Re: Installation, Debian 12, iMac G5, USB thumb drive => “Your installation media couldn’t be mounted. “

[Cedar Maxwell <cedarmaxwell@mac.com>]

On 8/28/25 23:41, Joe Flowers wrote:
> OK. Thanks to the command-line ideas from Jeroen and Cedar, I was able 
> to get much further (plus I know how to get into the command-line now! 
> Yay!), but I'm not exactly sure what caused it to finally see the USB 
> stick for the Installation media step.
>
> The installation seemed to go OK and finish OK, but on restart, the iMac 
> will not boot. I get the Mac icon that means bootable media cannot be found.
> I'm guessing maybe I made a partitioning mistake or a partitioning quirk 
> or grub?
>
> Here is my partitioning setup:
>
> LVM VG vg1, LV lv1 - 398.5 MB Linux device-mapper (linear)
>      #1    398.5 MB    f    ext2    /boot
> LVM VG vg1, LV lv2 - 398.5 MB Linux device-mapper (linear)
>      #1    398.5 MB    f    HFS    /boot/grub
> LVM VG vg1, LV lv3 - 75.2 GB Linux device-mapper (linear)
>      #1    75.2 GB    f    ext4    /
> LVM VG vg1, LV lv4 - 4.0 GB Linux device-mapper (linear)
>      #1    4.0 GB    f    swap    swap
> SCSI2 (0,0,0) (sda) - 80.0 GB ATA WDC WD800J-40GB
>      #1    32.3 kB        Apple  
> <---------------------------------------- bet this is the problem? I 
> should have deleted this first?
>      #2    80.0 GB       K    lvm    untitled
>              25.1 kB        FREE SPACE
> SCSI6 (0,0,0) (sdb) - 4.0 GB General UDisk  <-------- my thumb drive

I'd recommend starting the installation over and choosing "Guided - Use 
Entire Disk" once you get to partitioning.  I don't know if you meant to 
create an LVM, but I'd recommend against that for your first 
installation for simplicity's sake.

> If the USB doesn't work this time, I need to dig through a filled-up 
> cave for blank CD-R, DVD-R, or DVD+R discs (Thanks, Ken!). Hopefully, 
> the CD/(DVD?) drive will work.
>
> The Built-in Ethernet hardware is apparently bad, and MacOSX still would 
> not recognize either, but the Debian Installation did recognize the 
> Apple USB-to-Ethernet dongle.

I doubt your built-in Ethernet went bad on it's own.  I've had similar 
issues before with both Mac OS X and Linux.  If you type "ifconfig" in 
Terminal in OS X, what does it output?

> Anyway, please offer any advice on where I may have messed up, so I can 
> get this thing booting.
>
> BTW, any recommendations for a lightweight GUI to install?  I need this 
> machine mostly for gcc (some g++) and TCP/IP and thread programming, 
> gdb, SSH/SCP.

XFCE or LXQT are generally considered to be the top choices.

> Thank you!
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 28, 2025 at 7:53 AM Joe Flowers <joe.flowers@nofreewill.com 
> <mailto:joe.flowers@nofreewill.com>> wrote:
>
>     On the “Detect and mount installation media” step, I get, “Your
>     installation media couldn’t be mounted. “
>
>     I burned debian-12.0.0-ppc64-NETINST-1.iso on a 4GB USB drive with
>     rufus-4.9p.exe. Rufus said it had to use the dd method.
>
>     When the iMac G5 is booted up with Mac OS X Version 10.5.8, I can
>     see and browse the USB drive and read text files on it.
>
>     I can boot to the USB drive with Federico Vaga’s excellent post
>     (https://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2024/02/msg00007.html
>     <https://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2024/02/msg00007.html> =>
>     boot usb0/disk@1:,\boot\grub\powerpc.elf), and the Debian
>     installation seems to proceed fine until I get to this error.
>
>     “Your installation media couldn’t be mounted... “ “Retry mounting
>     installation media?”
>
>     I have not been able to get the Built-in Ethernet port nor a USB to
>     Ethernet dongle to work when booted in Mac OS X, but I was hoping
>     the Debian installation media could work with either of those two
>     Ethernet hardware options. I do not have a WiFi card in this iMac
>     G5, apparently.
>
>     Any ideas, please?
>
>     ---
>
>     debian-12.0.0-ppc64-NETINST-1.iso
>     SHA256: 1483ae25b215e69cbd2268b4aa58b23bc7f5522f6fc5697213af39cee6704c50
>
>     rufus-4.9p.exe
>     SHA256: 497f796e6d076d4855d697965c04626e6d3624658fce3eca82ab14f7414eede2
>
>     ---

--
Sincerely,
Cedar Maxwell