Macbook Pro 14 M2 : how to boot from a usb?

[Jarodquest]

Hi all,
I've my new Macbook Pro 14 on M2 and Ventura.
Initially i was able to boot on an usb stick with the option touch, but i try and it doesn't work.
Could you help me, i know that we can also have access to a boot manager screen via the power on button but i'm just looking for the boot screen like it was on my Macbook Pro from 2016.
Thanks

 

[DarkPremiumCho]

It appears that the boot screen in the era of Intel Macs are no longer available on Apple silicon machines:

1. Plug the drive into a Mac.
2. Turn on the Mac and continue to hold the power button until you see the startup options window, which shows your bootable volumes.
3. Select your volume, then click Continue.

 

[Jarodquest]

Thanks for your quick reply, could we boot on an USB C stick or are we limited on specific format and type of material?

 

[Fishrrman]

"i'm just looking for the boot screen like it was on my Macbook Pro from 2016."

That's gone.
It's not coming back.

You have to press (and HOLD) the touch ID button, invoke the boot options, and then proceed from there.

 

[abercrombie]

Yikes, was searching for how to boot from a Ubuntu Live USB on my M2 Air like I did on my older Macs.

Guess we can't any longer.

 

[chrfr]

Yikes, was searching for how to boot from a Ubuntu Live USB on my M2 Air like I did on my older Macs.

Guess we can't any longer.

That’s definitely not an option. If you want to boot linux on an Apple Silicon Mac you need Asahi Linux: https://asahilinux.org/

 

[iMacDragon]

Essentially freely booting from external sources is no longer allowed for security, a boot manager can be installed in a signed and authorised way like asahi does which then can do whatever it wants.

 

[spicynujac]

I can see there are a few linux options available for Apple Silicon (Kali, Asahi). Are you saying there is a hardware limitation that prevents Apple Silicon machines from booting off USB?

I'm not interested in installing Linux. I do run live Linux often off a small thumbdrive on my Intel Macbook for privacy reasons (facebook, ads, trackers, cookies, certain sites where I want to maintain anonymiity). If this is not possible on Apple Silicon that's a big disappointment.

(A live boot just uses the Apple hardware to run a linux session--it has no security implications for the Mac side. You can't even access the Mac side at all on a live boot. It's actually a huge security boon because all cookies, history, and anything you downloaded on the live linux session is just stored in RAM and disappears when you reboot).

Is this really a hardware limitation that will be difficult to overcome?

 

[iMacDragon]

Impossible to 100% fully boot straight to USB, if this is a scenario wanted, at a minimum the bootloader environment needs to be securely installed to the SSD, but this can then take over and boot an arbitrary live install.

i.e. the setup only needs to be done once, and the usb stick is free to be updated independantly in this scenario.

 

[spicynujac]

@iMacDragon Do you know of any tutorials or sites discussing how to do this? Everything I can find is strictly related to *installing* linux on Apple Silicon Macs.

Google has been taken over by advertising and corporate interests and it's increasingly hard to search for info.

 

[iMacDragon]

There's some discussion on setting up USB boot and such at eg https://github.com/AsahiLinux/asahi-installer/issues/96 but I've not yet done anything myself as I'm still waiting for machine support.