Linux Mint For Mac Os X

 



Many people may like the look and feel of Linux over other Desktop Operating Systems (OS). For this reason someone may want to install Linux on a Mac.


There are many types of Apple Mac systems available. For this article I used an iMac 6.1 from late 2006. The specs on the iMac are as follows:

The Linux Mint team offers a method to upgrade the OS between versions but they tend to recommend clean installs, which isn't always suitable for everyone. However, following the upgrade process currently is less than straightforward and is easily capable of leaving your system in a confused state.

  • Pick the Right Desktop Environment. To achieve the most Mac-like look on Linux you.
  • An Intel Mac currently running some OS X 10.5 'Leopard' or higher (you'll want to keep OS X on your system, if for no other reason than to boot into for firmware updates.) A copy of Ubuntu Linux.
  • Open Source Software for running Windows applications on other operating systems. Such as Linux, macOS, & BSD. Instead of simulating internal Windows logic like a virtual machine or emulator, Wine translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls on-the-fly, eliminating the performance and memory penalties of other methods and allowing you to.
  • Linux Mint is free of charge (thanks to your donations and adverts on the website) and we hope you'll enjoy it. Some of the packages we distribute are under the GPL. If you want to access their source code you can use the apt-get source command. If you can't find what you're looking for please write to root@linuxmint.com and we'll provide the.

  • Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz
  • 24-Inch screen TFT Active Matrix LCD (1921x1200 native) display
  • 667 MHz system bus
  • 1 GB of RAM
  • 250 GB Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive
  • DVD±R DL 'SuperDrive'
  • Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT video card 128 MB VRAM
  • built-in iSight video camera
  • built-in stereo speakers
    3 USB 2.0 ports
  • Firewire '400' port
  • Firewire '800' port
  • built-in AirPort Extreme
  • Gigabit Ethernet
  • mini-DVI

The highest MacOS it can support is 10.6 or Snow Leopard. After I tried using the iMac and installing apps on it I found out that few apps supported Snow Leopard. For this reason I didn’t use the iMac often. Another reason is that the video card has an overheating issue which causes screen anomalies. The system runs better in winter when it is a little cooler.
NOTE: I got this iMac for less than $50. The shipping charge was more than the cost of the all-in-one (AIO) system.
The MacOS is what discouraged me since I couldn’t install very many any apps since it was older. I decided to install Linux and make the system better.
NOTE: Keep in mind that for an upgrade to Linux you must have an Intel processor. Since each Mac can have varying components you may also run into driver issues. For my iMac I was very lucky. The upgrade was smooth except the iSight webcam (which wasn’t too bad).
Linux Installation
I usually use Ubuntu, but I have been hearing a lot about Deepin so I decided to try it on my iMac. I downloaded Deepin 15.11 at https://www.deepin.org/en/download/.
NOTE: Some places on the Internet claim that you cannot install a 64-bit OS other than MacOS on a Mac. This is not true of all systems. On my iMac I can install a 64-bit version of Deepin.
Once you have the ISO downloaded you can use Etcher to extract the image to a USB Stick. The USB Stick should then be ready to boot on any system you wish to install Deepin Linux.
NOTE: Before starting the install I have found an issue with Deepin, which is not an issue with iMac. Do not have a secondary monitor or even a plug in the secondary video port. Deepin will not display the Desktop Environment properly if a secondary video port is detected as active.
Insert the USB Stick in the USB Port of the iMac and power on holding down the Option key and select EFI (second one) once it appears. Press the up arrow on the screen as shown in Figure 1. If you do not have an Apple keyboard then press the Left ALT key instead.

FIGURE 01
The iMac should then boot from the USB Stick. GRUB should appear and give you the option to ‘Install Deepin’. If you do not select an option then GRUB will timeout and select the installation option by default.
After everything is loaded you should see a screen similar to Figure 2. The screen is the beginning of the Deepin installation. Select the default language for the Installation as well as the OS. One you have made your selection make sure to check the box at the bottom to accept the End User License Agreement (EULA). After you have completed these tasks click on ‘Next’.

