Converting an old machine to GNU/Linux (from fruit to freedom)
Hi all,
I finally managed to make the move to GNU/Linux and am now considering how to rescue my terabytes of work, wondering if is possible to install Trisquel on my old fruit-pro computer (5,1 12-core) to access the storage drives.
I've seen videos of people who converted old Macs to Ubunto, Mint and others, but haven't found anyone who has done it with Trisquel, would it be doable? The machine is quite old, so I hoping there is free software available for this setup... am I dreaming?
Pre-thanks to any help or suggestion.
There have been some users installing Trisquel on old Macbook Pro's - here's a thread where some of them talk about their experiences: https://trisquel.info/en/forum/conversion-macbook-pro
I've never used a Mac, but probably someone will come by to discuss their experience with you. Good luck!
Thank you for the link!
It will be great to check with them, most videos I found on YT were from people converting fruit-books, but it will be very helpful to listen to their experience, maybe they can enlighten and link me to more info.
Wow, that thread is so interesting, thank you again.
I can see the problems they had though, the makers make it very very difficult to be free. I tried... never used the default "home" and had none of my files in any part of the system partition + didn't use any of the fruitful apps and kept the OS as far back as I could (trying to stay away from the weaved-in mobile side).
I must say the hackers made me a favour, I had to finally face the learning curve and it feels good to be moving up from total beginner.
It's great, nobody has to swim against the current to be free with Trisquel!
Take a look at these pages:
https://ch1p.io/coreboot-macbook-internal-flashing/
Please note on the latter, the WARNING! Please DO NOT use mmga! If you want coreboot on your macbook and it's listed as supported, contact me by email.
I am uncertain why it should not be used as is, but based en email correspondence it is my impression that is will and can be fixed.
I will send an update, when I have one.
Wow!! Thank you!
This is so interesting, even though I must say I am not yet familiar with most of the terminology there... well, the plain truth is it's all far above my pay grade at the moment :)
The Mac I want to convert is not on the list either and that is not so bad in my case, as I am hoping for a less technical approach to sort this out.
As I mentioned, the machine doesn't start with any of my drives, something was changed on the last day I was trying to block the hackers, oops, crackers. I am guessing they changed permissions or ownership, but could be anything else (firmware password?).
My initial idea was to install Trisquel, then mount the drives externally (if the only way) and change whatever needs to be changed back, so I can rescue my files and move them to Trisquel.
As I also mentioned, I am taking my time because I want to have the satisfaction of being the one who did it - a big symbol of freedom for me!
Does the Mac start from DVD?
From this link:
https://www.techradar.com/how-to/computing/apple/how-to-use-os-x-boot-options-to-troubleshoot-your-mac-1305645
Holding down the Option key during startup will show you a boot screen with all bootable devices listed. You can use the mouse or the keyboard to select a device to boot into. Can you select DVD drive with Trisquel from the menu? Does it boot into Trisquel live environment? If it does, then in terminal install libfsapfs-utils
sudo apt install libfsapfs-utils and see if you can mount your filesystems, run lsblk in terminal to list your drives, blkid to show more info
lsblk
blkid
After libfsapfs-utils is installed, you can read manuals on the terminal
man fsapfsinfo
man fpafsmount
You can take the drives out of Mac and connect them to a Trisquel PC, or they are soldered to the motherboard?
And what exactly crackers did - connect to your Mac over network, or they tricked you into installing malicious program?
This is great Hikaru, thank you so much!
I am happy to say this part sounds comfortable and familiar:
Holding down the Option key during startup will show you a boot screen with all bootable devices listed. You can use the mouse or the keyboard to select a device to boot into.
I used the option key to start during various attempts to boot into one of my drives, but whatever drive I select the booting doesn't behave as usual. The progress bar always stops half way and stays like that indefinitely. I had to switch off using the physical power button in every attempt.
Some of my older drives (that were not in use for a while) seemed to be starting up better, but eventually they also stopped booting, just like the others... I wonder how to discover if the crackers made changes via terminal and what those changes could be.
---
These next questions are so on point as well, we seem to be in one mind:
Can you select DVD drive with Trisquel from the menu? Does it boot into Trisquel live environment? If it does, then in terminal install libfsapfs-utils
I've been planning to boot into Trisquel, but didn't have the confidence to go ahead yet (macs are funny with usb and could stay stuck). So far, I felt I need more learning to make sure I don't break anything, so I can see the end of this properly.
You are right though, I have to give it a go SOON!
