How to dual boot Fedora with macOS Catalina?

by Admin

Do you want to dual boot fedora with macOS? Here in this article, we are going to dual boot Fedora with macOS Catalina. All the steps are easy and can be performed with ease. You won’t need any expertise with Linux or macOS, following the steps and by the end, you will complete the operation.

Table of Contents

Fedora Linux

Fedora is a free open source Linux-based distribution. It is designed and developed by a community supported by Fedora Project. This community includes Red Hat which is an American software company that provides open-source software too.

Fedora was released in 2003 for the first time and there are five different versions of Fedora:

Workstation which is focused on the personal computer
Server focused on servers
CoreOS totally dedicated for cloud computing
SilverBlue which focused on an immutable desktop specialized
IoT focused on IoT devices

It is estimated that Fedora Project updates its product within 6-8 months. These updates include UI enhancement and performance acceleration.

Moreover, according to Search Data Center Fedora is also the second most famous and commonly used Linux distribution after Ubuntu. It is also worth mentioning that there has been some tremendous enhancement made to the Linux distro.

Key Features of Fedora

Here are some of the key features of Fedora Linux that you might find interesting:

Good power management
Virtual Desktop Support
Good End-user Software
Dynamic Firewall
RPM Package manager.

How to Dual Boot Fedora with macOS Catalina?

dual boot fedora and catalina — dual boot fedora and Catalina

Before we move to the procedure, it is very essential to create a backup of data on your existing hard drive. It is recommended to create a backup on any external hard drive. Thus, for this purpose, you can use Time Machine which is a utility to back up your data on any drive.

Things you need to dual boot Fedora and with macOS Catalina:

1: Download Fedora Workstation ISO

Fedora Workstation is a free Linux Distro. Now the first thing you need is to download the Fedora workstation ISO file from its official website. Click here and you will be redirected to Fedora official.

2: Download Fedora Media Writer

The second thing that you will need is Fedora Media Writer. This is a free utility tool that is used to create a bootable USB installer of Fedora (workstation). Besides Fedora Media Writer there are other third-party applications that you can use for this purpose. For me, the easiest method is to use the Fedora Media Writer, which can be downloaded here.

3: Get yourself a USB

Now you are going to find a USB drive of at least 16 GB of storage. Here you will need to make sure that all the data on the USB are backed up. During the operation of burning the Fedora on a USB, all the data will be removed.

Steps to dual boot Fedora and with macOS Catalina

Step #1: Make a partition for Fedora:

The very first step is to make a separate partition for Fedora on your existing hard drive. To do so, go to disk utility and select the internal hard drive, then;

Click on partition button in the navigation toolbar
Use the [+] sign to shrink the hard drive and add a partition of at least 25GB.
For Fedora partition leave the name as “untitled”, format “MacOS Extended (Journaled)” and size “25GB”
Then click Apply > Partition> Continue

Create a New Partition

Step #2: Create Fedora bootable USB installer:

As I mentioned before, you need the Fedora Media Writer app to create Fedora Workstation bootable USB installer drive. If you have not yet downloaded Fedora Media Writer click here to download, then follow the steps below.

Install and open Fedora Media Writer;

Select “Custom Image” from the list, then browse the Fedora Workstation ISO
Select Custom Image
Choose your USB drive and click on “Write to Disk”
Click on Write to Disk

This process will take a couple of minutes depending on your system speed.

Step #3: Install Fedora Workstation on macOS Catalina:

If everything is prepared until you are ready to dual boot Fedora Workstation and macOS Catalina. Therefore, restart your Mac and hold down the [Option Key] while the system reboots. This will take you to the boot manager menu. On boot menu:

Select “Fedora Media” option from the boot manager menu
Choose the proper drive
Select “Automatic configure partitioning” and click “Done” when the installation options appear
Choose Reclaim Space
Now select the hfs+ “Fedora Workstation” volume you created for Fedora Workstation, and click the “Delete” Button (make sure not to select Delete)
Click Reclaim space button to accept changes, and then return to the main menu
Next, Click Begin Installation

It is going to take about 10-15 minutes to complete the installation. until then make sure to connect your Mac to a power source, and do not turn off your system.

How you can switch between macOS Catalina and Fedora workstation?

Basically, there are two ways you can switch between macOS Catalina and Fedora workstations.

Open System Preferences, then Startup Disk and select the OS you wish to use to start up the Mac and click Restart.
Restart your mac and hold down the [Option Key] while it reboots. Now you may see both macOS and Fedora, select any of them you wish to start up and press enter key.

Conclusions

This was all about how you can dual boot Fedora with macOS Catalina on any system that includes MacBook, iMac, or Mac mini. Please remember to make a backup of your data on your drive to an external drive or cloud. I hope this article is helpful, if you got any questions leave them in the comment box below. I will answer your questions as soon as possible.

How to dual boot Fedora with macOS Catalina?