For those of us with older Intel based Mac computers you might have come across the fact that the 64bit ISOs will not boot on these machines leaving you stuck at a black screen that you can't select boot 1 or 2. I have made the following ISOs for Ubuntu MATE 64bit that will boot and install without this issue.
The machines this should work on are:
iMac 5,1 – iMac 5,2 – iMac 6,1
Macbook 2,1
MacBook Pro 2,1 – MacBook Pro 2,2
Mac Pro 1,1 (only one I can test)
If you're interested in how I did this I used and compiled the C program HERE following the guide HERE. It is a pretty simple thing to do and plan on doing it for all releases of Ubuntu MATE until it either doesn't work or performance on these systems suffers to the point of being unusable.
If there are any questions or requests for certain distros please let me know and I will answer them as soon as I am able to. Please note that these are not official images but just those I made for myself and want to share for those who might find them helpful.
Hello,
I’ d liked to renew our iMac 7.1 mid 2007 with ubuntu mate 18.04. It has intel core 2 duo with 3 GB memory and dvd rw. Effi boot is 32 (the problem for the use of the 64 install?)
Is the described scenario a good one for us? Is it possible that you make it a bit easier for me because I have only a very small knowledge of computers.
Many thanks,
J. Grootjans
Hi KTrad, I just installed your Ubuntu MATE 18.04.1 LTS on a MacBook 2,1. This is my first post on the MATE forum. I'm new to Ubuntu. Will I be able to install the regular MATE updates or go up to MATE 19... or should I just stick with this version for compatibility? I'm not clear on how different your package is than the standard package. Thanks in advance.
The only difference is in the bootloader. What @KTrad has done is basically tricked the Mac's bootloader into thinking that it is loading a 32-bit operating system. For some reason, these Macs have a 64-bit processor but a 32-bit bootloader. It should be fine to upgrade. However, there isn't much point in upgrading from an LTS (long term support) release (18.04) to an interim release (18.10, 19.04, soon 19.10). It would probably be better to wait for 20.04 next April, as that will be the next LTS release.
Finding this page has allowed me to make my old MacBook 2,1 usable again. I've wiped the HD and reinstalled Lion OS, mainly because I like the Startup Utilities and I occasionally need to use the Mac OS. I followed the links KTrad provided about how to make the distros work with that old MacBook. But, that's led me down a rabbit hole... Now, I want to try more Linux distros. I've found I like Mint better than Mate for now (I know, sorry Mate) and I want to load more versions to a USB drive, instead of burning DVD-RW's each time. Anyway I've read all about it, but there is a lot of programming language used that I don't understand. Is there an easy (really easy) way to do that, without all the programming? I can boot CloudReady on that old Mac from a USB after using their .exe installer, so I know it's possible.
Yes, there is. It's called Etcher, it's free, and it runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's probably the simplest way to reliably write an OS image to a USB drive. I use it all the time for making USBs, and I've had no problems whatsoever (except that I tried to use a damaged USB drive, so that wasn't Etcher's fault).
I wish it was that easy. Believe me, I've tried all the popular iso to USB makers. I'm learning that booting an old MacBook from USB is more complicated than just burning an iso to a USB drive. There is plenty of info about it to read, but I'm not a programmer and don't have the desire to become one just to boot an old MacBook from a USB thumb drive.
Interesting. I have a Macbook 2,1 (or something similar, I can't definitively remember), and I used @KTrad's image with Etcher and it worked. To be fair, it's not perfect; now that it's installed, the computer doesn't always boot up properly for some reason, but other than that it works decently.
I found a different way to run Freya .32, and to get MATE 18.04 64 bit on my MacBook 2.1 emc 2139. I installed both (actually started with MATE 16.04) on an old Toshiba A135. My son gave me an old MacBook as a gift that he found on ebay for $19. I upgraded the ram from 1gb to 2gb, and I had a long slog getting OSX from 10.4 to 10.7.5 Tiger. Only to find out Tiger was useless for safe net surfing. So, just for the hell of it I stuck the 32GB ssd from the Toshiba A135 into the MacBook. BAM it booted. GRUB, and Freya always boot. MATE 64 bit boots every other time? MATE is really responsive, and everything works well. I did have to download an Apple USB Video Support file to get the MacBook camera working, but all the updates and upgrades have worked. Currently running 18.04.3 LTS and am typing this on the MacBook. I think it has to do with the hardware being from about the same era.
