/boot/efi not mounted when creating lvm during Ubuntu Server 24.04.1 install on a 2018 Mac Mini

Question

I'm trying to dual boot my 2018 Mac Mini with Ubuntu Server but I'm stuck at Storage Configuration page.

Let me show my problem:

1. Created bootable disk. For this I used my 1TB TOSHIBA external HDD.
2. Created a new partition on my Mac Mini. I have a 512 GB SSD on it.
   1. Opened Disk Utility
   2. I used the circular handle to resize the new partition for Linux to 370GB leaving MacOS with 130GB.
   3. I named this partition UBUNTUSRV.
3. Disabled T2 Boot security
4. Rebooted my Mac and held the Option key while it was starting.
5. Selected the "EFI Boot".
6. Selected *Try or Install Ubuntu Server.
7. Selected language, keyboard layout etc. and got to the Guided storage configuration page. I chose Custom storage layout.
8. Storage configuration.

   1. Find the partition you created. Somehow it wasn't the same size I created. I had created 370GB but it showed 344.789G.

   2. Select Create volume group and hit enter.

      1. Name: vg_ubuntu

      2. Select the partition you created. You'll see 2 partitions under APPLE_SSD_AP0512M_CO.... One is 120.835G, other is 344.785G. Select the 344.785G one.

      3. Create

         

   3. Now you'll see 2 new devices:

      1. vg_ubuntu (new)
      2. free space

   4. Highlight free space, hit enter and click Create logical volume.

      1. Create logical volume

      2. Name: lv_root

      3. Size: 340.785G

      4. Format: ext4

      5. Mount: /

         

   5. Highlight free space, hit enter and click Create logical volume.

      1. Create logical volume
      2. Name: lv_swap
      3. Size: 4.000G
      4. Format: swap

   6. Now the issue arises here. I can't proceed forward at this point because /boot/efi doesn't get mounted. And even when I try to edit it, i.e. partition 1 existing, unused ESP, already formatted as fat 300.000M>, the option to mount it is greyed out.

       

I don't see this problem if I simply mount my Linux partition. Let me show what I mean.

1. Storage configuration.

   1. Find the partition you created. Somehow it wasn't the same size I created. I had created 370GB but it showed 344.789G.

   2. Select the partition, hit enter and click 'Edit'.

      1. Format: ext4
      2. Mount: /
      3. Save

   3. At this point, I can click "Done" and proceed forward because my existing /boot/efi is recognized and mounted automatically. So my guess is that me creating LVM is not letting that happen?

       

Questions:

1. Is it not possible to create LVM while dual booting in Mac?
2. Is there a way to fix this issue because I really want to use LVM? If there's a way, please guide me. Thanks.

Answer 1

I found the steps you missed by using a VirtualBox virtual machine. My machine differs from yours in the following ways.

• I Booted from the downloaded ISO file inserted in a virtual optical drive.
• My machine's sector size is 512 Bytes and yours is 4096 bytes.
• The EFI partition is 200 GiB and yours is 300 GiB.
• Many sizes will not be exactly the same as you get.

I proceeded until I reached the following display, made the same choices as you did and then selected [ Done ], as shown below.

The next display is shown below. I proceeded by selecting Enter shell, as shown below.

I entered the command given below. If you are using a different block device, then enter the command lsblk to determine the correct block device to use.

fdisk /dev/nvme0n1

The results from entering the above command is shown below.

The fdisk command is interactive. The input can be taken from the "Entry" column of the table below.

Entry	Type	Comment
p	command	Print the partition table
d	command	Delete a partition
use default	parameter	Parition number (should be 3)
n	command	Add a new parition
use default	parameter	Parition number (should be 3)
use default	parameter	First sector (should be > end sector of /dev/nvme0n1p2)
+2G	parameter	Size in GiB
p	command	Print the partition table
n	command	Add a new parition
use default	parameter	Parition number (should be 4)
use default	parameter	First sector (should be > end sector of /dev/nvme0n1p3)
use default	parameter	Last sector
t	command	Change a partition type
use default	parameter	Parition number (should be 4)
44	parameter	Partition type (44=Linux LVM)
p	command	Print the partition table
w	command	Write table to disk and exit

When finished, enter the exit command.

The next display is shown below. I proceeded by selecting [Reset], as shown below.

The display should update to show the changes made by the fdisk command, as shown below.

I made partition 3 the boot partition, as shown below.

I created the LVM on partition 4 by using your instructions. The results are shown below.