New user. Old Mac. (Is x 10.6.8)

[8chuck8]

Looks like creating unallocated disk space is not straightforward in Catalina.
I found an older version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5CUm3AvF8k
however the resizevolume command does not work any morei n Catalina.

looks like something more hardcore is needed:
https://superuser.com/questions/1270...ition-manually
i.e. getting into MacOS recovery mode....
Is there an easier way?

[CelticWarrior]

What partitioning do I need to set up?

I think you call it "unallocated space" how do I do that?

Unallocated space means no partition. You simply delete the two partitions you said you created for Ubuntu thus leaving that space unallocated.
And no, you don't need to use MacOS for that. You can open Gparted or Disks in the Ubuntu live session and do everything from there before starting the installation.

[8chuck8]

....sorry, I did not see the second page
thanks, that will make life much easier, rather then going around all the MacOS hurdles.

Are there any instructions how to use Gparted? otherwise I should be able to find them myself somewhere.

[CelticWarrior]

Gparted is as easy as the OSX Disk Utility, the tool that you probably used to create the (unneeded and unusable) partitions in the first place. The same way you created them you can also delete, resize, etc. just make sure you aren't deleting the system partition(s).

I said you can do the same with GParted and you can, right-clicking any partition gives you all the possible actions, but I never said you should. Partitions are always better managed from the original already installed OS using said OS native tools. And all you should have done was to shrink one or more partitions there to make room for Ubuntu.

Now my honest and necessarily harsh opinion: You don't know enough yet for the task you want to perform. A solid knowledge of the basics of partitioning is needed and the sequence of questions show that you don't know what you're doing so the risk of ending up with an unbootable system is very high. Please obtain an OSX recovery/installation media before going any further. And, of course, make sure you have good backups of all those personal files you can't afford to loose.

[8chuck8]

Harsh words? "... you are clueless" haha.
You are hurting my pride. But yes, I am skating on thin ice here. But that's ok. I am trying to resurrect an old MacBook that would otherwise been thrown away.

I re-partitioned under MacOS and created unallocated space (like 320 GB), however Ubuntu stalled exactly at the same spot. I also reconfirmed that it is unallocated space, when I discovered that Gparted isl already in the Ubuntu utilities. hmm, what now?

I found Fossapub and tried that, the advantage being that you can install it in RAM (ok, just for the session).
I probably try to install it to the hard drive. But now I have to create formatted partitions (a main partition plus a Swap partition. I still have to check some details regarding formatting etc. According to your point I should the partitioning under MacOS (if the correct formatting can be selected). Otherwise I use Gparted under Fossapup.

Anyways, the ice is thin, I hear some occasional cracks, but I am still skating away

[8chuck8]

lost a battle, won the war.
In case someone is reading this and wants to know the outcome.

I lost MacOS (oh, well, I forgot that expanding a partition also kills the content ).
I installed MX Linux with no problem and did a clean install on the hard drive.
It is working as expected and I achieved my goal to resurrect my old Macbook.

Ok, sour grapes, I would have liked to keep my MacOS and data that I never looked at in 5 years.

My conclusion: there is quite a variety of cases combining Linux version and MacOS, even if you are only a few months off, instructions you find might be wrong.
So make sure to look for something that represents exactly your situation.