I’m thinking the USB drive wasn’t properly formatted as every Intel Mac is capable of booting from USB. There are some ways to get some PPC Macs to boot from USB but was never officially supported.
Edit: spelling
As can probably be seen I never uploaded an image for 19.04 and that is because of some personal issues. It looks unlikely I will upload any for 19.04 or 19.10 but do plan on having an image for 20.04
I know it's a bit late but here is a copy of the iso2mac program I used compiled for OSX 10.7.5 just download it and put it in the same directory the iso you want to make compatible then run from the terminal: ./iso2mac nameofimage.iso it should complete almost instantly.
Here is a link to the 20.04 iso I made. It does not work properly if using the standard nVidia GeForce 7300GT that came with the Mac Pro so will need to upgrade video cards and no way for me to test it since that is the card I currently have installed.
FIrst off: Thanks for these loads! I was looking for an Ubuntu load to re-ignite an old Macbook 2.2 for a friend, that worked fine, but was stuck on OS 10.6.8. After trying some other loads (doing research on the Intel Core 2 Duo/32bit EFI issue lead me here; I could not get any loads from Matt Gadient's site to boot), I decided to go with MATE 20.04. I was able to get it to install...now the fun begins!
Some quick thoughts: I love the look of the desktop, and the UI tweaks that are available. Browsing sites looks incredibly crisp, and video on things like CNN, BBC and YouTube look good (420p runs fine, 720p choppy but understood from HW).
I'll add some things quirks I've found, and try to post solutions (if I can find them) for others, as I think this is a great thing to do.
My specs:Processor 2.33Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
Mem: 3Gb 667Mhz DDR2 SDRAM
Model ID: MacBook Pro2.2 2006
HDD 200GB drive
-> I decided to blow away the Mac OS completely, and run MATE 20.04. NOTE: I did testing, and the install, based on a DVD burn. It seemed to work - this was easier than getting a USB/bootloader SW for me, as I didn't have any USB keys lying around, but plenty of DVD's...
I had asked for the 'login automatically' at install, but it seems I have to put in the password at every login. I'll see if there's a setting to change that
Sleep mode: after the first restart to complete the install, I found that the screen would not light up. I noticed the MATE symbol very faint in the screen, but it was still black, with no real keyboard access. It looks like the sleep mode gets stuck - after banging on some keys, I seem to be able to get it working by closing the screen, and slowly opening about 3 degrees to see the screen light up and reflect on the keyboard.I've had to do this HW workaround several times to get it to finally wake up. So: I'm not sure this is HW, I have seen some things on similar behaviour in other forums, I'll have to see if there's a SW fix that works, and will post if I do
Rhythmbox: I tried to burn (extract) a CD (yes, some people still do this), and when I tried this, the app would crash immediately, with a bug report. I tried to download Clementine,
but found that this app does not identify tracks/album etc. Which seems to be a limitation of Clementine, so I did not bother to see if it would burn a CD.
Trackpad: scrolling on websites seems a little wonky, it can be harder to have a smooth scroll on FIrefox. This may need tweaking, I'll have to investigate.
I believe this OS will enable this Macbook new life as a simple task machine: Internet, email, videos, which it is intended for. Again, many thanks for your work on providing these loads, it's much appreciated!
I'm glad it works for you. I currently have no way of testing 20.04 on my intel mac due to it not being compatible with the video card so still running 18.04 on my machine. Will be looking into it eventually when I do get the funds to purchase a newer video card.
Hi Ktrad!! Thanks a lot for your help and for sharing all your experience.
I've been trying to revive a MacBook Pro 2,2... Step by step. First, I had to cook the laptop with a blanket as I suffered some years ago from the ATI conexion... solved!!. Then, I wanted to install a Linux but after using >10DVD's with several suggestions... well, it was impossible. I even tried yours modded distributions, but I was impossible to boot from an external DVD (the original broken down also some years ago and I replaced it with a second HDD, being the main an SDD). Anyway. Good news is that I finally managed to boot from an USB using YUMI BIOS/UEFI in a Mac with High Sierra using Wine. All went well until Mate 20.04 refused to continue with the booting... any suggestions?
