2016-12-03
the reasons why I have done this are various, but I think, the most significant is that, after using a linux distro daily on my laptop, going back on osx at home was painful and I felt like in a "cage". this was not good for me, and in fact, I preferred to use the laptop even at home and, I stopped to use that imac for a while.
then I realize that a full linux installation on a mac can be done easily, so, I did some research (question unix stackExchange, arch wiki, debian wiki) and on a sunday morning I did it!
I have this little guy here (imac12,1), but with 8gb of ram which I personally installed.
first of all, I made a macos installation media, so, if in future I want, I can reinstall it easily, since my intention was to completely format the hard disk.
then I used a debian 8 netinstall through an usb drive, simply rebooted holding down "opt key" and selected the right option. the installation was completed without issues using the ethernet cable (the wifi has been also recognized by the installer).
I installed kde and at the first reboot I got only the shell! unfortunately firmware-linux-nonfree are required to get the radeon work!
video card: as I said, firmware-linux-nonfree are required;
jack audio: small issue, fix:
# echo "options snd-hda-intel model=imac27_122" >> /etc/modprobe.d/imac\_local.conf
reboot. Bugreport;
apple wireless keyboard and magic mouse: fun fact, in the installer, I did the entire process with the apple wireless keyboard, but then, once debian was up and running, it didn't work anymore. I guess, bluetooth drivers are missing, but I won't install them since I hate that things;
brightness: found a fix with xrandr:
xrandr --output eDP --brightness 0.5
I can't test the firewire port nor the sd reader.
finally I started to use this machine again!