

- #Can i install linux on mac mini drivers
- #Can i install linux on mac mini full
- #Can i install linux on mac mini Pc
It is possible to run a full Linux system in a removable drive but the installation process is tricky, even if you select the correct destination drive and the the correct destination for the boot loader you might end up with your main hard-drive boot partition overwritten and a USB stick that does not boot at all.
#Can i install linux on mac mini drivers
Unfortunately some features like the ability to update the OS or install drivers can only be accomplished with a full Linux installation. The legacy BIOS used to boot Linux requires a monitor to be attached, but there are some workarounds.Live Linux USB drives are nice for testing purposes and with the new persistence modes they can also remember a few things between sessions. If you intend to run the Mac Mini headless with Linux, you’re going to run into a problem. My Mac Mini went through about 10-20 seconds of wild screen flickering from grey to black to grey to black but then I saw the familiar Fedora framebuffer. At this point, you should be ready to go for hands-off booting.

Reboot again while holding Eject (or F12) to get the OS X disc out of the drive. Just “bless” the partition to make it valid for booting: If you did one giant partition, this should be /dev/disk0s1. Once you’re in the terminal, run diskutil list to figure out which partition is your boot partition.

Pop in the OS X install disc (may need to reboot again to get it to boot) and open a terminal once the install disc fully boots.
#Can i install linux on mac mini Pc
Reboot again, but hold down the Eject key (or F12 on PC keyboards) during boot to eject the refit disc. It might say that your GPT partition is empty - that’s okay. When refit appears, choose the second icon from the left in the bottom row and press enter. Reboot the Mini again while holding Option (or alt key) and choose the disc again at bootup. I generally put everything in one giant partition as it makes the “bless” step a little easier later on.Įject the Linux CD/DVD once the installation is complete and toss in the refit CD that you burned previously. When you’re done with parted in that terminal, switch back to anaconda with CTRL-ALT-F6.Īt this point, you shouldn’t have any partitions on your disk and you’ll be ready to install your Linux distribution normally. If you’re using an anaconda-based installation, you can get to a root shell by pressing CTRL-ALT-F2. This will instantly erase the hard drive - make sure you’re ready for this step. Hop into a terminal, start parted on your main hard disk and type mklabel msdos. When I installed Fedora, I had to switch the hard drive’s partition table from GPT to a plain old “msdos” partition table. The boot screen might say “Windows” for the Linux CD/DVD, but choose it anyway. While it’s rebooting, hold down the Option key (alt key if you’re using a PC keyboard) and you’ll have the option to boot from the disc when it boots up. Put your Linux CD/DVD in the drive and reboot. It’s really difficult to get this done properly outside of OS X, so take the time to do it now. This will get rid of the Mac chime on bootup.
