antiX on Intel-based older OSX iMac

[Member dukester]

My wife has an older iMac that has reached EOL as far as software updates etc are concerned.
She is not an avid computer-phile, just an occasional user.
I want to wipe the iMac drive, maybe re-partition it, and install a user-friendly Linux distro on it with a non-hacker desktop.
Because I run antiX, I’m thinking of doing the same on her iMac.

Would it be do-able IYHO? Which antiX release would you suggest. All suggestions welcome. TIA!!

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dukester

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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dukester wrote:

My wife has an older iMac that has reached EOL as far as software updates etc are concerned.
She is not an avid computer-phile, just an occasional user.
I want to wipe the iMac drive, maybe re-partition it, and install a user-friendly Linux distro on it with a non-hacker desktop.
Because I run antiX, I’m thinking of doing the same on her iMac.

Would it be do-able IYHO? Which antiX release would you suggest. All suggestions welcome. TIA!!

Different people may have different opinions, but I believe that a recent version of antiX Full would probably work; I’d start with antiX 22 Full and if it can’t find the appropriate hardware, experiment with other versions. We may have a few people here that have used the iMac. I know that roki has been successful in putting antiX on an old Chromebook. Maybe someone else has done the same with an old iMac; if so, it would be nice to benefit from those experiences.

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Brian Masinick

[Member dukester]

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Thank you Brian for your quick response!
I’ll give antiX 22 Full a shot.

I personally am running antiX-19.3_x64-full Manolis Glezos on my Asus laptop. So I should upgrade – safely!!! – as well. 😀
Thanks for your input.

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dukester

[Member punranger]

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I’ve installed antiX on several older Macs with barely no problem, including an iMac from around 2005. The last version I used was maybe antiX 19, but I see no reason it shouldn’t work with the most current version, #22. One thing I found was that if you don’t like the startup chime of the Mac, it’s best to mute it before you install anything else, that issue caused me a lot pf problems actually. As far as I recall, there was a little twiddling with the wifi adapter on a few occasions, but I was able to sort it out – the necessary driver was present. Most peripherals work out of the box, though I do have some issues with my Bluetooth mouse. Nothing worse than installing on a regular PC, all in all. I do recommend checking out a live USB before installing. I just used all the default options on the install, no problems as far as I can recall.

antiX linux: The best way to revive an old computer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCTaUAP6sSg

[Member punranger]

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And, yeah, go for the full version. Your wife will thank you for it!

antiX linux: The best way to revive an old computer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCTaUAP6sSg

[Member dukester]

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Thanks for your input punranger!

punranger wrote:

One thing I found was that if you don’t like the startup chime of the Mac, it’s best to mute it before you install anything else, that issue caused me a lot pf problems actually.

What do you mean by “startup chime”? Her iMac is silent as a mouse on startup. Or am I misinterpreting your use of “chime”?
Anyway, if I wipe the HDD, would that still be an issue if it did exist?

I agree – the Full distro will be the way to go! Thanks again.

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dukester

[Moderator caprea]

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This is just a reminder that antiX full 21/22 has two different kernels installed by default and you can try both.

[Member dukester]

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@caprea
Which kernels would these be? Does the install default to one in particular, or do I have to select one at install-time?

• This reply was modified 2 months, 3 weeks ago by dukester.

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dukester

[Member dukester]

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@punranger
I lied! I just booted her iMac and it does sound off at power on! How did you get rid of that for the antiX install?

• This reply was modified 2 months, 3 weeks ago by dukester.

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dukester

[Member punranger]

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Ha! I can’t recall exactly, it’s been a while. I searched the web, of course, and there were a few black magic type tricks I tried, as far as I recall, but I don’t believe any of them worked. It might have been as complicated as reinstalling the last working version of MacOS, El Capitan as I recall, and disabling the chime from within MacOS. As I recall it, that carried over into antiX. Now, that’s from memory, so don’t trust me on it. But I think the point is that the chime is written into the BIOS (or whatever Apple was using at the time), so you need to be able to access the hardware at boot. Sorry, that’s the best I can do. Good luck!

antiX linux: The best way to revive an old computer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCTaUAP6sSg

[Member dukester]

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punranger wrote:

But I think the point is that the chime is written into the BIOS (or whatever Apple was using at the time), so you need to be able to access the hardware at boot. Sorry, that’s the best I can do. Good luck!

Thx! I need to find out how to boot into the iMac “BIOS” or whatever. Google might help – what with dumb AI running rampant all over the planet nowadays. LOL Much obliged for the tips.

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dukester

[Member madibi]

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@dukester

hi,

dukester wrote:

She is not an avid computer-phile, just an occasional user.

may be your wife can enjoy a MacOS look:
https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/make-antix-look-like-macos/
https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/how-to-make-antix-look-like-macos-with-jwm/

The 2nd one is what I like using in my main pc and that I’ve installed on Mac(s) from people with old machines.

Good look 🙂
m

[Member dukester]

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@madibi
Thanks for those two links for an OSX look-alike setup. If she wants to go down that road, then those two posts will indeed come in handy. 👍

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dukester

[Member dukester]

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the iMac5.1 machine sports an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU which I’ve discovered is a 64-bit job.

I plugged in a USB stick with a freshly etched anti-X-22 into a USB port on the iMac
At power-on, holding the “Option” key brings up an Apple boot mgr
giving me the option to boot from either Mackintosh HD or EFI disk

I select EFI and a anti-X-22 GRUB screen comes up
I set the timezone, keyboard, etc – no probs
I go to “advanced options”, select and set what I can
I go back to the Main menu
I select anti-X-22 at the very top of the menu list
It starts to boot and then chokes as follows:

INIT: version 2.96 booting
Using makefile-style concurrent boot in runlevel S.
Starting hot-plug events dispatcher: udevd.
Synthesizing the initial hotplug events (subsystems)…done.
Synthesizing the initial hotplug events (devices)…done.
Waiting for dev to be fully populated….

Any ideas as to what is going on all you hardware and antiX gurus?
I’m wondering if the early versions of the Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs were fully 64 bit?
Would it hurt to try booting a 32-bit antiX-22?
Any and all clues would be greatly appreciated. I’ve worked with computers since my first encounter with an Apple ][e in 1981. But my 76 yr old brain is slowing down a lot and I need the help and guidance of you young guys! Please! TIA ..

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dukester

[Member madibi]

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@dukester

1. after the iso download have you verified the ckecksum?
2. after the boot, when you arrive to the antiX menu with all the choices, you can make 2 tries:
– 1st one: scroll down a couple of rows and (according to my old man memory) you find a menu that sounds like “start with safe video mode”,
– 2nd one: scroll down about four rows and (according to my old man memory) you find a menu that sounds like “start with safe mode”.

dukester wrote:

Would it hurt to try booting a 32-bit antiX-22?

you can try both 32 and 64 bit versions

dukester wrote:

I’m wondering if the early versions of the Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs were fully 64 bit?

I don’t know the answer. My experience is that antiX 64 works on all very old 64 bit Mac(s)

I’m definitely not an antiX guru, in this forum there are a lot of very gentle gurus that may give you more sophisticated answers 🙂

Good luck
m

• This reply was modified 2 months, 3 weeks ago by madibi.

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