The commands you listed are very helpful, I'll let you know how it goes... I will make time to focus solely on this tomorrow!
---
In answer to your last question:
You can take the drives out of Mac and connect them to a Trisquel PC, or they are soldered to the motherboard? And what exactly crackers did - connect to your Mac over network, or they tricked you into installing malicious program?
The computer is an old mac-pro tower with slots for 4 drives that can be removed/swapped. I tried to start with various configurations, including with only one of them at the time.
Yes, I see what you mean about connecting the drives to Trisquel, it would be great! I am planning to get a caddy for that purpose. I am also wondering about permissions and compatibility. I've heard that macos permissions could create problems.
As for the crackers, they seem to have gained access via the network. They changed my network system preferences from eternet-to-wifi connection to eternet-to-eternet... as my wifi is always OFF, I selected it for security measures (there was no option to disable networking in system preferences)... that is when I begun to hunt down invisible and locked system folders and files and found out what was going on... I think I learnt a lot on the last few days of fighting those crackers off, specially about what I don't want in a system... they were also using timemachine and other system apps which I didn't ever use myself. I think they were also trying to protect the evidence on that last day, as I had invented ways to block their attempts to connect... it seems they had no option left and so locked me out.
I am quite sure these crackers made their way in without my help, as I never would install anything that I am not sure about, also, tricksters have a particular smell :)
This is so helpful Hikaru, many many thanks again!
macs are funny with usb and could stay stuck
Some weeks ago I booted a USB key on an iMac (Late 2009): no problem, after I discovered, searching the Web, that I had to hold down the Option key during startup. I had to connect the computer by Ethernet (the Wi-Fi chipset requires proprietary firmware).
You can probably boot a Trisquel live system this way, install the package libfsapfs-utils in the live system (as you would do on an installed system), and see if you can access your files. As Hikaru advised you.
Thank you Magic Banana, that is good news.
I will try the USB key I used to instal Trisquel 10 and cross fingers it will work on a desktop mac too!
I've just re-downloaded Trisquel 10 and burned the image to DVD, hoping to try that out as well... it was fun to use the optical drive on a x200 UltraBase, it worked out fine, it seems, but is very very slow, my ThinkPad took quite a few minutes to start and then some more to start loading the live Trisquel DVD.
I didn't wait to test the whole thing though, I guess it would take an hour :)
I've heard that macos permissions could create problems.
Just use the read-only parameter to mount apple filesystems in read-only mode, then copy the files from them. Make backups first, only then try to interact with the apple filesystems in read-write mode.
If you want firmware setting reset, you can:
1 : Disconnect Mac from power outlet
2 : Press power button 3-4 times to get rid of remaining electricity
3 : Take out the CR2032 battery
4 : Press the power button 3-4 time again
5 : Wait 30 minutes
6 : Put battery back in
7 : Connect Mac to power outlet
8 : See if firmware got reset to factory settings
! NEVER touch the battery with metal objects : screwdriver !
Use wood or plastic or fingernail to remove battery, use soft cloth on the battery to remove fingerprints, fingerprint contain salt from human body.
! NEVER remove the battery if Mac connected to power outlet, even in Mac itself is off. !
picture of battery attached
With Trisquel you can install all the software you need for work, then disconnect internet cable from the computer and never connect it again : there is no requirements to be connected to network, unlike in Windows when I had to connect to Microsoft Account just to log in into my PC.
If you do the art, the free software programs are :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkscape
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LMMS
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSCAD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geany
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLC_media_player
There are much more, those all I discovered so far.
This is such wonderful information!
Thank you Hikaru!!
I am getting ready to start and have been trying to rescue disks to backup, but I am still short of space, as my main clone drives are also being kept as evidence. I must get some more terabytes ASAP :)
There was another good step forward today. Finally, I am able to get rid of those proprietary partitions that are usually hidden and inaccessible in SSDs and HDDs. I just had a nice terminal session and freed the first drive... the hidden partition is no more :)
If you want to test it, this is the command (here, with a drive named "sdb") :
sudo dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdb bs=512K status=progress; sync
Before using this command, I was strongly advised to run:
lsblk
... and make triple sure you have chosen the right drive from the list, as dd is very very powerful and could delete the wrong one if we are not hyper careful.
So, if your drive is named "sdx" and the path is /dev/sdx, replace it accordingly:
sudo dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdx bs=512K status=progress; sync
This command will write random data to the whole disk and nuke all partitions and, as the developer kindly explained, they do this as standard, as a good pre-emptive measure before encrypting a drive, also, nobody will be able to know how much data you have written to that drive.
