thoughts/data/mac-mini-debian.md

There are a lot of guides on booting Linux on an Mac Mini, and the
Mac Mini is absolutely great. There's also a lot of guides which
takes some unnecessary steps on the way from the native OS X
experience to the bloated, and difficult-to-setup Linux on OS
X. Some of them are good on certain points though.

So, not surprising, I will tell you how to make it work with both
a native EFI installation and the Broadcom BCM4366 up and running.

Everything will be done on the command line, so this will work
great on servers as well. Of course you won't run wifi on the work
server though (!).

First, take note that this will wipe almost everything Apple from
you box except the Firmware. You may roll back through pressing
the ALT-key while booting.

Second, you should use Debian 8.0 "Jessie" (which is currently in
RC1). This is important since Wheezy doesn't support the Broadcom
chipset.

Prerequisites for this article are:

* A Mac Mini, tested on an OCT 2014 model
* A keyboard
* A USB memory stick of at least 2GB (speed is the key)

## 1. Install Debian - and Change Boot Order

You should create a bootable USB stick for your Debian
installation. When you've downloaded the ISO, you can make it
bootable without hassle through Unetbootin [1]. That one works on
OS X 10.10 "Yosemite" as well.

When you've got that one ready insert it into the Mini, holding
the ALT-key while booting. You will get to the boot menu, choose
the "EFI" one. This will initiate GRUB from the stick.

Do the installation as you would on any other machine. Since your
mac is still setup to boot to OS X, we need to change that next in
order to make it point to the Debian installation instead.

When rebooting, get into the boot menu by holding the ALT-key
again. Select that same GRUB menu again, _BUT_ instead of choosing
to install it you should now press "c" to get to the GRUB command
line.

It is now time to locate the boot directory [2] on the right
disk. Vary X (disk) and Y (partition table) until you find the
right combination:

    grub> ls (hdX,gptY)/boot/grub

That may for instance result in:

    grub> ls (hd2,gpt2)/boot/grub
    
Set the ``root`` to that disk and partition table, and boot it:

    grub> set root=(hd2,gpt2)
    grub> ls -l (hd2,gpt2)
    grub> linux /boot/vmlinux[...].efi.signed root=UUID=[uuid from above command]
    grub> initrd /boot/initrd[...]
    grub> boot

You will now boot to the one you just installed. It is time to
make it persistent and change the boot order with
``efibootmgr``. First list your current settings by:

    sudo efibootmgr

Now change the boot order (may vary, point being that Debian
should come first):

    sudo efibootmgr -o 0,1

Now reboot and enjoy the darkness without wifi.

## 2. Get Wifi Up and Running (Offline)

The current Broadcom chipset is quite new, so you'll need to step
it up to Debian "Jessie" to get it working. Cutting this a bit
short, you will probably need this part to be offline. Showing you
a small trick you can get all those dependencies on a vmware
installation (run the same image as the one you installed,
remember to simulate that you don't have network on that virtual
installation):

    apt-get -qq --print-uris install build-essential \
            linux-headers-$(uname -r) broadcom-sta-dkms \
            patch bzip2 wpasupplicant | cut -d\' -f 2 > urls.txt

This will produce a file of urls that are all the packages
requested and its dependencies, get the stick, format it with
FAT - and grab the packages to it:

    wget -i urls.txt

Unmounting that from the virtual installation, insert it into the
physical installation:

    cd /mnt/usb
    dpkg -i *.deb

Remove all modules that may conflict (and blacklist them in
``/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.config``):

    modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcmsmac

Load the Broadcom module:

    modprobe wl
    echo wl >> /etc/modules

Everything that's left now is configuring and starting
wpasupplicant:

    wpa_passphrase <ssid> [passphrase] > /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
    wpa_supplicant -B -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

To make it persistent enable the interface in
``/etc/network/interfaces`` by appending:

    auto wlan0
    iface wlan0 inet dhcp
        wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
        
        
If you have made an exception in your DHCP pool, you should also
make it static (basic stuff, but anyways):

    auto wlan0
    iface wlan0 inet static
        wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
        address 192.168.1.2
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        gateway 192.168.1.1
        
That's basically it. Enjoy the show!

**Edit 1, FEB 7th 2015:** So I got to play with ``systemd``, since
it turns out a service isn't a service the way it used to be. In
order to start services in Debian "Jessie", you'll need to use
``systemd``. Here's an example for ``znc`` [3]:

    [Unit]
    Description=An advanced IRC bouncer
    After=network.target oidentd.socket
     
    [Service]
    Type=simple
    EnvironmentFile=/etc/conf.d/znc
    User=znc
    ExecStart=/usr/bin/znc -f $ZNC_OPTIONS
    ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
     
    [Install]
    WantedBy=multi-user.target 

Also create the directory and drop the following line into
``/etc/conf.d/znc``: ``ZNC_OPTIONS="-d /var/lib/znc"``

**Edit 2, FEB 7th 2015:** To enable the Mac Mini to auto-restart
after power failure set the following PCI value [4]:

    setpci -s 0:1f.0 0xa4.b=0




[1] http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/  
[2]
http://askubuntu.com/questions/516535/how-can-i-use-the-installer-to-manually-boot-into-a-system-without-grub-installer  
[3] https://gist.github.com/tlercher/3897561  
[4] http://smackerelofopinion.blogspot.no/2011/09/mac-mini-rebooting-tweaks-setpci-s-01f0.html