Install Linux on PZI iMacs

PARTITIONING - First step :

Erasing the datastorage partition of 3TB using the following command :
diskutil eraseVolume free Blank /dev/disk0s4 (make sure you double check that this is the correct path by running diskutil list first!)
Because of some troubles with diskutils, most of the steps will have to be postponed until the installation of Debian.

BOOT MANAGER :
Here you can find all the instruction to install rEFInd.
http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/installing.html#osx

INSTALLATION AND PARTITIONING - Second step :
You may have prepared a bootable USB stick with the Operating System on it.
Plug it in and reboot the computer.
Just launch the Install normally by selecting the pinguin.
As it gets to the partitioning part of the installation, go for manual partitioning and set up the following partitions ;
- 500Go for datastorage, unmounted
- 10Go [SWAP]
- 2.3 TB /home
- 50 GB /

Audio

To get the audio working -- although it's still quite buggy:

as root:

nano /lib/modprobe.d/aliases.conf
after the 'options' add a new line with: "options snd-hda-intel model=imac27_122"
ctrl-x , save: yes.
reboot

WiFi

See http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/175813 and https://wiki.debian.org/wl

It seems the non-free WL driver should work. (it does! the specific working package is called broadcom-sta-dkms.conf )

a list of supported hardware → https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

how to install the wl driver?

(following https://wiki.debian.org/wl)

+ → how to find out which firmware to look for

run this command to see what hardware there is inside the iMac:

lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 06)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor PCI Express x16 Controller (rev 06)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI (rev 05)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #1 (rev d5)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #3 (rev d5)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #4 (rev d5)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #5 (rev d5)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Z87 Express LPC Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller 1 [AHCI mode] (rev 05)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 05)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107M [GeForce GT 755M Mac Edition] (rev a1)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GK107 HDMI Audio Controller (rev a1)
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 03)
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM57766 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 01)
04:00.1 SD Host controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM57765/57785 SDXC/MMC Card Reader (rev 01)

run this command to see more specific information about the Broadcom wireless chip:

lspci -vnn | grep -i net

03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [14e4:43a0] (rev 03)
04:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM57766 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe [14e4:1686] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM57766 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe [14e4:1686]

14E4:43A0, is supported by the proprietary driver wl

to install this driver, add non-free packages to your apt sources list

to do that, run:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

and add

deb http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free

now run the following command, to install the driver:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r|sed 's,[^-]*-[^-]*-,,') broadcom-sta-dkms

after installing it says:

W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/tigon/tg3_tso5.bin for module tg3
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/tigon/tg3_tso.bin for module tg3
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/tigon/tg3.bin for module tg3

to install these firmware packages:

sudo apt-get install firmware-linux-nonfree

then run:

modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcmsmac

and load the wl module:

modprobe wl

for these last two commands we need modprobe, but it returns:

bash: modprobe: command not found

but when i rebooted my computer, the wireless driver was there!

to check, see if broadcom-sta-dkms.conf is located in the /etc/modprobe.d folder, by:

ls /etc/modprobe.d