I do empathise with your terrible experience with windoze, they are like the plague, always there, even for us who never used their offerings, so I imagine how you must feel. I think it's time they understood the word "NO"!
If you want a simpler command than your dd command, you can use shred:
$ sudo shred -vn 1 /dev/sdx
If you remove the option -n 1, random data are written three times instead of one.
NICE!!!
Thank you magic Banana, it really does sound like magic!
One question, how about locked partitions, will this shed them too?
With sudo, you have all permissions. You wrote that "dd is very very powerful and could delete the wrong one if we are not hyper careful", but that is sudo that grants the "power" ("permission" is the proper word) to overwrite a partition. Without sudo, whatever the executable that follows, you will get that error if that executable is asked to modify a partition or a system file or...:
Permission denied
(I am talking about a user session; not a root terminal or something similar as opened with sudo -s or sudo -i.)
Aha! Of course, is so simple when things click in place - thank you!
I must add that the CR2032 battery has an expiration date written on it, usually lasts for 6-8 years depending on the manufacturer, then it must be replaced. Manufacturer does not matter as long as it is CR2032 battery, I use expensive batteries for my computers : Duracell, Energizer, Panasonic.
The Thinkpad also have the battery, if you take it off : BIOS settings and clock will be reset.
After using the dd command all the data on hidden partition will be replaced with random data. Are you sure you don't need that data? /dev/sdb is the whole drive, partition will be /dev/sdb1 or /dev/sdb2, you are permanently deleting not only partition tables but also all the data on the drive, is that OK?
And instead the whole drive if you overwrite the partition table, the disk will be considered "empty" by an OS. If you add count=1 to dd it will only overwrite as much as you tell it to do in : bs=512 as example.
I must admit the only reason I started using GNU/Linux is because Windows 11 start to getting on my nerves too much. I was able to tolerate Windows 10 and all it's nonsense for years. I was very experienced Windows and PC user and I learning GNU/Linux fast. I will never go back to using Windows again.
Lots of good info to digest from your post Hikaru, more thanks with big smiles!
I did a little dig and discovered the Mac Pro 5,1 battery is a BR2032. I was lucky to find a few discussions and will try to locate reliable manuals too. The mac pro is a big machine (with many versions) and according to the discussions, there are many versions of manuals, but they say most of them are not correct, including the diagrams... fruity, isn't it?
Your questions about dd are very on point, as usual!
I wondered about the consequences of what I was doing too... and yes, I get the gist of what you mean about adding count=1, the developer explained a bit about "count" and "skip" as well, but everything terminal is new to me and I am not sure how to put the commands together yet... I also have a great EXCUSE for messing up, the SSD came from the cracked mac, so it felt very satisfying to obliterate the whole SSD's content, not just the hidden partition... oh well :)
Yes, I realised you are very experienced as I read more discussions, I think you are also very generous and I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.
I had to take a detour yesterday to install Trisquel on a Librebooted TP X230 tablet, a new addition and great way to introduce my other half to GNU/Linux... He is on windoze too, but wont go into 11 at all, which is great... I hope we will find apps for all his work
You're welcome! I glad to help!
With SSDs you never use dd to fill them with random data : SSD will quickly wear off, it has limited amount of data can be written to it.
SSDs have secure erase feature TRIM, to use it you run blkdiscard, read it manual :
man blkdiscard
The dd will only write 512 bytes to the disk if it has bs=512 count=1 as arguments : it will destroy partition table of the disk and stop there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_partitioning
I see... owh!!!
But how about those proprietary hidden partitions? How can we get rid of them?
I found ways of doing this in the past (with system apps) and then partitioned the disks as usual to install OS or for cloning. They worked for years without problems, but terminal is another story, I understand... and have a lot to learn!
The OS reads partition table to determine where each partition starts and ends. If you destroy partition table, the OS treats the drive as if it is filled with random data that can be overwritten. No partition table = no partitions.
GUI partitioning tools are gparted, gnome-disks
sudo gparted
sudo gnome-disks
Brilliant!!!
And how about that SSD now... couldn't I just partition it again?
Maybe this is a donkey question, but I hope it can be done!
You can use terminal : fdisk , gdisk , GUI gparted , gnome-disks. The partitions will be new and you choose the size of them. The old partitions are gone. Some tools can restore partitions if only the partition table is destroyed : after dding the whole disk : everything is gone.
