Arch Linux

Poopcrank

Member

Registered: 2025-04-18

Posts: 1

IMac14,2 with nvme Aura Pro X2 boot not working

I’m just getting started with Arch. I’ve no idea how to post logs since I can’t get my install working, so I’ll go with what I can tell you.

I have a iMac 14,2 with an nvme upgrade I did. It’s all working and being recognized on the iMac.

Installing and parittioning is fine. Even installing the bootloader. Problem is, when I boot my iMac and pull the USB it goes to a flashing folder. Now, I have

1. Made 2 fallback boots with efibootmgr (\EFI\APPLE\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI & \EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI) - There are only three bootloaders with the regular (\EFI\GRUB\grubx64.efi) as priority
2. I have edited my GRUB_CMD_LINE to (GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="loglevel=3 splash nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=0 pcie_ports=compat nomodeset nvme_core.mp=0 nvme.ignore_bogus_nid=1")
3. The partitions are all correctly formatted. /dev/nvme0n1p1 is efi, vfat, with flags esp, boot ; /dev/nvme0n1p3 is linuxfilsesystem

Now, I do not have any other os partitions. It’s a bare metal arch. Interestingly, I think I know that it’s a problem in finding the boot on the nvme, as the boot to the flashing folder is fast, liike nvme fast. So I wonder if any one else here has had this problem.

Before you tell me, yes, mac is a funny thing to try linux on, but I got two of these imacs and don’t want to send them to a scrap yard. I had it working before, but I have no idea how I did it and think it was luck. Silly me for not writing these things down. How I got to resetting, well, let’s just say don’t -Syyu for your updates……

Thanks!

Daniel

ntb314

Member

Registered: 2025-02-13

Posts: 27

Re: IMac14,2 with nvme Aura Pro X2 boot not working

Hey Daniel!

If your issue still happens to persist, here are a few things to try:

iMac EFI can be finicky, especially with NVMe drives. The flashing folder usually means the firmware isn’t finding a bootable EFI file, even if `efibootmgr` shows entries.

• Copy GRUB EFI to where Apple expects it 
  Make sure these paths exist and point to a valid `grubx64.efi`: 
      /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI 
      /boot/efi/EFI/APPLE/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI 

  Then run: 

  efibootmgr -c -d /dev/nvme0n1 -p 1 -L "Arch" -l '\EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI'

• Try systemd-boot 
  Apple’s EFI sometimes works better with `bootctl`: 

  bootctl install

   
  Then set up `/boot/efi/loader/entries/arch.conf`.

• Double-check EFI partition --> just to be sure! 
  Ensure it’s FAT32, flagged as ESP and boot, and mounted at `/boot/efi` during install.

Hope this helped, Cheers