Installing Debian on iMac 17" (Late 2006)

From Wurst-Wasser.net
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Preparation

Reading

I started to read this:

Then I downloaded Debian for AMD64.

Attempt #1: USB-stick

FAIL: Preparing the USB-stick[1]

bash-3.2# mount | grep UNTIT
/dev/disk7s2 on /Volumes/UNTITLED (msdos, local, nodev, nosuid, noowners)
bash-3.2# umount /dev/disk7s2
umount(/Volumes/UNTITLED): Resource busy -- try 'diskutil unmount'
bash-3.2# diskutil unmount /dev/disk7s2
Volume UNTITLED on disk7s2 unmounted
bash-3.2# dd if=debian-9.8.0-amd64-netinst.iso of=/dev/disk7      
598016+0 records in
598016+0 records out
306184192 bytes transferred in 630.153914 secs (485888 bytes/sec)
bash-3.2# sync
bash-3.2# diskutil eject /dev/disk7
Disk /dev/disk7 ejected
bash-3.2# 

Okay. That didn't work out. Booting the iMac with Option-Key down doesn't show the stick. This might not have to do with the USB-stick, but with the ISO itself. See below.

Attempt #2: CD-ROM

FAIL: Preparing the boot CD[2]

Burning a CD? Oh well..

IMacLate2006DebianInstallCDBurn.png

Okay. That was another fail. Obviously, the standard ISOs can't be read by this Mac's 32bit EFI. Okay, starting over. Again.

Attempt #3: Modifying ISO & burning CD-ROM

FAIL: Preparing an ISO

Get isomacprog.c from https://mattgadient.com/2016/07/11/linux-dvd-images-and-how-to-for-32-bit-efi-macs-late-2006-models/ .

WroDos-MBP13-AC3L:Debian 9 heiko$ gcc isomacprog.c -o isomacprog
WroDos-MBP13-AC3L:Debian 9 heiko$ ./isomacprog debian-9.8.0-amd64-netinst.iso
done
WroDos-MBP13-AC3L:Debian 9 heiko$ mv debian-9.8.0-amd64-netinst.iso debian-9.8.0-amd64-netinst_Mac.iso

FAIL: Preparing the boot CD, again...

IMacLate2006DebianInstallCDBurn2.png IMacLate2006DebianInstallCDBurn3.png IMacLate2006DebianInstallCDBurn4.png

Again. This CD doesn't show up on boot. Dang.

Attempt #4: Downloading a Mac-ISO from debian.org

You might have heard the sound of my hand slapping my forehead.

There's an easier way. Get the Mac-Image here: https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/current/amd64/iso-cd/



  • Footnotes:
  1. You might want to skip this step :)
  2. You might want to skip this step, too...