FIGURE 02
The next screen, shown in Figure 03, allows you to create a User Account for Deepin. Type in your preferred username. Do not capitalize the first letter (which it will warn you if you do). The System Name will be filled in with your username and ‘-PC’ added to it. You can change this as needed. You will then be required to type in your password and confirm it before clicking ‘Next’.

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FIGURE 03
Figure 04 shows the next screen which prompt you to select your time zone from a world map. Make the appropriate selection and click ‘Next’.

FIGURE 04
The next screen, Figure 05, is where you select the drive to install Deepin. Initially you see the partitions created by MacOS X. You do not want to use the existing partitions. At the top of the screen select ‘Full Disk’ and you will see a screen similar to Figure 06.

FIGURE 05

FIGURE 06
Select the disk on which to install Deepin. You have a checkbox at the bottom to encrypt the drive. You can select this if you require it. Once done, select ‘Start Installation’.
The installation took about 14 minutes on my my iMac. Many screens will be shown about Deepin’s abilities. Once done you will be prompted to remove the USB Stick and reboot the system.
Once rebooted you should see a screen similar to Figure 07. The screen shows that Deepin is installed and starting.

FIGURE 07
A logon screen should appear and prompt you to enter your password. Type in your password and press the Enter key or the arrow button next to the password prompt as shown in Figure 08.

FIGURE 08
After you log in you should see a white box appear on the screen. Music will play and you may see a video playing. My system did not show the video but I could hear the music. Click ‘Next’ to go on with the system configuration.
The next screen allows you to pick a Desktop Mode. You have the choice of ‘Efficient’ or ‘Fashion’ modes as seen in Figure 09.

FIGURE 09
Make your choice, which can be changed later, and click ‘Next’.
Your next option is enable or disable window effects as in Figure 10. Click ‘Next’ when you have made your choice.

FIGURE 10
The last configuration option, Figure 11, lets you choose your default icons. Once you make your choice click on ‘Done’.

FIGURE 11
After the settings have been saved the desktop should appear as shown in Figure 12. You will need to connect to the Internet either through an Ethernet connection or Wi-Fi.

FIGURE 12
iSight Webcam
The iSight Webcam requires some tools installed. You will need a file from the MacOSX installation media (which I will attach below but it will need to be unzipped). Once you have the media you can find the file at: “/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBVideoSupport.kext/Contents/MacOS/AppleUSBVideoSupport”. Place this file in a location that you can type in the full path location. In a Terminal you need to type the following command:
sudo apt install isight-firmware-tools
After the download and installation a window will appear which will ask you if you have the ‘AppleUSBVideoSupport’ file. Answer ‘Yes’ and you will be prompted for the file location. Delete the current path and type in the location of the file and press Enter. The drivers should be extracted from the Apple file you copied. At this point you need to reboot to get the webcam to work.
I tested the iSight video camera using ‘Cheese’. To install ‘Cheese’ you need to open a Terminal and perform the commands:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install cheese -y
SuperDisk
I also burned a DVD using Brasero. The program needs to be installed using the following command:
sudo apt install brasero
Bluetooth
You need to install some programs for the Bluetooth to work properly. Use the following command to install them:
sudo apt install bluetooth bluez bluez-tools rfkill blueman
Once it is all installed you can list the available Bluetooth devices on your system with the command:
sudo rfkill list

