Install failing on older mac mini

Hi! I’m attempting to install a newly downloaded Budgie 21.04 on an older mac mini — Late 2012. I installed the iso on a thumbdrive using Etcher, erased the original drive and formated to FAT 32 (not doing a dual install, machine doesn’t update beyond Catalina OS).

Install windows come up fine, I go through the installation process to where I get “have to restart to complete installation”. I do restart now, it takes a couple seconds, tells me to remove the installation medium and hit enter. Do that, screen goes back dark… and nothing every comes back.

I’ve done this a couple of times, doing a full install with Budgie, and am selecting the “erase disk and install Budgie” option. Took a look at the advanced options but didn’t know enough for different partitioning so did nothing there. I believe the machine has 4GB memory and know it has a 500GB hard drive.

Suggestions? What am I missing or doing wrong here? It seems pretty basic…

Thanks!

 - Brian -

Hmm… interesting.

I haven’t tried 21.04. I installed successfully 20.04.2 on my mid 2012 mac laptop.

I should try 21.04 at some point, but I would recommend you try 20.04.2 LTS first to see if your issue is kernel related.

Please allow me to ask the following question, just to understand the problem properly. Did you follow the recommended steps from the Ubuntu tutorial to Create a bootable USB stick on macOS? Which device did you erase and format? The USB stick device or the hard drive of your Mac Mini itself? See step 3 of the tutorial.

Sure, I always start with “is it plugged in?” myself :^)

I used Etcher on the mac to erase and create a bootable iso on the USB stick. I have done this before successfully and the installation window appeared fine. So it appeared to be okay.

The mac had previously been wiped down to factory reinstall. I first attempted to partition the drive to have a separate linux space but it was formatted APFS and did not seem to allow me to do that. Decided it didn’t matter to me that much anyhow, I didn’t want to run Catalina on it in any case. So I erased and reformatted to FAT-32. Very possible that I did something wrong here.

I then booted from the USB and performed the Budgie install. After it requests to restart I do so and remove the USB when it asks to do that. At that point it goes dark… so perhaps I didn’t set the internal HD to be bootable??

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Possibly.

When I installed 20.04 I simply booted the USB and choose the erase disc option to replace macos. I didn’t do anything else like formatting the drive.

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Yes, I have a strong suspicion that this is where the problem lies.

Today I searched the German wiki of ubuntuusers.de for a solution to the black screen that appears when booting. I came across an article on the subject of boot options in which the problem is mentioned. The cause of the screen staying black is possibly the lack of support for some graphics cards.

Some graphics cards are not properly supported by the kernel modules. When starting, the screen remains or becomes black. The system can then neither be operated nor configured in order to install a suitable driver. Often, boot options such as nomodeset or xforcevesa help to start the system in a way that it can be operated at all, albeit with reduced graphics. If a suitable graphics driver has been successfully installed, such a boot option (which is usually only intended as a stopgap) need not and should not be permanently included in the installed system.

If the existing graphics card requires the option nomodeset, this can be activated via the selection menu with F6.

If you have problems understanding the German text, DeepL is your friend. :smiley:

Thanks Piscatorius!

I recreated the boot partition by booting off the USB in test mode and following the instructions here: BootPartition - Community Help Wiki. Everything now working fine.

I had considered the graphics issue but had moved that down on the list of likely candidates since the USB install was driving the monitor just fine on it’s own.

Happy now :^)

- Brian -
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If you don’t mind me interjecting on your topic…please?

I also have a 2012 mac mini i5 2.5Ghz with 16gb ram that I wanted to upcycle and felt that Budgie might be that good medium-sized distro.

I also followed the same steps you did, from the Ubuntu guide of how to create a bootable usb device on macOS using Etcher.

For some reason I chose…it wasn’t really a clear choice, but clicked on ‘minimalist’ install and that’s what I currently have. Rather than figuring out what is missing and installing them one by one, I thought I’d do another fresh install but with the full version.

However, and this is my question to you, I am unable to get into the bios or EFI - whatever its called, where we then choose the USB device.
Previously, I would hit the power button and rapidly hit the OPT key which then, instead of booting into Catalina (also my last macOS version) would show me the USB option. This is no longer working though! It seems I am now stuck with my current Budgie installation. Having installed Budgie is the manoeuvre for getting into Bios/efi different?

Wondering what you had any issues with that?