Mini-MATE - Rescuing Hardware from the Graveyard

by base64xor

The funnest projects are those that present a number of challenges which require a little hacking.  Installing an update-to-date operating system on a Mac Mini 2,1 (era 2007) is one of those fun projects.  Since Apple will not allow an OS X version newer than 10.6.8 Snow Leopard to install on the Mac Mini 2,1, a Mini running OS X cannot install the latest patched versions of popular software.

Not only is there the hindrance of the Mac Mini being limited to older versions of OS X, but the hardware is also not suitable for the current desktop versions of popular Linux distributions.  The Ubuntu MATE 64-bit distribution is ideal for older systems such as this Intel 64-bit processor Mini, however, the EFI boot of this Mini is 32-bit.  Since the off-the-shelf x64 MATE supports only 64-bit EFI, not only is there a bit of work to get the Mini to install MATE, but the MATE ISO must be hacked also.

So to start this project, I purchased a used Mini on the Web.  After the Mini arrived via the seller's favorite delivery company, I logged into OS X as admin without a password, and then I first set a password!  In order to add another operating system to the Mini, the OS X partition must be resized and a new partition added to the original 80 GB drive!

The boot loader for the Mini will not boot images from USB, so I installed the rEFInd Boot Manager found at SourceForge.  With my fingers crossed, I verified that rEFInd boots into OS X, as each step in this process could brick the Mini!  The process to install MATE from USB will require two bootable USB sticks.

I retreated to my Windows system and burned the bootable ISO image of rEFInd to an USB stick and downloaded the Ubuntu MATE x64 ISO.  Using 7-Zip, I extracted the MATE ISO onto the Windows system.  In order for the Mini to boot the MATE ISO, I downloaded bootia32.efi from github.com.  It is actually labeled as "wrong," but this is the one that works on the Mini!

After placing the bootia32.efi in the EFI/BOOT folder of the MATE ISO extracted files, I burned the extracted MATE files to a second bootable USB stick.  Then I rebooted with both bootable USB sticks in the Mini.  Success so far!  The rEFInd boot menu was displayed.

I used the keyboard arrows to move across the rEFInd boot menu options, and looked for the boot option that displayed the words bootia32.efi and selected it.  The Ubuntu installer USB stick then booted into the GRUB menu, where I selected the "Install Ubuntu" option.

Finally, the rest was an ordinary Ubuntu MATE installation from the Ubuntu USB media.  I used the advanced option to format the selected disk partition as ext4 and labeled it as / (ensuring to not harm the OS X partition!).  From now on, I only need to select Ubuntu in GRUB boot loader to boot into MATE.

To try this out for yourself, buy an "obsolete" Mini and attempt this project!  Very likely, your steps will vary, and you will find yourself searching the Web for answers on how to hack during every step!