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The listing should show that your Bluetooth device is blocked or unblocked. If it is blocked then you need to run:Install linux mint alongside mac os x
sudo rfkill unblock bluetooth
Now you can start the Bluetooth service by restarting the system. Once you log back into Deepin you should see an icon in the tray for Bluetooth. It is working, but you may have issues connecting to devices. With my system the Bluetooth adapter only supports Bluetooth 2.0. Older versions of Bluetooth do have issues with newer versions of Bluetooth on devices.
Conclusion
Everything seemed to work with little effort. Deepin is a very nice distro and if you choose ‘Fashion Mode’ during setup it kind of resembles MacOS. My one main issue, other than my overheating video card, is that there is only 1 GB of RAM. Things run smoothly unless I try to multitask by running multiple programs at once. I may try to upgrade my RAM to 2 GB since the system is capable of it. The Bluetooth version issue doesn’t bother me since I rarely use Bluetooth anyway. If I needed Bluetooth to work better I could buy a Bluetooth 5.0 dongle and place it in a USB port.
I hope this article helps you with getting Linux to work on your Mac. Please leave comments below if you have any issues with your Mac. Since there are quite a few models there may be issues with some of them. I hope that this article can help you get the majority of devices working properly.After going through a painful process to convert my Mac mini to a Linux only machine I decided to post how to do it.
ATTENTION: this is for people wanting to install Linux Mint 15 on a Mac Mini to become Linux only in SINGLE boot, without any Mac OS X alongside it. If you want to dual boot OS X and Linux Mint there are other tutorials out there that work, normally involving Boot Camp and rEFIt or rEFInd. I decided to make my mac mini Linux olny after installing in dual boot and then spending a few months without using Max OS X... decided to reclaim all the HD for use in /home.
My Mac mini model is A1283 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_mini#Specifications_2), YMMV if you have a different model.
Distro was Linux Mint 15 MATE 64bit. I originally experimented with Mint 14 XFCE due to limited RAM (1Gb) but after upgrading to 4Gb decided to go Mint 15 MATE.
So, here we go... I downloaded live DVD, booted into it then selected Install Linux Mint. Asked to wipe everything and install, then got an error informing automatic partitioning wouldn't be able to install the bootloader. Chose to do manual partitioning (an option named 'something else' if I recall correctly).
LinuxI didn't get it right the first time, so to make a long story short, here is what the final partitioning that worked looks like:To pay attention: in MY case Linux Mint was installed on /dev/sda2 (partition number 2) and the boot loader on /dev/sda1 (partition number 1). Your case may be different, change /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2 in the examples below if needed. My case is strange because the first partition was numbered 5, probably because I created it by spliting my partition 1 in two, when partitions 2, 3 and 4 already existed.
To do your homework to find out your partition numbers:

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You need to leave a small partition at the start, unformatted, with bios_grub flag on, then another one about 90Mb of size formatted with fat32 and with boot flag on. I don't recall now if it was possible to set those flags in the installtion procedure... but you'll be able to set them with gparted, which can be invoked from the command line.

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I performed the installation, then at the end an error message came up informing it was impossible to install the boot loader. I chose continue without boot loader, finished and did NOT reboot.
Then in a terminal I forced the installtion of GRUB with:(remember, in MY case GRUB was being put in /dev/sda1 and Mint on /dev/sda2, adapt if your partition numbers are different).

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Then, I rebooted. No, it didn't work automatically. I was greeted with a grub rescue prompt.

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Next step, learned from this link (http://askubuntu.com/questions/192621/grub-rescue-prompt-repair-grub) was to manually get it to boot. In MY case where partition 2 was where Mint was installed, I used the commands below. If your Mint is in another partition, change 2 for that number:

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Then Mint from the HD came up, so the boot worked. Next step was to update Linux Mint just in case, then follow instructions in this thread (http://linuxnorth.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/repairing-grub/) and use boot-repair. Commands were:Then pressing the main button and telling it to continue despite my EFI partition being smaller than 100Mb, it repaired the boot loader and then everything worked.

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I hope there are other mac mini owners out there who find this useful.
The mac mini is a nice piece of hardware, but the OS X that came with it is slow and cumbersome. Linux Mint 14 or 15 with XBMC and a simple Apple remote (properly configured so the buttons work good in xbmc) turned my mac mini into a formidable media center.