secured site

 I have decided to give it a try after reading this.
Just make sure you install parted - and issue the command parted. Do the following - if we assume the disk is sda:

parted /dev/sda
mklabel msdos

This will get rid of the GPT signature on the disk, and you can use a standard fdisk/cfdisk program to set up your paritions.

WARNING: Using the mklabel command with parted will erase all partition informations of your harddisk - and you will need to repartition it. If you are smart - you first take a look at the partition using fdisk - change the units - to have the display in sectors, After the parted operation - you can restore the partition informations with fdisk again.

#sudo fdisk /dev/sda
Command (m for help): u
Changing display/entry units to sectors

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders, total 117210240 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *          63    40965749    20482843+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2        40965750    60500789     9767520   83  Linux
/dev/sda3        60500790    64709819     2104515   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4        64709820   117210239    26250210   83  Linux

 It is indeed possible. As the EFI (replacement of the BIOS) of the mac mini seems to have a fallback for default partition tables in case no GPT partition table is found - you can just delete the GPT signature as described in the related FAQ - create a new partition and install linux as usual.
Kubuntu 7.04 runs very fine on my little machine here.

NOTE: As it is also possible to run windows XP on that Box - make sure you first create the Bootcamp Driver CD - before repartitioning the harddisk. The BootCamp Image requires MAC-OS X installed as only OS to create a DriverCD for Windows XP SP2 Prefessional.  

 So - why should I do something to have a different FAN control on my system ?
Well - quite simple. Under heavy load - my system does not seem to increase the FAN speed - even when the CPU Core's are at 75C, the FAN Speed is at about 2500RPM. I can manually tell the system to increase this - but I want it to be done automatically.
For this - I have written a little script - that can be run as daemon applesmc.sh. Check the attached file section.

What you need is a newer kernel supporting the applesmc kernel module. To be sure this module gets loaded at boot time - enter it into the /etc/modules file - this in a Kubuntu 7.04 system as example. For my mac mini - here are the modules I load at boot:

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.
msr
applesmc

Once this module loaded - use the macmini-fan and applesmc daemon scripts to set it up on boot. See the setup below:

sudo cp applemsc.sh /usr/bin
sudo cp macmini-fan.sh /etc/init.d/macmini-fan
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/macmini-fan /usr/bin/applemsc.sh
sudo update-rc.d macmini-fan defaults
sudo /etc/init.d/macmini-fan start

To check the FAN Status - call that script with the status parameter:

applesmc.sh -s

WARNING: The programs come as they are. They may brake your machine if not used correctly and I will take no responsibility for anything that happens to your computer, environment or whatever burns down !
Always use applesmc.sh daemon script to shutdown itself invoking

applesmc.sh -k

The macmini-fan script does this already on shutdown.
The reason is very simple. When beeing active - this daemon disables the automatic fan control of the system - and takes over the monitoring (by default) by polling every 10seconds what the CORE temperatures look like. If you kill the daemon - it will try to catch the kill signal and issue a command to reset the FAN control to automatic - however this is not always possible...

You have been warned ! When the daemon has started correctly - you see some stuff like this in your syslog (syslog logging is enabled by default. Havn't tried it without).

Sep 14 16:27:26 firebird applesmc: Version: 1.13 $ initialisation succeeded
Sep 14 16:27:26 firebird applesmc: Mode: manual - CPU 52C, FAN @ 2000RPM
Sep 14 16:30:06 firebird applesmc: CPU 57C, FAN @ 2000RPM > 2500RPM
Sep 14 16:31:26 firebird applesmc: CPU 52C, FAN @ 2500RPM > 2000RPM
Sep 14 16:32:36 firebird applesmc: CPU 66C, FAN @ 2000RPM > 2500RPM
...

Check the 2nd line stating Mode change to manual. When stopped - this has to change to auto !
Note the daemon will only log changes that would invoque a RPM change higher than a specified level (default is 500RPM).

A Daemon shutdown would look like this in syslog:

Sep 14 16:20:50 firebird applesmc[27266]: Daemon shutdown requested
Sep 14 16:20:50 firebird applesmc[27266]: Killed process 27002
Sep 14 16:20:50 firebird applesmc[27266]: Mode: auto - CPU 54C, FAN @ 2000RPM

while the console output would look like this:

# ./applesmc.sh -k
> applesmc Daemon shutdown requested
> applesmc Killed process 20139
> applesmc Mode: auto - CPU 51C, FAN @ 2000RPM

 Actually - all you need to tell the sound-driver is which board-layout to load. In the specific case of the mac-mini, edit the alsa configuration file in /etc/modprobe.d and add the following:

options snd-hda-intel model=macmini

This will tell alsa what in/out jacks you have. 

 Why write my own if an excelent reference exists in the Mac Mini Wiki.

Some other sites are listed here:

• Linux on the Mac Mini
• Mactel Linux Wiki
• Mac Bidouille is a very nice site with great tutorials - in french only though.

