2018-09-10 19:44:52 (edited by Chris 2018-09-10 19:46:37)

Hello,

The subject says it all. I've been trying to find alternative operating systems to make my old Mac Mini useful. I had Windows XP on it for a while, but I don't really use XP anymore. I tried making a bootable USB drive with the CHromium Cloud Ready operating system, but the mac doesn't seem to want to boot from the drive. I held down option at startup and tried pressing the left and right arrows, but it kept booting to Leopard which is the only system I currently have installed.

I next tried to install the latest 32 bit version of Ubuntu mate. However, the Mac spits out the DVD when I try to boot from it. After this, the computer boots into Leopard. What am I doing wrong? I heard something about installing another boot manager, but I don't know if that is accessible. Can I run either Cloud Ready or Ubuntu mate on this machine or should I just give up?

Grab my Adventure at C: stages Right here.

2018-09-10 20:38:33

would win7 32 bit be too much for the thing?

2018-09-10 21:42:57 (edited by Chris 2018-09-10 21:44:35)

It only has 1 GB of RAM. Windows Vista and later are memory hogs! I don't think it would run very well. The computer has an Intel Core Duo processor.

Grab my Adventure at C: stages Right here.

2018-09-10 23:31:49

yeah, the RAM is a bit of an issue. CPU isn't, I know 1 core pentiums slicing through win7. OK, slicing through is probably an over kill, but you get the idea.

2018-09-11 15:34:01

If you don't want to do windows, might I suggest ubuntu mate? Recently got through the installer without Orca saying screen reader on, screen reader off: Which is a feat for Linux.
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-mate/daily-live/

2018-09-11 18:22:56 (edited by Chris 2018-09-11 18:24:38)

I downloaded Ubuntu Mate 18.04.1 from https://ubuntu-mate.org/download/ and burned the 32 bit iso to a DVD. However, I can't boot from the disk. I turned the mac on, pushed the disk into the slot and held down option and pressed left or right arrow followed by enter. However, the computer will not boot to the disk. I tried turning the computer off completely and repeating the above steps. The drive spins up and then the disk is spit back out of the slot and the computer boots into Mac OS X. What am I doing wrong? I've also tried holding down the c key when I turn on the Mac and hear the chime, but this results in the same behavior.

Grab my Adventure at C: stages Right here.

2018-09-12 03:49:42

Why do you want to install linux anyways, do you have a use for linux

2018-09-12 05:45:09 (edited by Chris 2018-09-12 05:49:22)

I still want to use the machine. Mac OS X Snow Leopard is the last officially supported version and it's been obsolete for years. I don't want to run anything newer than XP because of the low RAM. Even if I could run Windows 7, that will be unsupported in less than two years. Besides, I can't stand Windows 7! I despise that operating system! I thought I could install Neverware Cloud Ready, but it doesn't seem to like the USB drive and won't let me boot from it. Is there a way around this? The Cloud Ready image is too large for a DVD. I don't get it. The Mac has no problem booting USB drives with OS X.

Grab my Adventure at C: stages Right here.

2018-09-12 12:39:49

not to defend it, and not to brain wash, but if you can run 7, you could run 8.1, too. 8.1 is even lighter than 7. but with 1 gig, I wouldn't risk it.

2018-09-12 17:21:21 (edited by Chris 2018-09-12 17:22:30)

I thought about running Windows 10 32 bit, but I don't think 1 GB will work out all that well. Besides, I only have BootCamp drivers for Windows XP/Vista. I'd rather run Linux or Chromium on the machine anyway. I want to learn more about those operating systems and figured the spare computer would work nicely.

Grab my Adventure at C: stages Right here.

2018-09-13 04:26:43

try windows95, lol don’t, but i don’t know any OS that can run on 1 gb of ram

2018-09-13 12:16:22

to answer the post, of not knowing which OS can run on 1 GB of RAM. my 2003 IBM has a 1 core pentium, with 256 MB of RAM, and it works. so certainly, up until XP, that shit was doable.

2018-09-13 14:09:29

The 1 gig of ram will really limit you. Even if you got linux installed, the screenreader orca, with firefox open, takes up around a gig of ram right there.

2018-09-17 01:49:27

hey,
You could try debian, if you want help installing this, let me know, i'll be glad to help.

But sometimes the world is better without sight...
Because You can see the world how it really is...
Dark.

2018-12-18 06:30:59

Does anyone know why this doesn't work? This pisses me off like you wouldn't believe. Apple has deemed this machine obsolete. I can't run modern versions of Windows because they're RAM hungry and I'd most likely have driver issues. I thought this 32-bit distro of Linux was supposed to work, but the damn machine keeps ejecting the disk. I also get the same issue when using the Jenux installer. What's going on? Is it an issue with the UEFI/BIOS? I can't find any solutions to this and it pisses me off that this computer is just sitting around when it works beautifully. All I want to do is use a modern lightweight operating system on it to do some web browsing or turn it into a file server or what ever else. I can't install CloudReady because it's too big to fit on a DVD and won't boot from USB. The only operating systems I can install are outdated versions of OS X and Windows XP.

Grab my Adventure at C: stages Right here.

2018-12-18 15:58:34

http://coderazzi.net/linux/macmini2006/macmini.htm says,

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This is a 32-bit EFI Mac, and its just refuses to boot from a UEFI(X64)+BIOS bootable CD/DVD, which as it goes, is the format of the Ubuntu server installation disc. There is a solution: to remove UEFI support from the CD first.

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I am not sure if the same applies to a 32-bit ISO image though. Try booting an older distro as a debugging step perhaps.

2018-12-18 16:50:23 (edited by Chris 2018-12-18 16:51:15)

Okay, any ideas for another accessible lightweight distro that's actually 32-bit? I thought this 32-bit ISO would work. It seems a bit dumb that a 32-bit ISO requires 64-bit UEFI firmware. I thought it was intended to run on really old machines with low amounts of RAM.

Grab my Adventure at C: stages Right here.