Change Boot Order USB Macbook running debn (alt not working

[spazzz]

The title probably says it all :

How to change Device Boot Order ( USB ) Macbook running debian (which won't boot past GRUB)??


Hi all !
I'm a rank beginner.
I would like to know how to change the boot order on debian on an old macbook pro 32 bit (Core2Duo).

I would like to boot from a USB containing an Ubuntu Mate bootable install image.

I have tried debian on this machine, and sadly it will only load into grub,
but will NOT boot into the OS.
After GRUB , it boots into a blank terminal-like screen,
with text something almost exactly like
/dev/sda2: clean, 105723/1831424 files, 904446/7324160 blocks

-- and just hangs there forever.

From some things I have read, I suspect this may be due to an NVIDIA card perhaps.

I have poked around the internet and tried various grub commands to resolve this, and no luck --
(most of what I have tried doesn't even seem to be recognised commands by grub on this machine).

This has taken me a few hours, and I don't have much more time to muck about at present.

I'm intending to use the machine as a study machine -- and I can't spend much time traversing the internet in hope of a solution (when all has failed so far.)

SO :
for the moment , I've given up on debian on this machine,
and will try ubuntu mate.

However, the alt-option key at mac startup no longer works to allow me to select boot device.
It just goes to a blank whiteish screen with a cursor on it -- nothing else -- and hangs forever.

[GarryRicketson]

It is not clear to me , if you are trying to repair the Debian system so that it will boot ?
Or

I would like to boot from a USB containing an Ubuntu Mate bootable install image.

Ah, ok, well I guess you really have a problem, because normally the first thing to try is setting the boot order in your bios, set it to boot from usb first, BUT

However, the alt-option key at mac startup no longer works to allow me to select boot device.
It just goes to a blank whiteish screen with a cursor on it -- nothing else -- and hangs forever.

You need to repair that key, so that you can get the bios settings menu, Do you not know the correct option ? Or why does it not work ? I know you said you have spent hours trying to find a solution, answer, but did you try with this search string, ?
the alt-option key at mac startup no longer works to allow me to select boot device.
You may have all ready read this:https://www.macworld.com/article/310614 ... r-mac.html

But it wasn’t working for said reader. He wondered if some IT person in his firm had managed to install a bypass, but I had another idea. OS X doesn’t always recognize keyboards at boot that it does when you reach the login screen. So you can pointlessly hold down a key or a combination of keys, and nothing happens at startup, but then you have full keyboard access when it’s time to enter a password or use arrow keys or the Tab key to move around the login screen.

In his case, he was using a recent Apple Wireless Keyboard. Plugging it in via the USB-to-Lightning charging cable solved the problem, and allowed it to be recognized and used during the startup process. This can also happen with other Bluetooth keyboards, or even non-standard keyboards. OS X supports a narrower range of standard keyboards during startup than it does when all the drivers load for OS X later in the process.

It gives the impression that maybe trying to use a different key board, one that can be connected via USB, might do the trick. I am familiar with Macs , so don't know for sure,
but

I would like to know how to change the boot order on debian on an old macbook pro 32 bit (Core2Duo)

You need to be able to access the bios, this is not really a Debian issue, in the sense that their is something in Debian, or on Debian, that can change that. If you have grub installed, and it is dual boot, and still has the OS X system on it, there might be something that can be changed in the Grub menu, so that it boots OS X, seems to me we need more details, ...