##Introduction and Motivation
This is part one in series on dual booting Arch Linux and Mac OS X on a MacBook Pro. This part covers creating a bootalbe USB installer. [Part Two]({{ site.url }}/2015/02/05/arch-linux-on-a-macbook-pro-part-2-preparing-for-dual-boot “Arch Linux on a MacBook Pro Part 2 - Preparing for Dual Boot”) discusses how to prepare the MacBook Pro. Installing the base Arch Linux operating system and getting the dual boot between Arch and OS X working is covered in [Part Three]({{ site.url }}/2015/02/05/arch-linux-on-a-macbook-pro-part-3-base-installation “Arch Linux on a MacBook Pro Part 3 - Base Installation”). Setting up the system, configuring Xorg, installing Gnome and Awesome are all covered in [Part Four]({{ site.url }}/2015/02/05/arch-linux-on-a-macbook-pro-part-4-system-configuration “Arch Linux on a MacBook Pro Part 4 - System Configuration”).
My day job has transitioned to system administration and infrastructure automation (Chef!). All of our virtual infrastructure (with rare exceptions) is based on Linux so I am keenly interested in learning more about its underpinnings. Setting up Arch Linux and sorting through its configuration challenges seems like a good way to jump into the deep end of the Linux pool.
[Arch Linux on a MacBook Pro Part 1 - Creating a USB Installer]({{ site.url }}/2015/02/05/arch-linux-on-a-macbook-pro-part-1-creating-a-usb-installer “Arch Linux on a MacBook Pro Part 1 - Creating a USB Installer”)
[Arch Linux on a MacBook Pro Part 2 - Preparing for Dual Boot]({{ site.url }}/2015/02/05/arch-linux-on-a-macbook-pro-part-2-preparing-for-dual-boot “Arch Linux on a MacBook Pro Part 2 - Preparing for Dual Boot”)
[Arch Linux on a MacBook Pro Part 3 - Base Installation]({{ site.url }}/2015/02/05/arch-linux-on-a-macbook-pro-part-3-base-installation “Arch Linux on a MacBook Pro Part 3 - Base Installation”)
[Arch Linux on a MacBook Pro Part 4 - System Configuration]({{ site.url }}/2015/02/05/arch-linux-on-a-macbook-pro-part-4-system-configuration “Arch Linux on a MacBook Pro Part 4 - System Configuration”)
##Download an Arch Linux ISO Visit the Arch download site and grab an ISO.
##Convert the ISO to UDRW Format
The image needs to be in Read/Write Universal Disk Image Format (UDRW) format. Use the command line tool hdiutil to convert the file.
$ hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o destination_file.img source_file.iso
The resulting image will actually be called destination_file.img.dmg as hdiutil will append that suffix. The file format extension won’t matter, so you can ignore it.
##Prepare the USB Drive While some of this can be done using GUI tools, not all of it can, so I’ll describe all the steps using the command line.
###Find the name of the USB drive Insert the drive and then run this command:
$ diskutil list
The output will look something like this:
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_CoreStorage 399.5 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
5: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 134.2 MB disk0s5
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_HFS MacOSX *399.2 GB disk1
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *2.0 GB disk2
1: Microsoft Basic Data UNTITLED 1 2.0 GB disk2s1
In this case the USB is /dev/disk2.
###Prepare the drive Prepare the USB by making it all free space. This will delete all data on the USB drive.
$ diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk2 1 "Free Space" "unused" "100%"
Substitute the proper designation for your USB drive.
###Copy the ISO Now we can copy the converted image to the USB drive.
$ dd if=destination_file.img.dmg of=/dev/disk2 bs=1m
The dd command does not show any output before it has finished the copy process, so be patient and wait for it to complete. When the command does complete OS X will try to mount the drive and fail as it won’t recognize the formatting. Click ignore or eject.
###Eject the drive If you clicked ignore above you can eject the drive from the command line.
$ diskutil eject /dev/disk2
Now the bootable image is ready to be used. Proceed to [Arch Linux on a MacBook Pro Part 2 - Preparing for Dual Boot]({{ site.url }}/2015/02/05/arch-linux-on-a-macbook-pro-part-2-preparing-for-dual-boot “Arch Linux on a MacBook Pro Part 2 - Preparing for Dual Boot”).