Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

sgillespie · 2012-12-28 18:44:08

Howdy

So I'm trying to boot into the live cd with a mac-mini. It gets to the point where it tries to boot it; then I get a prompt that roughly looks like

1.
2.
Select CD-ROM Boot Type :

And then does not respond to anything I do with my keyboard. I presume it's related to me using a usb keyboard; but I'm not really sure. Any idea how I can either resolve this or find another way to fresh install?

Thanks
Sean

the.ridikulus.rat · 2012-12-28 19:00:26

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Un … t_from_ISO

cfr · 2012-12-28 19:12:31

When you say "first generation", do you really mean that? Because as far as I know the first ones were PPC in which case the Arch installation media will not boot on it as it is the wrong architecture.

sgillespie · 2012-12-28 19:20:57

cfr wrote:

When you say "first generation", do you really mean that? Because as far as I know the first ones were PPC in which case the Arch installation media will not boot on it as it is the wrong architecture.

In that case, it must not be 1st, because it's definitely x86

sgillespie · 2012-12-28 19:21:34

the.ridikulus.rat wrote:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Un … t_from_ISO

Thanks for the link, I'll try that out

cfr · 2012-12-28 19:41:11

sgillespie wrote:

cfr wrote:
When you say "first generation", do you really mean that? Because as far as I know the first ones were PPC in which case the Arch installation media will not boot on it as it is the wrong architecture.
In that case, it must not be 1st, because it's definitely x86

Great. I checked Apple's specs and the first ones were definitely PPC so yours must be a later one.

srs5694 · 2012-12-28 21:18:00

It could be the first generation of the Intel-based models. Be aware that such computers had 32-bit CPUs and 32-bit EFIs, which means that they won't boot in EFI mode with the EFI support provided by most distributions, which is 64-bit. (I'm not sure about Arch on that score.) Removing the EFI support, as described in the link provided by the.ridikulus.rat, may help guarantee that you boot in BIOS mode. You can later reconfigure to boot in EFI mode, if you like.

sgillespie · 2012-12-29 13:33:37

Okay, I removed UEFI support from the Live CD and that helped me get everything installed just fine. Now I can't seem to boot into it. I first tried the instructions here for grub-efi-i386:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Gr … _systems_2

I then removed rEFIt, and now I definitely can't boot in. It's also worth noting that when I run:

grub-install --target=i386-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=arch_grub --recheck --debug

I get

Fatal: Couldn't open either sysfs or procfs directories for accessing EFI variables.
Try 'modprobe efivars' as root.

I presume this is because I'm now booting the LiveCD in BIOS mode, since I removed EFI support. I'm not sure how to proceed...

Last edited by sgillespie (2012-12-29 13:34:55)

cfr · 2012-12-29 14:32:01

That may be just as well as I think efibootmgr can brick Mac hardware. I believe that you need to use the Mac's bless command instead.

See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UE … ing_rEFInd and look for "In case of Apple Macs..."

srs5694 · 2012-12-29 17:58:56

Yes, "bless" should be able to do the job from OS X. Alternatively, you could install gummiboot or rEFInd from within OS X and boot your Linux kernel directly via the EFI stub loader. There are no OS X installation instructions for gummiboot on its site, but there are for rEFInd; or the install.sh script should work for rEFInd. The trick is that you'll want to install a filesystem driver for whatever filesystem you used for "/boot" (or "/" if you have no separate "/boot" partition), and you'll need to prepare a manual boot stanza in refind.conf or appropriate settings in Linux's /boot/refind_linux.conf. Unfortunately, the OS X version of rEFInd's install.sh can't do any of this for you.

sgillespie · 2012-12-29 18:01:21

Okay, I installed rEFInd and blessed it, and now it won't boot at all. It just sort of hangs on a blank gray screen. Is there a way to recover it?

srs5694 · 2012-12-29 18:14:33

That's very bad an unexpected. I've heard of boot pauses when rEFInd is installed, particularly to the ESP, but never before a complete hang. Did you install to the ESP? Try waiting at least 30 secoonds, and perhaps 60. If this is the case, and if you installed to the ESP, try re-installing to the OS X system partition instead, or check Fixing a Sluggish Macintosh Boot in the rEFInd documentation.

If it really has hung, try booting while holding down the Option key (Alt if you're using a PC keyboard). That should bring up the standard Apple boot selector, from which you should be able to select OS X. If that doesn't work, you can try clearing the NVRAM/PRAM, as described here.

cfr · 2012-12-29 20:27:12

You might also try: holding down shift while booting (for Safe Boot); holding down v during boot (for verbose boot - you might be able to get an error message rather than just a blank screen to at least have an idea what's happening).

EDIT: Do you have the original installation disks which came with the mini? If so, can you start from the first of those? Also, can you tell us what is written on the disks and what colour they are?

Last edited by cfr (2012-12-29 20:37:05)

sgillespie · 2012-12-30 18:03:06

srs5694 wrote:

That's very bad an unexpected. I've heard of boot pauses when rEFInd is installed, particularly to the ESP, but never before a complete hang. Did you install to the ESP? Try waiting at least 30 secoonds, and perhaps 60. If this is the case, and if you installed to the ESP, try re-installing to the OS X system partition instead, or check Fixing a Sluggish Macintosh Boot in the rEFInd documentation.
If it really has hung, try booting while holding down the Option key (Alt if you're using a PC keyboard). That should bring up the standard Apple boot selector, from which you should be able to select OS X. If that doesn't work, you can try clearing the NVRAM/PRAM, as described here.

