Absent at in-person meetup, Linux dual-booting reclaimed iMac

[ace36]

It seems that won't be able to attend the in-person meetup myself after all  :-/
Apparently, the local Berkeley Bowl store[01] I usually shop at has had some sort of electrical transformer issue requiring it to be closed until maybe 1-2pm this afternoon?
Besides participating virtually until the Berkeley Bowl reopens, might also spend the interim time-period attempting to dual-boot install Linux on the older iMac G5 desktop machine found several weeks ago.
It's apparently an iMac A1207 "Core 2 Duo" 2.16GHz 20"
Identifiers: Late 2006 - MA589LL - iMac5,1 - A1207 - EMC 2118

Quoting from this iMac specs'description at [02]:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The iMac "Core 2 Duo" 2.16 20-Inch features a 2.16 GHz Intel "Core 2 Duo" processor (T7400), with two independent processor "cores" on a single silicon chip, a 4 MB shared level 2 cache, a 667 MHz system bus, 1 GB of RAM (667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, PC2-5300), a 250 GB (7200 RPM) Serial ATA hard drive, a vertically-mounted slot-loading DVD+R DL "SuperDrive", ATI Radeon X1600 graphics acceleration on a PCI-Express bus with 128 MB of GDDR3 memory, a built-in iSight video camera, and built-in stereo speakers underneath the 20" TFT Active Matrix LCD (1680x1050 native) display designed to "bounce sound off the desk below".

Connectivity includes three USB 2.0 ports, two Firewire "400" ports, built-in AirPort Extreme, and Gigabit Ethernet, as well as mini-DVI, which supports an external display in "extended desktop" mode (rather than just "mirrored mode").
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This iMac's RAM was upgraded to 3 GB.
Mac OS X 10.6.8 "Snow Leopard"[03] is installed and functioning fine on the current iMac's spinning-platters SATA drive.
Pertinent pieces of information on this iMac's T7400 2.16 GHz Intel "Core 2 Duo" processor are here ---> [04],[05],[06]

Am wondering which amd64 netinstall ISO to use for a dual-boot Debian Linux installation out of [07] (i.e., using debian-11.4.0-amd64-netinst.iso as opposed to debian-mac-11.4.0-amd64-netinst.iso ) ?
Recently downloaded both appropriate amd64 netinstall ISO's listed and am ready to make USB dd-images of both.

As far as HowTo perform the install itself, most of what have gleaned so far are from these few sites:
- HelloTech's 'How to Install Linux on a Mac'[08]
- The Debian Wiki's 'iMacIntel' wepage[09]
- The Debian Wiki's 'iMacG5' webpage[10] with its caveat "NB: This page is outdated and no longer applies to current versions of Debian. It is here only for reference purposes."
- The Debian Wiki's 'AtiHowTo' webpage[11]

Speak with some of you soon enough on Jit.si Meet :-)
-Aaron


===========================
REFERENCES
===========================
[01]https://www.berkeleybowl.com/
[02]https://everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac-core-2-duo-2.16-20-inch-specs.html#macspecs1
[03]https://www.macworld.com/article/212984/mac_os_x_1068.html
[04]https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/27256/intel-core2-duo-processor-t7400-4m-cache-2-16-ghz-667-mhz-fsb/specifications.html
[05]https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/27256/intel-core2-duo-processor-t7400-4m-cache-2-16-ghz-667-mhz-fsb.html
[06]https://openbenchmarking.org/s/Intel%20Core%202%20T7400
[07]https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-cd/
[08]https://www.hellotech.com/guide/for/how-to-install-linux-on-mac
[09]https://wiki.debian.org/iMacIntel
[10]https://wiki.debian.org/iMacG5
[11]https://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo
===========================
--

[tom r lopes]

I believe that has a 32 bit EFI.  If so then you would need an installer with 32 bit bootloader 

like the Debian multi-arch.  

Thomas

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[tom r lopes]

https://www.identimac.com/modelDetails/iMac/37.html  

32 bit EFI

[ace36]

On Sun, Jul 24, 2022 at 12:16 PM tom r lopes <tomr...@gmail.com> wrote:

I believe that has a 32 bit EFI.  If so then you would need an installer with 32 bit bootloader 

like the Debian multi-arch. 

Thomas

Thanks for all the advice.

Turns out that the iMac G5,1's internal hard disk drive could very well be corrupt, as it didn't at all allow disk repartitioning for an intended dual-boot Linux install.

Messages came up during the Mac OS X Disk Utility verification procedure 1) "The volume Macintosh HD was found corrupt and needs repair" and 2) "Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Start up your computer with another disk (such as your Mac OS X installation disk), and then use Disk Utility to repair this disk."

Got this iMac G5 for free, don't have the Mac OS X installation disk, don't wish to purchase a Mac OS X installation disk for this iMac, and don't wish to go through the anti-privacy-loops of creating or otherwi$e acquiring an AppleID.

Apparently, the internal hdd is a 3.5" ST3250824AS Seagate Barracuda 250GB that requires completely disassembling the iMac case to install a replacement. 

Not yet really worth it to replace the 3.5" hdd containing Mac OS X with another comparable 3.5" hdd so that can then install Linux on the latter.... will stick with what I've got :-)

-A

 

On Sun, Jul 24, 2022 at 11:45 AM ace36 <acoh...@gmail.com> wrote:

... attempting to dual-boot install Linux on the older iMac G5 desktop machine found several weeks ago.