Can't install Ubuntu on new iMac

[MountainX]

At least two of us are having the same problem. I have an iMac 27" (11,1) and he has an iMac 11,2.

We have tried Ubuntu 10.04 Live CD, openSUSE 11.3 Live CD, Ubuntu 10.10 beta (2010.09.18) and Linux Mint 9 (32 bit).

Neither the "try" option nor the "install" option work. In both cases the screen goes completely black and stays black.

The installer screen with the language option comes up initially. But as soon as a language is selected, the screen goes black. The drive is still being accessed and it sounds like the installer is being loaded, but you can't see anything on the screen.

The CD stops reading after a few minutes and that's that.

Tried to set boot option vga=771 - no good. Boot option nomodeset - no good.

The other guy said all these discs worked on his old Mac Mini Solo (2006).
Looks like something's different about booting a live CD on the new iMacs. Anyone else trying this?

(BTW, I had to create a new post because a spammer caused the original thread to get locked.)

[MountainX]

I did some research on this. Here is what I found so far:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/542660

I had the same problem on my iMac 27" but found a workaround for me:
* installed Ubuntu 10.04 (32 bit) with the text based installer (alternate-i386 CD)
* select the recovery mode and added "radeon.modeset=0 nomodeset" to the boot options (the line with linux ...)
* the recovery mode detected problems with the graphics and allowed me to use failsafe graphics for one session
* install the proprietary driver from ATI
* normal reboot: success.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1476226 <-- shows a workaround
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1470389 <-- shows the original problem

more links:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1484792
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1456439
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/KernelModeSetting

artik wrote on 2010-06-29: #32
As i reported here : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/597070
It's not really black screen, it's the video output that switch to the mini display port output. If you plug a second screen on the mini display port, you can install ubuntu normally using this 2nd screen.

Really hope this bug will be corrected soon.

ATI-based solutions (not Mac specific, but related to this issue):
http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2010/05/...up-workaround/

[MountainX]

Could use some help here...

My steps so far:

* installed Ubuntu 10.10 (32 bit daily build for 2010.09.19) with the alternate text based installer (alternate-i386 CD).
* selected the recovery mode, pressed e to edit and added "radeon.modeset=0 nomodeset" to the boot options (the line that begins with linux ...) and press CTRL-X to boot.
* used failsafe graphics option
* install the proprietary driver from ATI. The GUI tool failed to find my ATI card, so I downloaded the latest ATI driver from the company's website and installed it in a terminal using "sudo sh ati-driver-installer-10-9-x86.x86_64.run --buildandinstallpkg". Success.
* shutdown when completed
* restart - Ubuntu drops into the shell - X doesn't load and I don't see any error messages.
* shutdown and start up again. This time the rEFIt Penguin logo never goes away and Ubuntu never starts up.

[MountainX]

bump
I am still looking for help on this...

[jingo5]

I got a 27" iMac installed with the 7 Oct 2010 Daily of Kubuntu 10.10 alternative installer cd (couldn't get a usb disk to boot).

Your refit issue is something I also encountered. The solution to that is to boot the installer cd, drop into rescue mode, then run 'parted' in a terminal. Then use parted to set whatever partition contains /boot to be bootable.

The problem is EFI and MBR keep different records of the partition table, and the boot flag was set in one of the tables and not the other.

Once this change is made in parted, you can reboot, and boot linux properly with refit.

Problems you may encounter still:
1. If you use a bluetooth apple keyboard or magic mouse, the bluetooth pairing might cause you headaches - a bit of hackiness required to get it going until they triage and fix the bug.

2. Attempting to use fglrx may cause all sorts of fail with X (kdm may fail to load), so you would need to start your X session from a shell instead - and enable composite effects manually if you care about that. One thing I haven't tried yet is to turn off kernel mode setting - I suspect this is the issue.

Hope that helps.

[MountainX]

I got a 27" iMac installed with the 7 Oct 2010 Daily of Kubuntu 10.10 alternative installer cd (couldn't get a usb disk to boot).

...

Hope that helps.

Yes, that's a lot of help. Thank you! (I do use the magic mouse and magic trackpad.)

Also, someone on Reddit gave me this link: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1476226

I'm ready to give it another try now. I look forward to finally running Ubuntu on my iMac!

[inanutshellus]

I have a 27" iMac (model id "iMac11,1") and would like to install Ubuntu on it as the primary OS, but it's my work machine and tales of woe like this one have kept me away... If you get it working and can recall the steps it took to do so, toss up a tutorial or update the community Intel Imac page (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Intel_iMac). It would be much appreciated!

[MountainX]

...In both cases the screen goes completely black and stays black.

Here's the problem. It's a known bug:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/597070

I hooked up an external monitor and booted into a Linux LiveCD and verified that this is indeed the issue I'm having.

Using options - radeon.modeset=0 nomodeset and installing via the Alt CD do not work around the issue for me. I gave up installing Linux on my particular iMac model.

This issue does not affect all model iMacs. Mine is a 27" late 2009 model.

Here is how to check the serial number to determine the model.

On the bottom of your iMac stand, you'll find a label with the serial number printed on it, or from the Apple menu, choose About This Mac. Configure To Order (CTO) models are designated with an asterisk (*). Check the last three characters on the serial number:
iMac (Mid 2010)
DAS, DNM* iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2010)
DB7, DNN* iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2010)
DB6, DNP* iMac (27-inch, Mid 2010)
DB5, DNR* iMac (27-inch, Mid 2010)
iMac (Late 2009)
5PC, B9U, CY8* iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2009)
5PK*, B9S* iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2009)
5PE, 5PJ, CYB* iMac (27-inch, Late 2009)
CYC*, 5PM*, 5RU* iMac (27-inch, Late 2009

[za.ch]

I can confirm the bug. Primary screen is set to external display port output. Makes installing a lot less smooth than I had expected.

Thanks for your help.

So, the imac 27" blank screen problem with ati 4850 when installing ubuntu is solved with adding a external monitor.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/597070

[dylanjuran]

i have a mid 2010 iMac 27" with a radeon 5750 graphics card. i would like to know if anyone has had a fix for this. i can get all the way through the installer, but then after the restart, it shows as bootable in rEFIt, but then goes to a blank black screen
.