Install Linux on PZI iMacs

PARTITIONING (First part)

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.

install BOOT MANAGER : rEFInd

download it from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/

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

create a (Live) USB stick with an OS on it

you can make an install usb stick

or a live image usb stick, which you can also use to install an OS with

download an image of the distribution you want to install, it's a .iso file
for Debian you can find them here: https://www.debian.org/CD/live/
pick a 64 bit system, (amd64), for example: http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/
install debian-live-8.2.0-amd64-gnome-desktop.iso (or any other Desktop Environment you prefer)

elementary OS --> to look like Mac OSX
cinnemon --> fork of gnome, to look familiar (part of Mint)
kde --> 
lxde --> 
mate --> attempt to recreate gnome 2, which lighter, simple, looking like a hybrid between windows/OSX
standard --> using Gnome
xfce --> 
gnome --> these days gnome 3, smooth, easy access, good to begin with

also download the md5sum file, this is the file you can compare with your downloaded .iso file, as sometimes while downloading you lose a few parts
run:

md5sum -c MD5SUMS

reads MD5 sums from the FILEs and check them, if the FILENAME.iso is saying 'OK', everything is fine

insert usb stick
run the following command, to check what the path of the usb is

dmesg

this line tells you where the USB is:

[ 8578.333983] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk

the disk to copy the iso to is in this case !!!!! sdb !!!!!

become root
copy the .iso to your usb, fill in the path to your usb stick

cat debian-live-8.2.0-amd64-gnome-desktop.iso > /dev/sdb

your (Live) usb stick is ready

INSTALLATION AND PARTITIONING (second part)

Take your 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]
(AM: swap not needed, when you have more then 4gb RAM then a SWAP is useless) - 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

though, sometimes the audio gives up on you...

to see your PLAYBACK Hardware Devices:

aplay -l

card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: CS4206 Analog [CS4206 Analog]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: CS4206 Digital [CS4206 Digital]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

to see your other hardware devices:

lspci

01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GK107 HDMI Audio Controller (rev a1)

more details:

cat /proc/asound/cards

0 [PCH            ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH
                     HDA Intel PCH at 0xb1c10000 irq 50
1 [NVidia         ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
                     HDA NVidia at 0xb1080000 irq 17

this you can also all find by running:

alsamixer

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

make sure you run modprobe as root.