Introduction
This page describes a method to install Debian on Apple Intel Mac Pro computers. It has been tested in two computer systems with a Quad-Core and dual Quad-core Xeon 5300-series "Clovertown" machines.
If you have already tried to install Debian on Intel Mac Pro, you may have experienced the fact that the Debian Installer CD boots and allows you to configure the early steps of installation, like language, keyboard, etc. but it doesn't mount the CD-ROM. Eventually, no media is available to continue with the base-system installation.
I tried the standard approaches given in several wikies on the subject, e.g. kernel boot parameters like,
boot: install noapic irqpoll acpi=force
and combinations thereof, but none really helped. I also tried a USB-key installation, only to learn that Apple Mac firmware does not support USB-key installations.
Short-short version
Download this [http://debian.calel.org/macpro/mini.iso Debian Installer Mini CD for Intel Mac Pro] (md5sum 355637030cc685b1c37d037ee9ec926b), burn it to a CD, for example, 'wodim -v -eject dev=/dev/cdrw -data mini.iso'.
Being a mini CD, it contains only .udeb packages, no .deb packages. You will need a network connection to install the base system. In the long version section I explain how I made this Debian Installer CD.
Under Mac OS X, install [http://refit.sourceforge.net/ rEFIt], the EFI boot menu for Intel Mac. Easiest is to download the Mac disk image, double click on the icon and run the installer.
Still under Mac OS X, open the CD bay, insert the Debian Installer Mini CD and reboot. In the boot menu choose the penguin.
Boot the installer in expert mode. Install as you would in any system, except when partitioning the disk. Choose to partition manually, then set the bootable flag on the partition mounted in /. During the installation of the base system choose 'none' when selecting kernel to install. During GRUB installation, install GRUB in MBR (won't destroy rEFIt, nor any Mac partition).
After GRUB installation, just before finishing the installation and rebooting, open a virtual terminal, <ctrl>-<alt>-<f2> for instance, chroot /target, get the [http://debian.calel.org/macpro/linux-image-2.6.20-macpro-amd64_2.4.20_amd64.deb Custom Intel Mac Pro kernel image] and install it with 'dpkg -i'.
You may have to install initramfs-tools with, 'apt-get -f install initramfs-tools' before installing the kernel, depending on what software you installed.
To get the custom kernel I used a USB key. Did 'tail -f /var/log/syslog' before inserting the key to get the device it attached to, then 'chroot /target', mounted the key 'mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt' and installed the kernel image 'dpkg -i /mnt/linux-image-2.6.20-macpro-amd64_2.4.20_amd64.deb'. You may use the network to get the kernel image as well, for example, with wget.
'update-grub' just in case, then go back to the installation terminal, <ctrl>-<alt>-<f1> and finish the installation.