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

Thanks, Cedar!

The machine is working great except for the built-in Ethernet adapter, but I can live with the USB to Ethernet dongle.

John's response pushed me to the "Guided" setup, and it worked great!

Thanks for the GUI recommendations. I have made a note of them.

MacOSX is long gone on this machine. ifconfig is not on Debian, apparently.

But, below are other enumerations of the Ethernet setup. Would be nice to have the built-in working, but beggars...

Thank you, in any case!

----

172.16.99.227 04-69-f8-ec-83-23 <----- This is my USB to Ethernet adapter that is working.

joe@debian1:~$ sudo ifconfig
[sudo] password for joe:
sudo: ifconfig: command not found
joe@debian1:~$

joe@debian1:~$ ip link show
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: enP1p3s15f0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether 00:0d:93:4a:42:d2 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
altname enx000d934a42d2
3: enx0469f8ec8323: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether 04:69:f8:ec:83:23 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

joe@debian1:~$ ip addr show
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 ::1/128 scope host noprefixroute
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: enP1p3s15f0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state DOWN group default qlen 1000
link/ether 00:0d:93:4a:42:d2 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
altname enx000d934a42d2
3: enx0469f8ec8323: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP group default qlen 1000
link/ether 04:69:f8:ec:83:23 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 172.16.99.227/24 brd 172.16.99.255 scope global dynamic noprefixroute enx0469f8ec8323
valid_lft 86253sec preferred_lft 86253sec
inet6 fe80::669:f8ff:feec:8323/64 scope link noprefixroute
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

joe@debian1:~$ nmcli device status
DEVICE TYPE STATE CONNECTION
enx0469f8ec8323 ethernet connected Wired connection 1
lo loopback connected (externally) lo
enP1p3s15f0 ethernet unavailable --
joe@debian1:~$

joe@debian1:~$ lspci | grep -i ethernet
0001:03:0f.0 Ethernet controller: Apple Inc. Shasta (Sun GEM)
joe@debian1:~$ netstat -ie

---

On Tue, Sep 2, 2025 at 2:01 AM Cedar Maxwell <cedarmaxwell@mac.com> wrote:

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