Hello everyone. I'm new to the LQ Forum, fairly new to the Linux world in general and I'm having some issues getting Peppermint (PM) to install on my old Macbook Pro 2008; 5,1 (I've read and heard that Macs can be finicky with non-Mac OS's). Trying to install PM OS x86 64 as my sole OS on this severely outdated machine (machine was a gift, but I love the way it's built; former Navy welder and metal worker).

I have also tried a new install of Debian and Manjaro, and all work live, but seem to fail during the partition portion of the setup, whether I attempt to do it manually or let it erase and install automatically.

This last attempt with PM says, "Installation Failed. The installer failed to create partition on disk 'CT500MX500SSD1'. Create a new partition (456.66GiB, ext4) on '/dev/sda' job: Create new partition on device '/dev/sda' Command mkfs.ext4 -qF /dev/sda2".

I'm no programmer, a guru, or any sort wealth of computer knowledge. I do have the drive to learn and a healthy respect for details and have installed several successful dual boot Linux / Win OS's on my other machines, both old and new, as well as different Linux versions as sole OS's, with occasional issues but always works in the end. I am usually able to follow some instructions and figure out any issues along the way; following the advice of those craftier than me.

I am stuck, but I'm down to learn whatever it is I'm doing incorrectly. PM live is running like a champ, but the moment I try to install, it gets to the same spot every time an halts. Is it telling me that "I" need to set up a separate partition say for boot, root, home, and swap?

I've been looking for similar issues in this forum as well as others; no luck. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you all in advance and if I should have been looking in a different corner of the forum, I apologize but that advice would be welcome as well.

Ugh, dude. Please put some effort into formatting your post next time. It's hard to read.

Anyway, what happens, if you try to manually create the partitions on the disk via a command line (i.e. by using cfdisk) and then only assign the mount points in the installer?