mac mini booting f8 off of flash drive

[Benjamin Kosnik]

Hey folks. I'm trying to get an up-to-date fedora 8 x86 install working
on a core2/1.8 mac mini. 

I've tried two approaches, each with different errors.

1) custom live cd

ie, from

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/LiveCDHowTo
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/USBHowTo

I made an updated f8 live image. (These tools are cool!!!) Then, I
burnt the image to dvd, and tested that. It works on the mac mini and
on all my non-mac hardware. (For the mac, you press alt (option on mac
keyboard) to get boot devices, and select the "windows" cd.)

So, all clear. Next step: I transfer this iso image to usb key via the
above link.

This works on the non-mac computers, but not on the mac. On the mac,
it's not listed as a boot device when I restart with alt. 

Searching on the web, I ran across this (dated) article:

http://www.redhat.com/magazine/007may05/features/mac-mini/

it appears as if the flash disk has to be partitioned in a unique
manner to work on x86 mac systems? Does anybody know what works?

I tried formatting this on the mac, set to GUID partition tables. Then,
when I take this formatted usb key to the linux box and attempt to run
the livecd-iso-to-disk script on it, it tells me that the partition is
not marked bootable, and to use parted. So, i do, and it's marked
bootable in parted.

But the livecd-iso-to-disk script doesn't seem to think the install
partition is bootable when I re-try. What's up?

2) so, i take the alternate approach and then install f8 onto the usb
key while running the f8 installer directly on the mac mini. This
succeeds, and when I reboot the mac I get the new fedora insall on
the usb key listed in the boot menu. Score! 

But, when I select this and boot, I get

"Missing Operating System" 

and a hang on an otherwise blank screen. Whoops. 

I try to follow the directions in the redhat magazine article, but
there is no way in anaconda to specify a 1MB "Apple Bootstrap" 
partition in the installer. Is this still necessary? If so, how do I do
this?

Any help appreciated. 

best,
benjamin