I tried following many reviews until I found one that worked. I even tried a few that got me close, where just the GRUB screen would pop up.
So far it appears that you have to create the linux USB installer on a mac, because it appears that the you must be using the the “GUID Partition Table” as partition scheme. This can be found in the application “Disk Utility”. To change and check the partition scheme, under the USB disk select “Partition” then “Options”. You might have to slice up the disk first for the option to be ungrayed. Please note YOU WILL LOOSE ALL YOUR DATA ON THE USB STICK. This method also makes it so that Linux will be the only OS on the mac mini.
[][2]
silver:~ root# diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *121.3 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS 121.0 GB disk0s2
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_partition_scheme *242.0 GB disk1
1: Apple_partition_map 32.3 KB disk1s1
2: Apple_HFS bab 242.0 GB disk1s2
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *8.0 GB disk2
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk2s1
2: Microsoft Basic Data UNTITLED 1 7.8 GB disk2s2
silver:~ root# diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2
Unmount of all volumes on disk2 was successful
silver:~ root# diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *121.3 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS 121.0 GB disk0s2
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_partition_scheme *242.0 GB disk1
1: Apple_partition_map 32.3 KB disk1s1
2: Apple_HFS bab 242.0 GB disk1s2
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *8.0 GB disk2
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk2s1
2: Microsoft Basic Data UNTITLED 1 7.8 GB disk2s2silver:Downloads root# dd if=CentOS-6.3-x86_64-netinstall.iso of=/dev/disk2 bs=1m
200+0 records in
200+0 records out
209715200 bytes transferred in 283.815574 secs (738914 bytes/sec)
silver:Downloads root# diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2
Unmount of all volumes on disk2 was successful
Then stick the USB stick into the mac mini, and you will see it appear as a Windows disk, because that is what Apple thinks all disks formatted as
[2]: http://www.hacktopia.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Screen-shot2.png