MacBook woe
First and foremost, I’d like to congratulate you on your efforts on keeping the Linux community well informed with your comprehensive magazine. I’ve been an avid reader and subscriber for a number of years now and always look forward to each issue.
I have an old but reliable Mac Pro 1.1 (2006) that has been updated to support “unofficially” later versions of Mac OS X. I’ve been reliably informed that it has 2x 64-bit CPUs and Apple made a decision to give the machine a 32-bit EFI. This hardware configuration makes it difficult to boot 64-bit OSes.
My question is, how am I able to install or even run the DVD’s that you publish each month? I’m usually presented with a black screen and a message ‘Select CD-ROM boot type’. Despite any keys I press I never manage to get past this screen.
I’ve been successful in booting and installing 32-bit flavours of Linux (burned myself) and was pleased to stumble across ubuntu14.04.3-desktopamd64+mac.iso, which once burned to disc booted without issues.
Is there any modifications that can be made to newer
64-bit Linux distro’s to enable them to boot on older 64-bit Mac’s with 32-bit EFI?
Your magazine often refers to resurrecting older machines any booting distros, but Mac users seem to have fallen by the wayside as of late… Dale Gr at ton, Nottinghamshire.
Jonni says: Our discs use the ambidextrous, hybrid GRUB EFI image that complies with all the standards. Apple’s 32-bit UEFI is what’s to blame here, and as you’ve already noticed, it’s only happy to boot 32-bit images and dislikes intensely our disc. It doesn’t like multi-catalogue images (which is what we and most distros use to boot on UEFI and BIOS platforms).
There’s not really anything we can do about it from our end, unfortunately. But it is possible to respin distro ISOs to work with this. By making a homogenous, 64-bit EFI image on the ISO, Apple’s buggy UEFI implementation can be placated. You can read more about it here: https://mattgadient. com/2016/07/11/
linux-dvd-
images-and-how-tofor-32-bit-efi-macslate-2006-models/
You can also download some respun images, but (like the instructions there point out) you shouldn’t trust arbitrary ISOs from some random person’s website. It would be a better idea to get your head around what isomacprog does, compile it, and respin the images yourself.
There are other, somewhat pointed, instructions here: http://selfemployedgeek. com /2017/07/17/ how-toinstall-64-bit-l inux- on- a-late2006-mac-with-32-b it-e fi/ The article suggests that using a 32-bit Debian install to get the EFI partition set up on the Mac’s hard drive is necessary.