I am attempting to install OpenSUSE on my mid-2010 iMac.

I've done this before, however, it was on my previous iMac, which was a mid-2007, with a Core 2 Duo. My current iMac has a Core i3, with 8gb of memory. Graphics board is an ATI Radeon HD 4670.

I usually keep rEFIt installed, and it's in now.

The issue seems to be installation on the hard drive.

I manually partition the drive for a root mount point and a swap mount point, using Disk Utility on the OS X side. There are no other os' installed aside from OS X at this point. I have gotten rid of the Windows 7 Bootcamp partition.

I know this is a long shot, but has anyone here installed any flavor of Linux on an iMac, or similar Apple machine?

It was simple the first time I did it, from what I can remember, but this time it's being persnickety.

The main '/' partition does not get anything written to it. The installer tries to write everything to the swap partition.

TIA

Harry

I'm not sure why it's doing that. Try using the Expert Partitioner in YaST instead of using OS X's partitioner. Also get a openSUSE Live CD, pull up the terminal window. Type in the following commands
su
fdisk /dev/sda
p

Give me the output you get after p. When the LiveCD is booted and you have a broadband connection, you can get online the live CD and paste the put it here at LQ so we can see what's going on in your partitioning.

Problem now is that I can't get the Live CD to boot. My broadband connection is always on, so if it's looking for that right away, it should be available.

I'm still trying different things.

Will keep you posted.

Thanks!

Hey mate, not an imac but i've installed about five distros on my macbook pro, so that is similar. Don't know for sure what is causing the issue because you haven't provided enough info, but during the install, make sure you install the boot loader to '/'. If everything is being installed to swap then you mustn't be telling it the right partition when selecting the partition. (i have tried suse, and i personally find there partiton part of the install more complicated then it should be. Once you have created your partitions with disk utility, just stick in a copy of gpart before your opensuse install, and while gpart is running, note what the desired partitions are labeled as, example being, your desired root will probably be /dev/sda3, and your desired swap probably /dev/sda4.

I've been able to run through the install, and have done so a few times, only to find out that the resultant distro is not usable. Disk Utility shows the main partition as being free space after I'm done.

What year is your MacBook Pro? Is it possible that the machine I have is newer than yours? Maybe that has something to do with it.

Cheers!

mine is 2010, 7.1 model and also after installing linux on a partition, disk utility doesn't identify it correctly either, so i wouldn't relye on that method, use gpart as it is a great tool, reliable and accurate in my experience.
Do what wagscat says. Actually, i'm pretty sure Os x has fdisk so you may even be able to preform that command from your os x terminal.

I kind of figured that DU would not see the EXT4 format. It does identify the swap partition, however, no matter how many times I've tried, the system will not boot. I get as far as grub, with the splash screen, and the, nothing.

I've tried a few times. I'm under 10.7 now, not that it matters. I'm going to try again. I still keep rEFIt on the system. It's pretty handy even without Linux running.

Keeping my fingers crossed at this point. I don't know what I haven't tried yet!

buddy, if you want us to help you, you have to listen to us, but most of what we say isn't even registering with you. If you are still encountering issues,and would still like our help, would you please do what wagscat has said.

1 members found this post helpful.

Follow up: I wound up using OS X' Disk Utility and partitioned. I used the current OpenSUSE full disc and successfully installed the distribution. Took me a couple of times, but I eventually got it right.

Thanks!

Thanks for what!?everything we told you went through one ear and out the other (metaphorically speaking of course). ... Either way i'm glad you got it working, i'm actually considering checking out opensuse again soon. Good luck.

Knightron