Installing Linux on an iMac

Jarret B

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Many people may like the look and feel of Linux over other Desktop Operating Systems (OS). For this reason someone may want to install Linux on a Mac.

There are many types of Apple Mac systems available. For this article I used an iMac 6.1 from late 2006. The specs on the iMac are as follows:

  • Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz
  • 24-Inch screen TFT Active Matrix LCD (1921x1200 native) display
  • 667 MHz system bus
  • 1 GB of RAM
  • 250 GB Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive
  • DVD±R DL "SuperDrive"
  • Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT video card 128 MB VRAM
  • built-in iSight video camera
  • built-in stereo speakers
    3 USB 2.0 ports
  • Firewire "400" port
  • Firewire "800" port
  • built-in AirPort Extreme
  • Gigabit Ethernet
  • mini-DVI

The highest MacOS it can support is 10.6 or Snow Leopard. After I tried using the iMac and installing apps on it I found out that few apps supported Snow Leopard. For this reason I didn’t use the iMac often. Another reason is that the video card has an overheating issue which causes screen anomalies. The system runs better in winter when it is a little cooler.

NOTE: I got this iMac for less than $50. The shipping charge was more than the cost of the all-in-one (AIO) system.

The MacOS is what discouraged me since I couldn’t install very many any apps since it was older. I decided to install Linux and make the system better.

NOTE: Keep in mind that for an upgrade to Linux you must have an Intel processor. Since each Mac can have varying components you may also run into driver issues. For my iMac I was very lucky. The upgrade was smooth except the iSight webcam (which wasn’t too bad).

Linux Installation

I usually use Ubuntu, but I have been hearing a lot about Deepin so I decided to try it on my iMac. I downloaded Deepin 15.11 at https://www.deepin.org/en/download/.

NOTE: Some places on the Internet claim that you cannot install a 64-bit OS other than MacOS on a Mac. This is not true of all systems. On my iMac I can install a 64-bit version of Deepin.

Once you have the ISO downloaded you can use Etcher to extract the image to a USB Stick. The USB Stick should then be ready to boot on any system you wish to install Deepin Linux.

NOTE: Before starting the install I have found an issue with Deepin, which is not an issue with iMac. Do not have a secondary monitor or even a plug in the secondary video port. Deepin will not display the Desktop Environment properly if a secondary video port is detected as active.

Insert the USB Stick in the USB Port of the iMac and power on holding down the Option key and select EFI (second one) once it appears. Press the up arrow on the screen as shown in Figure 1. If you do not have an Apple keyboard then press the Left ALT key instead.

Figure 01.jpg

FIGURE 01

The iMac should then boot from the USB Stick. GRUB should appear and give you the option to ‘Install Deepin’. If you do not select an option then GRUB will timeout and select the installation option by default.

After everything is loaded you should see a screen similar to Figure 2. The screen is the beginning of the Deepin installation. Select the default language for the Installation as well as the OS. One you have made your selection make sure to check the box at the bottom to accept the End User License Agreement (EULA). After you have completed these tasks click on ‘Next’.

Figure 02.jpg

FIGURE 02

The next screen, shown in Figure 03, allows you to create a User Account for Deepin. Type in your preferred username. Do not capitalize the first letter (which it will warn you if you do). The System Name will be filled in with your username and ‘-PC’ added to it. You can change this as needed. You will then be required to type in your password and confirm it before clicking ‘Next’.

Figure 03.jpg

FIGURE 03

Figure 04 shows the next screen which prompt you to select your time zone from a world map. Make the appropriate selection and click ‘Next’.

Figure 04.jpg

FIGURE 04

The next screen, Figure 05, is where you select the drive to install Deepin. Initially you see the partitions created by MacOS X. You do not want to use the existing partitions. At the top of the screen select ‘Full Disk’ and you will see a screen similar to Figure 06.

Figure 05.jpg

FIGURE 05

Figure 06.jpg

FIGURE 06

Select the disk on which to install Deepin. You have a checkbox at the bottom to encrypt the drive. You can select this if you require it. Once done, select ‘Start Installation’.

The installation took about 14 minutes on my my iMac. Many screens will be shown about Deepin’s abilities. Once done you will be prompted to remove the USB Stick and reboot the system.

Once rebooted you should see a screen similar to Figure 07. The screen shows that Deepin is installed and starting.

Figure 07.jpg

FIGURE 07

A logon screen should appear and prompt you to enter your password. Type in your password and press the Enter key or the arrow button next to the password prompt as shown in Figure 08.

