Re: Debian (2.6.35) on Mac Mini (late-2010)

Thanks, Andreas!
I gave it a try and it worked ... sort of.

I don't have Mac OSX installed on the box but I did boot first into the Mac OSX installer DVD.
Then I rebooted into a bootable rEFIt disc.
I used its tools and sync'd the MBR.
I then rebooted and - BAM! - GRUB menu!
I chose my image (the non-rescue one) and things started out OK.
I saw a few lines of booting text then ... nothing.
I rebooted and tried again; same results.

I waited 10 minutes and successfully SSH'd in from a different machine.
So ... it's up and running. Now I suspect it's video hardware issues.
After checking /etc/intttab, the default runlevel is 2.
I removed the S04gdm3 symlink from /etc/rc2.d then rebooted; gdm is no longer running but the console display is still black.

I have no interest in running a GUI on the machine; it'll be nothing but a headless server.
I'm sooooo close.

From: Andreas Weber <aendu@worldwideweber.ch>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Sent: Fri, November 26, 2010 5:01:27 AM
Subject: Re: Debian (2.6.35) on Mac Mini (late-2010)

On 2010-11-24 22:18, w f wrote:
> and got a message saying that "... no bootable disk can be found
> ..." During installation of Debian, my HW (500.1 GB ATA Toshiba
> MK5055GS) was detected w/o issue. Before trying rEFIt, I used the
> installer disc in "recovery mode." I successfully mounted / and browsed
> around a bit. So ... I'm terribly confused. (LOL)

Just curiosity: What happens if you

- boot into MacOS once
- reboot
- use the rEFIt partitioning tool to sync the MBR
- reboot and try your Debian

? Your Debian should start ok afterwards from rEFIt

Without having a clue why, this is what actually works for me when it
happens once in a while. It seems that booting into MacOS fixes/syncs
something in the EFI environment that works ok afterwards.

Has anybody more insights on this?

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