I initially installed it to ESP, and eventually I could get it to start, but only if the live cd wasn't in. Now the refind menu will come up after 30 seconds or so

sgillespie · 2012-12-30 20:10:41

Okay, so rEFInd appears to be working well now. I added a manual stanza to refind.conf, and now I'm getting:

Error: Unsupported while loading vmlinuz-arch.efi.

Any idea what that means?

sgillespie · 2012-12-30 21:21:25

I think the problem had to do with loading an x86_64 kernel in a 32 bit EFI. I reinstalled using the i686 version, and now I can't start vmlinuz-arch.efi with:

Failed to open initrd file

Here is my stanza in refind.conf:

menuentry Linux {
        icon EFI\refind\icons\os_arch.icns
        loader \EFI\arch\vmlinuz-arch.efi
        initrd \EFI\arch\initramfs-arch.img
        options "root=/dev/sda5 ro rootfstype=ext4 add_efi_memmap systemd.unit=graphical.target"
}

and here if \EFI\arch:

# find EFI/arch
EFI/arch
EFI/arch/vmlinuz-arch.efi
EFI/arch/initramfs-arch.img
EFI/arch/initramfs-arch-fallback.img

Last edited by sgillespie (2012-12-30 21:31:35)

cfr · 2012-12-30 21:45:52

Try forward slashes for icons, loader and initrd and delete the initial slash for loader and initrd altogether. (I'm just going by what I have.)

sgillespie · 2012-12-30 21:58:17

cfr wrote:

Try forward slashes for icons, loader and initrd and delete the initial slash for loader and initrd altogether. (I'm just going by what I have.)

Tried that, and I got the same result

cfr · 2012-12-30 22:27:04

You don't have refind_linux.conf? (Although I don't think this should be needed with the stanza...)

Last edited by cfr (2012-12-30 22:32:32)

sgillespie · 2012-12-30 22:30:38

No, never bothered creating one

cfr · 2012-12-30 22:32:39

Did you remember to regenerate the initramfs and copy the current versions from /boot to /boot/efi/EFI/arch/?

sgillespie · 2012-12-30 22:48:42

cfr wrote:

Did you remember to regenerate the initramfs and copy the current versions from /boot to /boot/efi/EFI/arch/?

Yes, I've tried that a few times

srs5694 · 2012-12-30 23:33:43

sgillespie wrote:

Okay, so rEFInd appears to be working well now.

So is the delay gone when you boot, or are you simply tolerating it? If it's gone, can you identify what caused it to disappear? This delay is a common complaint, and I don't fully understand it, so any hints about how to fix the problem are quite welcome.

I reinstalled using the i686 version, and now I can't start vmlinuz-arch.efi with:
Failed to open initrd file

I get the same thing when I try to load a Linux kernel with EFI stub support from a FAT partition on my own 32-bit Mac Mini. The problem goes away if I use any other filesystem -- HFS+, ext2/3/4fs, or ReiserFS. On Macs, HFS+ works without extra drivers, but the others require filesystem drivers included with rEFInd. IMHO, the best way to do it is to either create a separate /boot partition on which you can use whatever filesystem pleases you or use ext4fs on your root (/) partition. You can then load your kernel in place from the Linux /boot directory. On my Mac Mini, HFS+ and ReiserFS perform a bit better than ext2/3 -- it takes about 5 or 10 extra seconds to load a kernel and initrd from ext2/3, IIRC. I haven't tested with ext4fs yet, but based on performance on other systems, I'd expect it to be in-between the ReiserFS and ext2/3 performance.

cfr · 2012-12-30 23:58:24

Note that the standard Arch package in stable does not yet include the support for ext4 file systems.

sgillespie · 2012-12-31 04:32:33

cfr wrote:

Note that the standard Arch package in stable does not yet include the support for ext4 file systems.

You mean the rEFInd package?

Arch Linux

#1 2012-12-28 18:44:08

Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#2 2012-12-28 19:00:26

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#3 2012-12-28 19:12:31

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#4 2012-12-28 19:20:57

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#5 2012-12-28 19:21:34

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#6 2012-12-28 19:41:11

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#7 2012-12-28 21:18:00

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#8 2012-12-29 13:33:37

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#9 2012-12-29 14:32:01

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#10 2012-12-29 17:58:56

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#11 2012-12-29 18:01:21

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#12 2012-12-29 18:14:33

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#13 2012-12-29 20:27:12

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#14 2012-12-30 18:03:06

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#15 2012-12-30 20:10:41

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#16 2012-12-30 21:21:25

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#17 2012-12-30 21:45:52

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#18 2012-12-30 21:58:17

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#19 2012-12-30 22:27:04

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#20 2012-12-30 22:30:38

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#21 2012-12-30 22:32:39

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#22 2012-12-30 22:48:42

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#23 2012-12-30 23:33:43

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#24 2012-12-30 23:58:24

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

#25 2012-12-31 04:32:33

Re: Trying to boot into installation cd on mac-mini (1st gen)

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