Figure 08.jpg

FIGURE 08

After you log in you should see a white box appear on the screen. Music will play and you may see a video playing. My system did not show the video but I could hear the music. Click ‘Next’ to go on with the system configuration.

The next screen allows you to pick a Desktop Mode. You have the choice of ‘Efficient’ or ‘Fashion’ modes as seen in Figure 09.

Figure 09.jpg

FIGURE 09

Make your choice, which can be changed later, and click ‘Next’.

Your next option is enable or disable window effects as in Figure 10. Click ‘Next’ when you have made your choice.

Figure 10.jpg

FIGURE 10

The last configuration option, Figure 11, lets you choose your default icons. Once you make your choice click on ‘Done’.

Figure 11.jpg

FIGURE 11

After the settings have been saved the desktop should appear as shown in Figure 12. You will need to connect to the Internet either through an Ethernet connection or Wi-Fi.

Figure 12.jpg

FIGURE 12

iSight Webcam


The iSight Webcam requires some tools installed. You will need a file from the MacOSX installation media (which I will attach below but it will need to be unzipped). Once you have the media you can find the file at: “/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBVideoSupport.kext/Contents/MacOS/AppleUSBVideoSupport”. Place this file in a location that you can type in the full path location. In a Terminal you need to type the following command:

sudo apt install isight-firmware-tools

After the download and installation a window will appear which will ask you if you have the ‘AppleUSBVideoSupport’ file. Answer ‘Yes’ and you will be prompted for the file location. Delete the current path and type in the location of the file and press Enter. The drivers should be extracted from the Apple file you copied. At this point you need to reboot to get the webcam to work.

I tested the iSight video camera using ‘Cheese’. To install ‘Cheese’ you need to open a Terminal and perform the commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install cheese -y


SuperDisk

I also burned a DVD using Brasero. The program needs to be installed using the following command:

sudo apt install brasero

Bluetooth

You need to install some programs for the Bluetooth to work properly. Use the following command to install them:

sudo apt install bluetooth bluez bluez-tools rfkill blueman

Once it is all installed you can list the available Bluetooth devices on your system with the command:

sudo rfkill list

The listing should show that your Bluetooth device is blocked or unblocked. If it is blocked then you need to run:

sudo rfkill unblock bluetooth

Now you can start the Bluetooth service by restarting the system. Once you log back into Deepin you should see an icon in the tray for Bluetooth. It is working, but you may have issues connecting to devices. With my system the Bluetooth adapter only supports Bluetooth 2.0. Older versions of Bluetooth do have issues with newer versions of Bluetooth on devices.

Conclusion

Everything seemed to work with little effort. Deepin is a very nice distro and if you choose ‘Fashion Mode’ during setup it kind of resembles MacOS. My one main issue, other than my overheating video card, is that there is only 1 GB of RAM. Things run smoothly unless I try to multitask by running multiple programs at once. I may try to upgrade my RAM to 2 GB since the system is capable of it. The Bluetooth version issue doesn’t bother me since I rarely use Bluetooth anyway. If I needed Bluetooth to work better I could buy a Bluetooth 5.0 dongle and place it in a USB port.

I hope this article helps you with getting Linux to work on your Mac. Please leave comments below if you have any issues with your Mac. Since there are quite a few models there may be issues with some of them. I hope that this article can help you get the majority of devices working properly.
 

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I don't own a iMac or an apple product, but this sure is useful! I like these type of info :)
 
Hi Jarret. Thanks for your excellent explanation. I am a complete beginner at Linux so apologies for my clunky explanation. I installed Ubuntu 20.04 on my old Macbook 4,1 (2008 Intel core 2 duo, 4GB ram, 240GB SSD [dual booting with the original Mac OSX 10.6.8]). I know it's a common issue that the webcam doesn't always work with Macbooks running Linux so I was happy to find your fix here. I followed your instructions above, downloaded the the AppleUSBSupport driver and installed isight-firmware-tools in Terminal. However, when I'm asked to input the location for the AppleUSBSupport file I get the error message: 'Apple driver not found. The file you specified does not exist. The firmware extension has been aborted'. The unzipped file is on my desktop in Ubuntu. I've tried typing the following 'locations' when prompted by isight-firmware-installer:

/home/myusername/Desktop
cd ~/Desktop
cd /home/myusername/Desktop

Not sure if this has any bearing on the issue but the file type is 'Java class (application/x-java)'.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the long message...
 
Try to find the file when you have the MAC OS loaded and copy it to an external drive or your Linux partition. You may also be able to locate it from the installation disc for MAC OS. It may also be an issue with Ubuntu 20. I only tried Deepin. You may want to try Deepin first or look for a newer version of the AppleUSBVideoSupport file.
Wish I could be more help. Let me know.
 
