Mac Mini 2007 needs a minimal EFI compatible .iso

[dugrdan]

Hi,
I'm trying to find an EFI compatible .iso for a supported distribution of linux that will fit onto a compact disc (CD). This means the .iso needs to be less than 700 mb in size. <700 mb used to be standard for kubuntu .iso distributions. Now its only available in DVD or non-EFI compatible format.

I need this because I'm trying to install kubuntu on my mid-2007 Mac mini, 1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo. The Mac Mini will not boot from either USB or DVD. I was able to install Lucid 10.04 from CD, but can't update to Pangolin 12.04 inside the system due to the update not recognizing the packages. The Ubuntu mini.iso on CD was not EFI compatible and would not work either.

Thanks for your attention. Please let me know if you have a solution.

[claydoh]

If I'm not mistaken the problem with 2007 mac minis is that though they are 64 bit cpus they use 32 but efi stuff.

Current Intel Bay Trail (Atom) based devices also have this similar setup. I just bought a Windows 10 convertible 10 inch tablet/mini laptop and had to figure this out to get it to boot from a flash drive.

16.04 and maybe 15.10 will automatically install the 32 bit efi and grub, but oddly they do not have it on the iso image so they don't boot on their own.

It is easy enough to find the needed file and drop it into the flash drive.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2287767

The above has some instruction on this for 15.04. I know squat about Macs so I don't know if using refind is required or not or if you have to use the server iso either. I'd suggest giving a 15.10 or 16.04 image a go using a flash drive and adding the bootia32.efi to it and See if it boots for you.

If 16.04 does boot the installer will install the needed 32bitgrub packages which should save you a number of extra steps that the link describes.

sent from my LG V10 using Tapatalk

[zeeone]

Hmmmm, a Mac mini with no super drive in it, CD only. 1.83 GHZ Core 2 Duo is 64 bit, Core Duo would be 32 bit, off the shelf no
Apple will boot USB. Refit will boot USB up to OS X 10.9, Refind will(the newest one) load USB up to OS X 10.11, do you have an
EFI partition? You will want a double loop boot for install of Linux. AntiX does one or two installs on .ISOs that will fit on
CDs. MX-15 also has a core .ISO that will fit onto a CD, you can use these to get started. Both have a persistence way that does
work. I would have to check it, I think Debian has a Net Installer you can try out.

[dugrdan]

This solved the problem. I installed the kubuntu-16.04-desktop-amd64.iso onto a jump drive using Startup Disk Creator and copied bootia32.efi from John Wells into my /EFI/BOOT/ directory.
Once I plugged the jump drive into my Mac Mini 2,1 it booted, loaded the jump drive, and installed successfully.

Thank you for your help!

[Smurphy]

This solved the problem. I installed the kubuntu-16.04-desktop-amd64.iso onto a jump drive using Startup Disk Creator and copied bootia32.efi from John Wells into my /EFI/BOOT/ directory.
Once I plugged the jump drive into my Mac Mini 2,1 it booted, loaded the jump drive, and installed successfully.

Thank you for your help!

Could you elaborate on "Jump Drive" ?

I am actually right in the same process at this time.
So far - I have an old ubuntu-server 14.04 32Bit and Leopard running on that box on a 640GB HD.
I will replace this drive with an SSD drive, and want to put KUbuntu 16.04 on it directly using refind etc.
However - whatever I tried, I am not able to actually get to the boot prompt/installer of the 64Bit version (Using a USB Stick and dumping the 32bit bootia32.efi from John Wells on it). Yes - I know that the Mainboard/CPU is 64Bit capable, but the EFI firmware is 32bit only.

Do you mean you had to use a drive instead of the USB Stick ? or what exactly. Any more details ?

Thx.

PS: If all that does not work, I'll install KUbuntu onto the SSD drive using my 2012 6,2 macmini, and put the drive into the old one after (On of the many advantages of Linux systems ... You can migrate them from one system to the other without too many issues). I would however want to figure this one out

[Snowhog]

A "jump drive" is just a USB Thumb Drive.

[Smurphy]

Well - I tried it - but that didn't work here. Still seeking to figure out why.

[claydoh]

Try formatting the flash drive as a gpt (NOT msdos/bios) and fat32, then use unetbootin (or rufus in Windows) to create the drive. For uefi systems you don't have to create a disk that emulates an optical drive. This keeps the flash drive writable, making dropping bootia32.efi file into /EFI/BOOT/ a simple drag-and-drop action.


Using dd or some other tools write the OS image as an (un-wrtieable) optical drive, which you do not want

[dugrdan]

A bit more information on my solved problem.

Yes, my jump drive is just a USB stick with 8 gb of storage.

Another note:
Kubuntu 16.04 did install, but had several performance issues including very slow response and stalled programs. I ended up installing Xubuntu 16.04 instead, which is performing much better. I'm not sure if a current version of Kubuntu Xenial will perform better on my Mac Mini 2,1, but Xubuntu Xenial is working well.

I did a full install of Xubuntu with default partitions instead of partitioning myself, because on my first attempt with Xubuntu I damaged the EFI bootloader using a 400 mb EFI partition. I had to reinstall OSX and then reinstall Xubuntu with default partitions to fix this issue.

The version of Kubuntu I installed was a very early "stable" release, and this may have affected the performance. I'm not sure if current patches have fixed the slow response and stalling issues.

[Smurphy]

Thanks for the heads-up. I just got my 120GB SSD Drive. When I have mounted it in, I'll see what I can do in terms of installation and if it works.
*gosh* I'll see if I get that little one running again (Have 2 other Mac Mini's. 4,1 and 6,2 releases running under Linux not making any problems).

[Smurphy]

ok - Little report. The download of the 32bit Bootloader had failed. the file was corrupt, hence the refind bootloader could not find the correct efiloader (32Bit) to load.
Once I have re-downloaded it, it worked fine, Installation is ongoing as we speak (The SSD disk had arrived - speed is not that nice ~ 120MBytes/s).

FYI - applying the instructions to a KUbuntu 16.04 worked quite nicely. I had actually not to choose anything on the refind. Apparently if only one valid bootable option exists, it is booted automatically (that's what happened).

[Smurphy]

So - FYI - the installer went through. And when I boot the macmini 2,1 (2007) it boots directly into kubuntu 16.04.
I am really amazed. I expected to have to modify quite some stuff.

What does not work though, is select a boot-loader etc. (Alt Key while the gong comes). That is probably due to the VFAt instead of the hfsplus filesystem of the EFI parttion.
I doubt Apple modified that behavior just because us Linuxer can't cope with hfsplus :}
So - I'm into fine tuning the OS for SSD usage at this time.