After you made the partitions, you will need to format them in file system. If your computer uses EFI, you will need partition 1 to have FAT32 filesystem and size 600 Megabytes, other partitions can be formatted in ext4 for / and /home and "linux swap" for swap partition. Swap partition is at least half the size of your operation memory.
Trisquel uses XFS filesystem for /home, you can use it or ext4.
If you install from disk, Trisquel can automatically create partitions for you and format them.
If you use the disk as backup only, you can create a single partition and format it in ext4.
My external SSD for backups is formatted in NTFS by Windows computer because all OSs can read NTFS : Windows, Mac, Gnu/Linux.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFI_system_partition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFS
And this, so helpful - THANK YOU!!!
I want to use that SSD for Trisquel back ups, all is not lost :)
If you have terabytes of work, you need to have backups anyway, having them only on a single computer may be data loss if something happen to the computer. Buy external Usb SSD drive and make backup of your work. Choice file system on external drive may be tricky, Fat32 : your partition no more than 32 GB, NTFS - windows filesystem but Trisquel can access it with ntfs-3g program. Best way I think is to format external drive in NTFS if your fruit-pro computer can understand NTFS. Other people here may know better : I only learning Trisquel so far. I confirm Trisquel reads my external NTFS Usb drive formatted by Microsoft Windows computer.
Buy external Usb SSD drive and make backup of your work.
You do not need performance for backup: it can be a HDD. That is cheaper.
NTFS - windows filesystem but Trisquel can access it with ntfs-3g program.
Back In Time, by default in Trisquel, and other backup tools (such as Déjà-Dup) can backup to NTFS. I use ext4 though. Back In Time can be configured so that the backup starts as soon as the disk is plugged in. Also, its backups can be used to easily share files (unlike Déjà-Dup, which is needed to read the data it backs up).
Thank you for bringing up backups, that is so so important!
I hope I could do just that, get in there and see the drives.
Thank you Hikaru!
I agree 100% about backing up, and then backing up some more :)... you are totally right!
I have clones of everything, internal and external, but the hackers locked me out of all of it, no matter which one I try, that is what I mean by rescuing.
The system and my files are in different partitions of the same drive (with equally partitioned large clones), the computer doesn't start from any of them, so there is no access to the files.
There is more than one decade of work and personal files in them, so I want to do the rescuing myself and am taking my time to learn as much as I can to unlock, change permissions or do whatever is necessary to get in there.
Thank you for the formatting information as well!
I found this : https://superuser.com/questions/1267291/how-to-mount-apfs-on-linux-or-windows
You can try to boot from Trisquel live DVD on that old computer, install libfsapfs-utils package, try to mount the apple partition with files, see it it works.
Stallman said what people call "hackers" are actually "crackers" : https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Hacker
Huge thanks Hiraku!
This could be a way in!
I will read and re-read it, I have so much to learn! The good thing is that terminal commands are similar on UNIX. Well, that is what I read and am investigating, so could use terminal from Trisquel to do what is needed to recover my drives.
Crackers! Great info, thank you for that insight too, it makes sense. I see, that is why so many coders call themselves hackers :)
I made a live DVD Hikaru, as I just mentioned to Magic Banana... that was another great suggestion from you!
I am also looking forwards to try that command when I get in!
Free software for doing art is as powerful as proprietary software, sometimes even more powerful. Blender is the best program for 3D art, much better than any of proprietary programs.
Learning new free software programs may be hard, you need good manuals. Stallman said sharing knowledge is good, I'm sharing very good manuals I have on free software for art and the OS. Here : https://codeberg.org/Hikaru/Knowledge/raw/branch/main/manuals.zip
Yes, I agree, the love people put in developing free software can't be compared to anything else.
Blender is in our list of apps to download, thank you for confirming it is the best for 3D! We've been checking out and already found various art apps we want to experiment with, there is great variety as well, for all kinds of different purposes!
Time is vanishing quickly and I just can't fit the hours in a day, isn't great to start afresh again?
All software can be installed with apt from terminal
apt search blender
apt show blender
sudo apt install blender
A company can stop developing proprietary program, or start to demand to move your activity to the "cloud" and demand a monthly fee. You may need to buy a new computer every few years just to be able to use new versions of the software. You have to agree to telemetry and all other malicious functionality.
"Cloud" is another person's computer, your data is not protected there by any law so far.
With free software : you learn it once, you don't need to re-learn it. Even if the developers abandon the project, others will continue to work on it : the free license and open source code allow it. A lot of companies invest into free software because they don't want to be dependent on Microsoft, Adobe and others.
