Creating a Manjaro Linux Boot Drive on macOS

Manjaro is a popular Arch Linux based distribution. If we want to test it out on a Mac, we can create a boot drive and run the OS directly from it.

Basic steps

1. Download Manjaro Distribution

   Download page

2. Format USB Drive

   To find the volume identifier of our USB stick, we run

   $ diskutil list
   # ...
   /dev/disk4 (external, physical):
      #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
      0:                                                   *31.7 GB    disk4
   

   Erase disk (e.g. volume_identifier=disk4)

   $ diskutil secureErase 1 ${volume_identifier}
   Started erase on disk4
   Finished erase on disk4
   

3. Convert ISO to IMG

   $ hdiutil convert ${input_path} -format UDRW -o ${output_path}
   

   Note: input_path and output_path are the locations of the downloaded Manjaro ISO file respectively the output path for the image (latter without file suffix).

   Example:

   $ input_path=~/Downloads/manjaro-xfce-18.1.5-191229-linux54.iso
   $ output_path=~/Desktop/manjaro-xfce-18.1.5-191229-linux54
   $ hdiutil convert ${input_path} -format UDRW -o ${output_path}
   # ...
   created: /Users/main/Desktop/manjaro-xfce-18.1.5-191229-linux54.dmg
   

4. Burn to USB Drive

   $ diskutil unmountDisk /dev/${volume_identifier}
   Unmount of all volumes on disk4 was successful
   

   Then

   sudo dd if=${output_path}.dmg of=/dev/${volume_identifier} bs=1m 
   

5. Restart Mac and hold alt key after startup chime to select boot drive. Choose the USB Drive.

6. Enjoy Manjaro!