Mac – Installing OpenBSD on Mac Mini (core i5)

mac-miniopenbsd

I have a brand new mac mini (core i5). I've yet to install OSX. I'd like to install OpenBSD from a USB drive. I do not want to dual boot, just run OpenBSD.

I used a different machine to transfer the amd64 install52.iso to a USB drive using dd if=install52.iso of=/dev/disk. I can mount the USB and the contents look good. However, I can't seem to get the mac mini to boot to the USB drive. Holding alt down during boot shows two partitions (one rescue one normal) but not the image on the USB drive. Holding c when booting doesn't seem to do anything but delay the boot of the OSX installer.

Any suggestions?

Best Answer

Simpliest thing to do: on a 64 bit pc with cd drive put the openbsd install cd and plug the usb flash drive, boot and install on the flash drive as a regular disk. When finished, copy ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/5.2/amd64/*tgz in the directory /5.2/amd/ on the flash drive. Then plug this flash drive in the mac mini and at the boot prompt type "boot hd0a:/bsd.rd", proceed as usual and when prompted for sets choose "/5.2/amd". That should work (I don't have any mac), at least it works on any pc/netbook/notebook, let me know plz ;)

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