[Novalug] MAC mini PPC and Ubuntu

Thu Jan 26 14:22:27 EST 2012

If it's one of the Intel architecture Macs, it just has to have the
Boot Camp software, and be set for the EFI firmware.

And another potentially dumb question - unless it's a PPC Mac, why the
hell would you want to put Linux on it when you have OS X?

On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 13:43, Mark Smith <mark at winksmith.com> wrote:
> i booted and was able to install 6.10 last night.  i moved towards
> upgrading, but the repos no longer exist.  i'll need to do some research
> to figure out what the repos i should be using are.  i seem to remember
> reading some notes about that.
>
> On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 10:57:56PM +1300, Mark Smith wrote:
>> Interestingly, I booted my mac mini with a live ubuntu 5.10 disk
>> and it came up normally.  This system has an "Apple Computer
>> Inc. UniNorth/Intrepid ATA/100 disk controller.  I could find no
>> loaded driver that looked like that though.
>>
>> At this point I feel as if I could install 5.10 successfully,
>> but I'd rather install a later version.
>>
>> I'll try again with 6.10 i think.
>>
>> I also have a 6.0.3 Debian DVD, but for some reason my system
>> wouldn't boot off of it.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 07:52:23PM -0500, Mark A. Metz wrote:
>> > Matt's advice is very sound.  I booted my G4 with a Live CD and
>> > could "see" the drive (even the installation routine could recognize
>> > the drive), but I couldn't complete a successful install until I
>> > partitioned the drive.  I installed GParted to RAM with the Live CD
>> > then partitioned the drive.  Once I partitioned the drive, the
>> > installation routine completed successfully.  This was with a Ubuntu
>> > 10.04 LTS Live CD that I downloaded from here:
>> > http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/lucid/release/
>> >
>> > If you can't recognize the drive from a Live CD, I wouldn't remove
>> > the current OS without a back up plan.  I do not have an old OSX
>> > disk lying around at home, but I can probably get my hands on one.
>> > And there are a number of Apple people on the list.  What OS is on
>> > there now?  Panther? Jaguar? Tiger?
>> >
>> > As an alternate plan, I think you started this adventure needing a
>> > computer for your daughter.  I have an older Sony multimedia desktop
>> > (P4, I think) that would do the trick if you have a monitor,
>> > keyboard, etc.  I planned to toy with Myth on this machine, but I'll
>> > likely not get to it.  I can donate this to you, or we can make a
>> > trade of some kind. ; )  It already has MythUbuntu on it, but you
>> > could load whatever the hardware could take.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On 01/25/2012 05:38 PM, Matt Ryanczak wrote:
>> > >fwiw i'm very skeptical that any OSX specific disk formatting (GUID,
>> > >etc) would cause Linux to not see the disk at all. Before you go
>> > >overwriting things you might check to see if Linux even sees the disk
>> > >controller. something like:
>> > >
>> > >>matt at bender:~/lspci | grep -i -e sata -e ide
>> > >>00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 05)
>> > >>05:00.0 SATA controller: JMicron Technology Corp. JMB362 AHCI Controller (rev 10)
>> > >>09:00.0 SATA controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE9172 SATA 6Gb/s Controller (rev 11)
>> > >If you don't see a disk controller of some sort you are not going to see
>> > >a disk. I've done a bit of Linux on apple hw in the past, I've seen
>> > >unsupported controllers... worth checking imho.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >On 01/25/2012 05:25 PM, Mark Smith wrote:
>> > >>okay, silly question, but i reckoned there'd be some sort of linux live
>> > >>disk that i could use to boot the unit.  then i'd get a shell and destroy
>> > >>the first couple of sectors of the disk drive and then continue on to
>> > >>install the system normally.  of course, in retrospect, if i had a live
>> > >>disk for my mac then the install would work w/o having to destroy the
>> > >>apple os partition in the first place.  ;-)
>> > >>
>> > >>so, i guess i can boot into macosx and then run dd over my hard drive or
>> > >>fdisk or similar, or i can boot from a macosx rescue disk and then do
>> > >>the same.  i'm a bit afraid though as that's a one way ticket.  if the
>> > >>partition type idea fails then i still can't install and i'm also left
>> > >>w/o a macosx.  apple is not supporting macosx on g4 any longer so i
>> > >>might be stuck.
>> > >>
>> > >>do you happen to know any live images that i can use to access the disk?
>> > >>
>> > >>On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 03:59:45PM -0500, Mark A. Metz wrote:
>> > >>>I think you'll have to remove the Apple OS partition table with the live image or GParted first.
>> > >>>I think it will work unpartitioned.
>> > >>>
>> > >>>Mark Smith<mark at winksmith.com>   wrote:
>> > >>>
>> > >>>i tried an 11.10 install last night. after a couple of false starts
>> > >>>i was able to boot from a usb key and everything looked keen until i
>> > >>>reached the disk partition section. no hard disks were represented.
>> > >>>i booted back to macosx and lo and behold my disk was there so obviously
>> > >>>it's missing a driver or something. it's a standard ata disk bus so
>> > >>>i'm not sure why it failed. google revealed nothing interesting.
>> > >>>
>> > >>>anyway, i'll give debian 6.0.3 a go tonight unless something else comes
>> > >>>to mind.
>> > >>>
>> > >>>On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 02:46:59PM +1300, Mark Smith wrote:
>> > >>>>Hey... I was gonna buy my daughter a smallish desktop computer for her
>> > >>>>room, but then i remembered that i had a MAC mini (one of the older
>> > >>>>PPC varieties). I had originally purchased it due to its size and
>> > >>>>noiselessness; both of these features will be helpful here too. It's
>> > >>>>not the latest and greatest, but for her needs it should be completely
>> > >>>>adequate.
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>>I looked it up for Ubuntu and it turns out that it's supported in a
>> > >>>>fashion. I have 32b PPC for 11.10 and 11.04. At least it's way better
>> > >>>>supported than by Apple!
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>>I found the right images to try and I found some documentation to help
>> > >>>>me along. Has anyone given this a go? or has some additional comments
>> > >>>>regarding this platform/os combination?
>> > >>>--
>> > >>>Mark Smith
>> > >>>mark at winksmith.com
>> > >>>mark at tux.org
>> > >>>_____________________________________________
>> > >>>
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>>
>> --
>> Mark Smith
>> mark at winksmith.com
>> mark at tux.org
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>
> --
> Mark Smith
> mark at winksmith.com
> mark at tux.org
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