Hello all,
I am a computer noob and I used Macintosh for most of my life. Apple was great tell OS X. It all went down hill from there. I got the newest update from apple and my computer was just not the same, it was sluggish and very lethargic which was madding! So got to thinking and found myself looking into linux and I fell in love with the openness and attitude it came with. I said “I want that” So I found a distro that I liked which was elementary OS. Still do like it, but I’ve been having trouble with the install and sense its based on Ubuntu I thought I should look here. Then I saw Ubuntu Mate. Its a great ecosystem and I’m going to be using it for my new OS.
Thank you for reading this far. So like I said in the topic I have a Early 2009 iMac with the intel core 2 duo. I am having trouble getting it installed and usable. I know about the rEFIt/rEFInd I’m good with that. What I can’t get around is the rest. Apple has done some crazy shenanigans and now I’m feeling out of depth with this. I just want a usable computer again, I feel like I am missing something. I am very excited to learn linux and everything that goes with it. So again thank you and your patience is very appreciated.
Hi Kyptnc7 and welcome to the forum.
Can you tell us what is your issue installing U-M (ubuntu-Mate)
What are you calling “trouble getting installed and usable”
It would be nice if you tell us what you did step by step and what happened 
Well I haven’t tried installing U-M yet, Ill be giving it a go this weekend. I did watch a youtube video of how to install and its very much like elementary. What I’ve tried so far is this: I install rEFIt/rEFInd (which works perfectly) Then I boot from the Flash EFI. Then I hit install. I tried using the “Install alongside Mac OSX” that didn’t work. So I then looked for a how to guide it told me make a couple partitions that that have / , swap, and /home. So I tried that. Some how that didn’t take. I might that add that I could have totally missed a step somewhere. Then the 3rd time I tried I wiped my hhd clean but I couldn’t get the partitions off. The Install said I had to many partitions and it didn’t know what to do or something along those lines. I know that the 2009 iMacs are a challenge to install linux on in the first place, but I’m sure I’m missing something.
Let me get back to you later on this evening as here it’s 8 am and i have to go to work.
I will try a live USB to see if we can use Gparted or Disks without installing U-M to clean up all your partitions (now that your hdd is clean of Mac OS X)
I really appreciate that! Fair warning though, from what I’ve read if the 2009 and earlier macs don’t have a MacOS on it they wont work. Which I think is part of my problem. Though I could be misinformed…