Goal
Replace OS X with PureOS on my old Mac. I essentially want to give PureOS a go and buy a Librem PC if it works out.
Issue
PureOS doesn't appear in the boot 'drive' choices when I restart my Mac, so I can't boot from the ISO and run the installer.
Details
MacBook Pro specs
- OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)
- MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010)
- Processor 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5
- Memory 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
- Graphics Intel HD Graphics 288 MB
- Storage 256 GB Solid State SATA Drive
What I tried
- Downloaded
pureos-8.0-live-amd64.hybrid.iso
from https://www.pureos.net/download.html and checked the hash. All good. - Flashed the ISO onto a 4GB USB using Etcher (on another Mac of mine).
- Unmounted and unplugged the USB.
- Inserted the USB into my older Mac (detailed above) whilst it was off, then turned it on (with the Option key pressed), no PureOS boot option was available. I expected to see an external media icon labelled EFI.
Just for comparison, I downloaded the Debian 9 live install ISO (debian-9.3.0-amd64-netinst.iso
), and performed the same flashing process as listed above, and my older Mac successfully picked it up on boot. I know that PureOS is a derivative of Debian, so this has left me somewhat confused.
I also ran fdisk
on the ISOs to compare with the Debian ISO (may or may not be useful)...
PureOS ISO:
$ fdisk pureos-8.0-live-amd64.hybrid.iso
Disk: pureos-8.0-live-amd64.hybrid.iso geometry: 686/64/63 [2768960 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
Starting Ending
#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*1: 17 0 2 1 - 1017 84 32 [ 64 - 2768896] OS/2 hidden
2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
Debian ISO:
$ fdisk debian-9.3.0-amd64-netinst.iso
Disk: debian-9.3.0-amd64-netinst.iso geometry: 589/16/63 [593920 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
Starting Ending
#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
2: EF 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 3760 - 832] <Unknown ID>
3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
I'm thinking that the PureOS ISO isn't (U)EFI compatible, so my older Mac hasn't been able to pick it up on boot?
If anyone has any tips, please share and help me out - I'd love to get this working! Thanks in advance.