Unfortunately I haven't had time to try creating a Linux boot disk which is compatible and cloning it to the internal drive. I haven't heard anything more recent or how good the support is with it. I read about it on Phoronix last year sometime between Sept. (In particular, I've looked through the changelogs for 5.4-5.6 and didn't find any relevant references to T2.) Can you give me some links to what you know about this support landing in the kernel? I've been searching for references to the kernel T2 support, but haven't been able to find any. I'm very curious about trying Linux on my 16' MacBook Pro. The most you can do is disable some of the security settings to allow a non-Apple OS to boot and to allow booting from an external drive. You cannot disable the T2 chip as it is an integral part of the system. I do not recommend dual booting this laptop with both macOS and Linux unless you have good backups and are prepared to perform a clean install or restore from backup since you will at some point most likely do something which will prevent either OS from booting and possibly risk losing access to all the data in one or both operating systems. Then clone the Linux install to the internal SSD (again you will need a boot disk with support for the T2 security chip). I would suggest trying to boot this customized Linux boot disk externally to confirm you use the built-in keyboard, trackpad, and either WiFi or ethernet. If you want to run Linux on this laptop, then you will most likely need to first install Linux to an older Mac or other UEFI booting PC and install the latest v5.6 kernel. I don't recall which of the post v5.4 releases has T2 support.Ĭurrently you cannot easily install Linux onto an Apple computer which uses the T2 security chip because the Linux Kernel with the T2 support is not included in any of the currently released distributions as a default kernel. I'm fairly sure you need at least kernel version 5.4+ to get some of these features working and I believe v5.6 may be necessary for T2 support.

Linux support for the Keyboard & Trackpad, the networking drivers, and the T2 security chip only just recently got merged into the mainline Linux Kernel.

How to install linux on m1 mac