Resizing macOS/Asahi Linux partition post-installation (no previous Arch-based install)

[onyx-kiwi (please delete my account)]

Hello everyone,

I have a very similar problem to the one already discussed and solved here, but I have not previously done an Asahi Arch Linux ARM installation.

So I only had the original macOS on my computer.

Is there still a way to subsequently reduce the macOS partition so that I can give Asahi Linux more space? If possible, I would very much like to avoid a new installation.

I now use Asahi Linux as the main system on my MacBook Pro M1 (2020) and I love it.

Thanks in advance for the great support and have a nice weekend

[yuchanns (Hanchin Hsieh)]

This is my solution:

Asahi Installed - Can I now increase allociated GB?

Yes, you can increase the storage capacity by rebalancing the BTRFS filesystem. First, create a volume with the desired capacity in MacOS. Next, switch to Asahi and type lsblk to view device information containing the volume. NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS zram0 252:0 0 8G 0 disk [SWAP] nvme0n1 259:0 0 931.8G 0 disk ├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 500M 0 part ├─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 301.6G 0 part ├─nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 2.3G 0 part ├─nvme0n1p4 259:4…

[onyx-kiwi (please delete my account)]

Thanks a lot, but is it really that easy?

In which format must the volume be created in macOS, or does it not matter?

Seems that @vault followed your instructions, but still had some problems. Did the procedure you described work for you without any additional commands? That would be great, of course.

I just want to avoid having to reinstall after I’ve tried it.

Thx and best wishes

[yuchanns (Hanchin Hsieh)]

Yes, it took me less than 10 minutes. Most of the time was spent waiting for the rebalancing operation.

It doesn’t matter what format you use, as long as you can list information about that device with lsblk.

Valut didn’t handle it like this due to his lack of Linux experience; instead, he chose to reinstall.

[onyx-kiwi (please delete my account)]

@yuchanns

It doesn’t matter what format you use, as long as you can list information about that device with lsblk.

Thanks, that actually seems to be the problem.

In macOS I opened built-in disk utility and created a new volume. The only allowed format is APFS. That works so far, but in Linux lsblk I can’t see the volume.

What am I doing wrong? Do I have to use a different tool or is Disk Utility enough? How can I make the new volume visible in lsblk?

[yuchanns (Hanchin Hsieh)]

It’s weird. You should be able to see the APFS part even if you haven’t created a new volume. All parts are just following a disk.

❯ lsblk
NAME         MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
zram0        252:0    0     8G  0 disk [SWAP]
nvme0n1      259:0    0 931.8G  0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1  259:1    0   500M  0 part <- macos
├─nvme0n1p2  259:2    0 301.6G  0 part <- macos
├─nvme0n1p3  259:3    0   2.3G  0 part <- macos
├─nvme0n1p4  259:4    0   500M  0 part /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p5  259:5    0  1000M  0 part /boot
│                                      /home
│                                      /
├─nvme0n1p7  259:7    0 463.2G  0 part <- new volume
└─nvme0n1p10 259:8    0     5G  0 part
nvme0n2      259:9    0     3M  0 disk
nvme0n3      259:10   0   128M  0 disk

[marcan (Hector Martin)]

Nit:

├─nvme0n1p1  259:1    0   500M  0 part <- iBoot system stuff
├─nvme0n1p2  259:2    0 301.6G  0 part <- macos
├─nvme0n1p3  259:3    0   2.3G  0 part <- Asahi stub

[yuchanns (Hanchin Hsieh)]

Thanks for the correction.

[onyx-kiwi (please delete my account)]

Thank you both, but it seems that my skills are not sufficient.

This is what it looks like for me in diskutil list in Terminal macOS and lsblk under Linux:

diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.3 GB disk0
1: Apple_APFS_ISC Container disk1 524.3 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_APFS Container disk4 400.0 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_APFS Container disk3 2.5 GB disk0s3
4: EFI EFI - ASAHI 524.3 MB disk0s4
5: Linux Filesystem 1.1 GB disk0s5
6: Linux Filesystem 90.3 GB disk0s6
7: Apple_APFS_Recovery Container disk2 5.4 GB disk0s7

/dev/disk3 (synthesized):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +2.5 GB disk3
Physical Store disk0s3
1: APFS Volume Asahi Linux - Data 3.6 MB disk3s1
2: APFS Volume Asahi Linux 1.1 MB disk3s2
3: APFS Volume Preboot 195.2 MB disk3s3
4: APFS Volume Recovery 806.5 MB disk3s4

/dev/disk4 (synthesized):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +400.0 GB disk4
Physical Store disk0s2
1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD 10.3 GB disk4s1
2: APFS Snapshot com.apple.os.update-… 10.3 GB disk4s1s1
3: APFS Volume Preboot 6.2 GB disk4s2
4: APFS Volume Recovery 937.7 MB disk4s3
5: APFS Volume Data 260.8 GB disk4s5
6: APFS Volume VM 20.5 KB disk4s6
7: APFS Volume Resize 29.3 GB disk4s7 (NEW VOLUME WITH 120 GB space and already incl. some data)

With the new Volume this container has 307.81 GB of space used. The minimum size is 400 GB.

But lsblk does not show anything here:

lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
zram0 252:0 0 7,3G 0 disk [SWAP]
nvme0n1 259:0 0 465,9G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 500M 0 part
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 372,5G 0 part
├─nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 2,3G 0 part
├─nvme0n1p4 259:4 0 500M 0 part /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p5 259:5 0 1G 0 part /boot
├─nvme0n1p6 259:6 0 84,1G 0 part /home »»»»» existing Asahi Linux Volume
│ /
└─nvme0n1p7 259:7 0 5G 0 part
nvme0n2 259:8 0 3M 0 disk
nvme0n3 259:9 0 128M 0 disk

The new Volume is not displayed.

Do you have any idea what I can do differently, or should I delete Asahi Remix completely and then reinstall it?

[marcan (Hector Martin)]

You did not create a new partition/resize the existing APFS partition, but rather a new APFS volume, which is useless. That’s just sharing space with your existing macOS, it doesn’t resize anything or free up any partition space.

Delete the volume and Partition your disk. Partition is a separate button in Disk Utility. I recommend picking the exFAT format since it makes it clearer that this is not intended to be a macOS volume.

[onyx-kiwi (please delete my account)]

@marcan

Delete the volume and Partition your disk. Partition is a separate button in Disk Utility. I recommend picking the exFAT format since it makes it clearer that this is not intended to be a macOS volume.

Thank you, but partitioning was not possible for me using the button in Disk Utility. The values ​​were all unchangeable.

Anyway, I set everything up again from scratch and the split is 50% macOS and 50% Asahi Linux.

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
zram0 252:0 0 7,3G 0 disk [SWAP]
nvme0n1 259:0 0 465,9G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 500M 0 part
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 230,2G 0 part
├─nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 2,3G 0 part
├─nvme0n1p4 259:4 0 500M 0 part /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p5 259:5 0 1G 0 part /boot
├─nvme0n1p6 259:6 0 226,4G 0 part /home
│ /
└─nvme0n1p7 259:7 0 5G 0 part
nvme0n2 259:8 0 3M 0 disk
nvme0n3 259:9 0 128M 0 disk

Thanks for the support anyway. I am very happy now and only create new files under Asahi Linux = my new startup volume and main system

[sehalia (Earl Taylor)]

This worked great for me. I created the Partition in macos and then followed the instructions linked in the original post.

I added a comment there as I had to change some of the commands slightly (probably becausew I formatted the new macos partition as exFat instead of just leaving it I had to use force option -f to add it). Also the second command was slightly different for me.