On Thu, Dec 04, 2014 at 01:25:37PM -0500, Brian Sammon wrote: > I was recently given a Mac Mini (Intel Mid 2007) that had been wiped. > > I tried to install Debian (Wheezy) on it, and the installer reported success, > but > when it came time to eject and reboot, Debian didn't boot from the hard drive. > > Googling finds me various pages about installing Linux where one of the steps > is something like "Boot into OSX" > > Is there a way to install Debian/Linux on this machine that doesn't involve > buying or borrowing (or "borrowing") a copy of OSX? Is it easier to install > linux on a USB disk and run it off of that? > > Two particular subtasks that I may need to do that seem to require OSX: > 1) "Blessing" a partition > 2) Checking what version of firmware it has (some versions have BIOS > compatibility) > > Any pointers/suggestions?
I saw similar behavior installing on more recent Mac Minis. There, the issue was that the Mac firmware's idea of the boot sequence didn't match Debian's. I wound up solving this by installing rEFInd (from http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/ ) , though not always the same way. You'd presumably need to install it to the EFI partition if you don't have a Mac partition. I think it's also possible to get Grub or even the Linux Kernel set up to boot as the EFI loader, but I stopped trying that after I got booting to work reliably. It should be possible to boot the Debian installer in rescue mode, get a shell, and do the install from there. Jon Leonard > I'm also looking into PureDarwin as a possible solution. > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org > Archive: > https://lists.debian.org/20141204132537.c44457fee702caa9b3bac...@brisammon.fastmail.fm -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20141204192110.gh22...@slimy.com
