it is enough to set
boot.loader.gummiboot.timeoutin configuration.nix.To configure properly my nVidia graphics card, i ended up using the open-source nouveau driver:services.xserver.videoDrivers = [ "nouveau" ];I have no complaints about it. If i use the proprietary"nvidia"instead, text consoles do not work.Update for NixOS 16.09. I observed that on my machine with NixOS 16.09, the option
services.xserver.videoDriversis not needed in configuration.nix for everything to work well, and that in fact it noticeably degrades the graphical performance according to a few tests i did with glmark2 OpenGL benchmark. I also observed that selecting"nvidia"breaks graphical mode but leaves text consoles, contrary to what i observed with Nix OS 14.04. This all looks a bit strange to me, but this is what i observed, so i removed this option from my configuration.nix.To load the applesmc module (for the sudden motion sensor, for example) it was suggested to me to add the following to configuration.nix:
boot.kernelModules = [ "applesmc" ];
Remarks and observations
The only "problem" with NixOS on my MacBook that i have observed so far is that running NixOS my laptop usually gets 5-10 °C hotter than under Mac OS 10.9. This might be a usual problem for Linux on a Mac.
Links to alternative installation instructions
- Install Linux on a MacBook Air, 17/06/2015 (Installing NixOS on a MacBook Air in a dual-boot configuration with Mac OS).
Some additional tips:
If you want to get your backlight working and prevent your laptop from spontaneously resuming while the lid is closed, you can use something like the following in your configuration.nix:
# Enable the backlight control on rMBP
# Disable USB-based wakeup
# see: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBookPro11,x
powerManagement.powerUpCommands = ''
if [[ "$(cat /sys/class/dmi/id/product_name)" == "MacBookPro11,3" ]]; then
${pkgs.pciutils}/bin/setpci -v -H1 -s 00:01.00 BRIDGE_CONTROL=0
if cat /proc/acpi/wakeup | grep XHC1 | grep -q enabled; then
echo XHC1 > /proc/acpi/wakeup
fi
fi
'';
Depending on your MacBook version, you might need to tweak the above commands, so please don't blindly copy-and-paste.