 It's because it really is an AUDIO IN PORT, not a low voltage MICROPHONE PORT!

It requires 1 V pp line level voltages, and you bought an off the shelf dynamic microphone that only puts out a few millivolts.

You'll need something that brings the microphone levels up to line level. You could use an old cassette deck with MIC IN and HEADPHONE OUT in a pinch, or use a dedicated MIC amp that bumps up the signal level.

Old Macs like the LC III and such did use a basic MIC INPUT port, but later Macs switched to LINE INPUT so they'd work with signals coming from stereo systems, etc. Apple made a LINE LEVEL MIC with an extra long tip that gets power off an extra contact point in Mac models even as recent as a G4 tower .

The real question is, did Apple keep backward support for this microphone? If so, is it possible to find one? However, you'd lose your advantages of a headset microphone...

The best solution so far is the iMic which provides all required interfaces to plug in a standard headset. Details about the Linux support can be found here

Remember, the port is actually a STEREO INPUT port, so this may also mean you would need to use some STEREO to MONO adapters or find a software setting that will put one channel across both left and right as a MONO signal.  

 Check out the following 2 Links:
From the Lab: Core 2 Duo Mac mini tests
Mac mini Performance (August 2007)

Note that for the interactive use - make sure you take the fastest harddisk you find.
This makes - on even slower machine - really faster one (From the Interactivity feeling). 

 The following is a collection of what I have found on the Net.

• C : Forces most Macs to boot from the CD-Rom drive instead of the internal hard drive. Only works with Apple ROM drives and with bootable CD discs.
• D : Forces the first internal hard drive to be the startup disk.
• N : Netboot (New World ROM machines only) - Looks for BOOTP or TFTP Server on the network to boot from.
• R : Forces PowerBooks to reset their screen to default size (helpful if ve been hooked up to an external montior or projector!)
• T : Target Disk Mode (FireWire) - Puts machines with built-in FireWire into target Disk mode so a system attached with a FireWire cable will have that device show up as a hard drive on their system. Very useful for PowerBooks!
• Mouse Button Held Down : Ejects any mounted removable media.
• Shift : Disables all extensions (Mac OS 7-9), or disables Login items when using Mac OS X 10.1.3 or later. Also works when booting Classic mode up just like you were using the OS natively.
• Option : When using an Open Firmware "New World ROM" capable system, the System Picker will appear and query all mounted devices for bootable systems, returning a list of drives & what OS they have on them. On "Old World" systems the machine will simply boot into s default OS without any Finder windows open.
• Space bar : Brings up s Extension Manager (or Casady & s Conflict Catcher, if installed) up at startup to allow you to modify your extens ion set.
• Command-V : Boots Mac OS X into "Verbose Mode", reporting every console message generated during startup. Really shows s going on behind the scenes with your machine on startup!
• Command-S : Boots Mac OS X into "Single User Mode" - helpful to fix problems with Mac OS X, if necessary.
• Command-Option : Rebuilds the Desktop (Mac OS 7-9).
• Command-Option-P-R : Erases PRAM if held down immediately after startup tone. Your machine will chime when s erased the PRAM, most people will hold this combination for a total of 3 chimes to really flush the PRAM out.
• Command-Option-N-V : Erases NVRAM (Non-Volatile RAM). Used with later Power Macintosh systems mostly.
• Command-Option-O-F : Boots the machine into Open Firmware (New World ROM systems only).
• Command-Option-Shift-Delete : Forces your Mac to startup f rom its internal CD-ROM drive or an external hard drive. Very helpful if you have a 3rd party CD-ROM drive that is not an Apple ROM device.
• Command-Option-Shift-Delete-#(where #= a SCSI DEVICE ID) : Boot from a specific SCSI device, if you have your 3rd party CD-ROM drive set to SCSI ID 3, you would press "3" as the # in the combination.

 The following beep codes have been found so far.
The beep codes were revised in October 1999,[2] and have been the same since. In addition, on some models, the power LED would flash in cadence.

• 1 beep = no RAM installed
• 2 beeps = incompatible RAM types
• 3 beeps = no good banks
• 4 beeps = no good boot images in the boot ROM (and/or bad sys config block)
• 5 beeps = processor is not usable

 Disabling Spotlight
- Launch Terminal and type the following: sudo nano /etc/hostconfig
- Navigate using the arrow keys down the following entry: SPOTLIGHT=-YES-
- Change SPOTLIGHT=-YES- to SPOTLIGHT=-NO- and save it.
- Next, you'll want to disable the index by typing the following in the Terminal:

 mdutil -i off /

And to erase the current Spotlight index, type:

mdutil -E /

Re-Enable Spotlight
- follow the same steps as above, but change SPOTLIGHT=-NO- to SPOTLIGHT=-YES-
- type mdutil -i on / in the Terminal
- Reboot, and Spotlight is back as usual