Try to find the file when you have the MAC OS loaded and copy it to an external drive or your Linux partition. You may also be able to locate it from the installation disc for MAC OS. It may also be an issue with Ubuntu 20. I only tried Deepin. You may want to try Deepin first or look for a newer version of the AppleUSBVideoSupport file.
Wish I could be more help. Let me know.
Thank you for th info I will try deepin. I cannot load the OS because I wiped it. Also I cannot get into the MAC OS Utilities. It seems like every disk or usb will not read. It just boots to the question mark flashing now. It does look like it wants to load ubuntu, and mint but then goes back to flashing again.
I thank you for even replying, any info helps as I have alway delt with PC's and never had this issue. So it uncharted territory for me.
Thanks again, I appreciate it.
 
Thank you for th info I will try deepin. I cannot load the OS because I wiped it. Also I cannot get into the MAC OS Utilities. It seems like every disk or usb will not read. It just boots to the question mark flashing now. It does look like it wants to load ubuntu, and mint but then goes back to flashing again.
I thank you for even replying, any info helps as I have alway delt with PC's and never had this issue. So it uncharted territory for me.
Thanks again, I appreciate it.
And I believe mine is the same from 2006. That's what i read somewhere.
 
If absolutely needed, reinstall MacOS just to get the file you need. Unless you can somehow get it from the installation disk. I thought you mentioned dual-booting. That could be an issue. I wiped my disk clean and started from scratch installing Linux. Just a thought though. Maybe I should try dual-booting too!
 
If absolutely needed, reinstall MacOS just to get the file you need. Unless you can somehow get it from the installation disk. I thought you mentioned dual-booting. That could be an issue. I wiped my disk clean and started from scratch installing Linux. Just a thought though. Maybe I should try dual-booting too!
Jarret i also wanted to say thank you for such detailed instructions i will be trying this out on sunday so hopefully i will have some good news soon. But again thank you for taking the time to write such detailed directions and being so helpful. Keeping fingers crossed for now, But sending you a big thanks for all your information. Its been a month i've been at a standstill. I have never encountered a computer, tablet, phone i could not fix whether hardware or software issues. But MAC has a weird way of locking you in and thats why ive always avoided apple anything. If i was rich maybe i would buy one new but usually i bring life to older computers with Linux. I have never tried the deepin distro but i will be doing some research tonight.
Again Thank You, You Rock
Eddie
 
Jarret
This was exactly the answer to my prayers. After finding a 20 inch imac in the garbage (yes the garbage), I seemed to hit a dead end restoring OS X on it as I stopped using Macs in the early 2000s. Being used to Windows and Linux, I found myself a bit impatient to take the time to work with the Apple dmg images and restore system.
Today I downloaded deepin, threw it on a USB with etcher and within a few minutes had it successfully installing on the iMac. I actually created an account here at linux.org to thank you, so THANK YOU SO MUCH!
I also have an older MacBook (still intel arch I believe), which I will probably put Linux on as well. I will report back with the hardware info, distro and how I made out.
Thanks again
 
You are very welcome. I am glad the article helped. My iMac just did not run well with MacOS, but now runs faster. It still has that awful video card issue.
Thanks for being a reader and having an account.
 
Hello jarret, will this process also work with a 2007 iMac, 24inch, core2duo intel processor? I am currently have macOS El captan on it., and it running kinda slow.I want this Mac to be an okay enough device for general home purposes. Thank you.
 
It should. Stick with deep in. Other linux distro have issues, but feeling did work for me.
 
Jarret, Thanks for this, but I have a similar iMac and every Linux distro seems to have the problem of not waking up from sleep. Did you encounter this and what can be done? I am close to giving up.

Thanks
 
I didn't encounter it, but I tend to usually disable sleep mode in power saving settings. A long time ago, I had issues on a system with hibernation. I've never used it again.
 
I didn't encounter it, but I tend to usually disable sleep mode in power saving settings. A long time ago, I had issues on a system with hibernation. I've never used it again.
So, you leave your computer powered on all the time?
 
For as long as I need it.
 
Hello everyone
Please, I need suggestions
I have a iMac 21.5 mid 2011 with Ubuntu.
I made a hardware upgrade and install Ubuntu 21.4 whithout problems.
Would have bene better clone the table patitions or change all partitions?
There Is only one problem: bluetooth keyboard (a1314). It loses connetiton and when It gets again It changes layout.
I tryed many ways whithout solved
Thanks for any suggestions
 

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