On Mon, Dec 06, 2010 at 06:43:38PM -0500, Lamar Owen wrote:

On Monday, December 06, 2010 03:54:15 pm Jason T. Slack-Moehrle wrote:

...

I am attempting to install CentOS 5.5 64 bit on my new Mac Mini. I boot to the CD and when I get to selecting where I am installing from (local cd, hard disk, ftp, etc) I select Local CD and it cannot find a driver and wants me to manually specify or use a driver disk.

Boot from the USB CD into rescue mode; once you have a command line, what does the output of 'lspci -v' show?

The kernel in C5.5 may just simply not have the driver for the chipset; you may need to either install a Fedora with the right driver in-kernel, or wait on C6.

I apologize for jumping in mid-thread, but I deleted the other messages before reading them. :(

I am wondering if this is related to the disk controller issue that's been reported for recent MBP models? I think it's the mcp89 driver in the kernel. If that's the case, then you may not even be saved by CentOS 6; I booted the latest RHEL6 beta (just before the release version was put out) and it, too, did not recognize the MBP7,1's controller. Fedora 14 did recognize it, so it should be just a matter of getting a recent kernel that has the patch.

As a test, you might consider getting a Fedora 14 live CD and see if it can find the drives. If so, it may be the same issue. It's possible that the release version of RHEL 6 supports it, if you can get hold of it to test it, or you may just want to put Fedora 14 on it if the difference doesn't bother you too much. (If you're skilled in this area you can attempt to build your own install CD/DVD with your own custom kernel that has the patch, but that may be more time than you're willing to invest.)

Ah, it looks like the Mini does have the mcp89 controller:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=608034

--keith

On Mon, Dec 06, 2010 at 04:19:43PM -0800, Jason T. Slack-Moehrle wrote:

I just know CentOS really. Can I adapt easily? I assume things like yum and apache conf, etc are the same?

You know just as much about Fedora as I do! ;-) If I'm able to make time to install it to my MBP, it'll be my first Fedora install.

Fedora is the beta/testbed for RHEL, so it should be fairly similar to CentOS. In particular it does come with yum, its own repository, and can be configured to access other repos. In theory config files for various apps should be in the same place but you should not 100% count on it. I'm guessing (but, again, don't know) that if you went to a Fedora list and said, "I'm looking for xxx, which on CentOS 5 was in yyy location, where is it in Fedora 14?" someone would know.

--keith

You need to install and use Apple's Boot Camp to make CentOS work on a

Mac Mini. It will install a utility on the drive that will make the Mini look like an ordinary system instead of the Apple based hardware including standard drivers for the Cd/DVD and hard drives and network and sound support. I have an old single core Mac Mini running CentOS 5 32 bit just fine.

One problem though is that I believe that Snow Leopard Server version does NOT come with Boot Camp. If so you'll need to get a version of Snow Leopard that does have Boot Camp available. I think the Standard version of Snow Leopard is about $30.00 from Apple.

If you need help I can be available via Skype to answer your questions.

Bob Arnold

---

CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

Refit is commonly used to boot multiple OS's on the mac mini and is fairly easy to install (you can burn a CD of it and boot from that to test first). I've booted the Fedora14 liveCD on my mac mini and the disk drivers DO work. Also Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (lucid) has working drivers. I believe that grub2 can directly boot linux without bootcamp or refit, but may not be easy to setup.

For most of the livecd's you'll need to go to manually edit the grub command line and add "nomodeset reboot=pci". nomodeset may not be needed on the latest kernels. If you lose video, then you need it.

For all but the latest kernels you'll need to download broadcom tg3 drivers from the broadcom website and compile them for the ethernet to work. Fedora14 has current broadcom drivers.

You may also need to download a driver for the wireless.

For sound you may need the following, or the equivalent for your distribution: echo 'options snd-hda-intel model=mbp55' >> /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

The real gotcha for the mac mini and all mac's is the GPT partition table. The major problem is that most of the gpt partitioning tools are still pretty flakey and turn on incorrect bits or in some other way set something in the partition table that some other program doesn't like. If you manage to do an install and it works the first time you are lucky, but once it fails you can pull your hair out trying to fix the partition table. This is definitely not recommended for the inexperienced.

I believe that Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS (lucid), the standard live install CD (NOT the alternate install), might be your best bet for a trouble free installation. When you boot the livecd, you'll want to keep hitting keys as it's booting to force the grub menu's to come up. (in fedora14, just hit a space when you get the boot timeout message, then hit tab to edit the boot command line). After you enter your language, hit F6 and select 'nomodeset' (space selects, escape exits this menu). Then use your arrow keys and move back on the boot line and add 'reboot=pci'. If you forget reboot=pci you can always power cycle to boot.

You'll also want the Nvidia drivers

I will be installing fedora14 at some point soon.

In general, linux on the Mac Mini is not an easy install though it can be done.

The following might be useful, though is not completely up to date: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Macmini4-1/Lucid

Nataraj