Stallman explains freedoms : https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=jkCkEfNzfzg
+1 to all you said!
On my fruit computer I stayed on the OS version that would run most efficiently the software I used (many apps in combination). The system apps, cloud and so on where just there, unused.
I simply didn't want to be told what to do or what to install. I think it is the user's decision how to use their machines to achieve the results they aim for, the rest is decoration and that kind of hurray-henry pressure makes my blood boil!
I guess attacks can also come from those who don't want freedom within their proprietary systems!
This is it, beautiful:
With free software : you learn it once, you don't need to re-learn it. Even if the developers abandon the project, others will continue to work on it : the free license and open source code allow it. A lot of companies invest into free software because they don't want to be dependent on Microsoft, Adobe and others.
(For some reason Abrowser is not loading Stallman's video)
Thank you for organising the commands for installing via terminal, I will save this thread carefully for reference!
(EDIT: The video loaded with copy and paste)
You're welcome!
Many people are afraid of Terminal, Terminal is the best way to interact with OS, you use keyboard to tell computer exactly what you want from it. In Microsoft Windows I used command line a lot because it easier than graphical user interface where you have to click with mouse. In Trisquel I learning terminal commands and soon will learn shell scripting.
The crackers either want to lock victim out of their computer and demand ransom, or steal sensible information : credit card number, passwords for online accounts, or use victim's computer in botnet to attack other computers. Crackers has no honor.
Free software allows you to use your computer as you want, nobody tells you what to do or not to do with your programs.
Crackers often create malicious web sites that look like real ones and trick victims to download viruses. Never search in Google for free software, you may end up on malicious web site.
Use wikipedia : example : search inkscape on wikipedia, you get
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkscape
on the right side of the page there is a link to official inkscape web site.
https://inkscape.org/
You can use VirusTotal web site to check links (URL) and files for viruses. If you upload a file, they collect the data, don't upload personal files there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirusTotal
Google spying on you, try using DuckDuckGo instead
https://html.duckduckgo.com/html
Youtube is spying, try instead
https://invidious.snopyta.org/feed/popular
Nice read Hikaru, specially after watching Richard Stallman - great video, great link!
I think you described the interaction with terminal very nicely and will be flying on Trisquel sooner than you think, what a great move you made, I imagine windoze is like a jail too, doing anything to keep you stuck there!
I am also discovering the pleasures of using terminal and will continue learning, for sure.
About those spying on us, who can we trust? Along with fake websites, everything else seems to keep being meddled with. I've heard duckduck sold out and is now part of that setup, could be false alarm, but how do we know?
Spies and crackers definitely have no honour!
Not sure about DuckDuckGo, I remember https://www.startpage.com/ being sold to advertising company.
You can only trust yourself and do your computing on your PC using free software. People say they don't care about their data being harvested because they have nothing to hide, but Facebook made trillions of dollars by abusing user data. All Mark Zuckerberg's billions of $$$ are made by abusing user's data : means we have something to hide after all : our data.
With Terminal everything is simpler than it looks, first word is a program, everything else are arguments : options you give to program.
apt show libreoffice : apt is a program, show is an argument telling apt you want it to "show info" about something, libreoffice is that "something" you are interested in.
sudo is a program that runs other programs with "admin" privileges :
sudo apt install something.
You can use type command with program name to see what it is :
type apt
apt is /usr/bin/apt
type echo
echo is a shell builtin
Shell is the command line program itself, builtin is a command built-into shell.
You can only trust yourself and do your computing on your PC using free software. People say they don't care about their data being harvested because they have nothing to hide, but Facebook made trillions of dollars by abusing user data. All Mark Zuckerberg's billions of $$$ are made by abusing user's data : means we have something to hide after all : our data.
So true!
People who say they have nothing to hide seem to also be saying they have no problem with giving their freedom away. Also, they become a problem for their family and friends, who get their personal details taken away from them without their knowledge or consent... I just don't get how they're able to justify this to themselves.
It was great to hear Richard Stallman speaking about this very thing yesterday (on the video you linked).
I loved that he started by asking the audience to NOT share any photos of him with any fb surveillance app... it was very nurturing to hear his conviction, as I have been doing this for a good while and at times it can feel a bit odd, luckily, never odd enough to stop me and friends seem to get the point quicker than I expected, which is a big bonus. I think things are changing!
Thank you for all and for helping make terminal more friendly, the information and commands you shared are a gift of knowledge!
You're welcome!
Have to add this quote here (from the video), it says it all!
Freedom is more important than technical progress!
- Richard Stallman