Possible to restore macOS on mac mini after installing dietpi?

[litmus]

I’m intending to install dietpi on my mac mini late 2014, just in case something goes wrong, would I be able to restore it to macOS, and if it’s the usual way to restore using recovery mode?

[Joulinar]

That sounds like a question for Apple. But maybe @StephanStS knows

[StephanStS]

Yes, it is possible. I did it several (20+) times.
See e.g. Startup key combinations - Apple Support for commands.
I always did a network reinstall via Option-Command-R or Shift-Option-Command-R.
At first you have to delete the Linux partition and initialize the disk for a complete re-installation
See also Reinstall macOS - Apple Support.

See also our Mac mini related DietPi Blog post

Installing DietPi on an Apple Mac mini – DietPi Blog

[StephanStS]

Another option I also did was to install DietPi on an USB disk and boot from it (via Option (⌥) or Alt key).
Slower, but ok for a first test.
… I did never test this with an USB stick, I assume it would be very slow.

[litmus]

That blog post was what first got me excited, but knowing myself on these things I’ll probably mess things up lol. HUGE thanks for clearing that up, and also for providing the links, going to try it out; super stoked if this ends up replacing my old Pi2

[StephanStS]

I also first started with several Pi derivates (also NanoPi, ODROID, etc.) and went to the “nice”, stable and powersaving Mac mini for a DietPi system.
Then I switched over to a Proxmox server on a Mac mini running several DietPi systems. When things around DietPi development, testing and docu grew up, I needed more RAM as the 16 GB of a Mac mini for many (20+) virtual machines, so I switched over to an Intel i5-10500T (the T models are the powersaving ones), via an i5-13600T, ending up in an i9-13900T (much oversized, but nice).

For a stable and nice DietPi PC system I would always like to go back to such a Mac mini.

As a smaller alternative (only 8 GB RAM), you could also use a Mini ITX board like an ASRock J4125-ITX, it consumes a bit less power. As an advantage, it has four SATA ports to handle several SATA disks if needed.