cielo_azul
New Member
I've had a similar problem with an old 1.1 Mac Pro trying to keep it alive... I have been able to use Antix linux and works pretty well... the nice thing about Antix is it's low system requirements... it runs on about 190 mb ram. It runs fluxbox. I had CentOS 6 running for a while but messed up the boot record and being a noob could not figure out the 32 bit EFI... This is the problem as I understand, that the EFI is 32 bit but 64 bit processors...I have a Mac Mini mid 2007 with Debian 10 32 bit running just fine... but there is almost nothing to really work on it... 32 bit, despite my efforts, it's a dead architecture. So it's just to install a 64 OS or upgrade this one right? Well... This Mac Mini got no optical drive (I will try tu put one but is not guarantee it will work), so I have to boot from USB. I have tried a lot of different OSs with both architectures and the systems that will boot are:
As I researched and discussed around the web, I have some paths to follow:
- Mac OS X Lion - works badly, will flood memory and stops in couple hours, besides, it's abandoned by Apple and everyone. But I keep it in a small partition, just in case.
- Windows 7 32 bits - works good, but it's abandoned by Microsoft. Not reliable, not using right now. It's half abandoned by the market.
- Debian 10 32 bits - works nice! It's almost totally abandoned by the market.
Any ideas?
- Upgrade this Debian to 64 bits - but there is low documentation about, not sure if this one will work due to the age: https://wiki.debian.org/Migrate32To64Bit, http://www.ewan.cc/?q=node/90 Many people doubt will work 100% or if will even work.
- Try to make a custom bootable USB stick - no documentation for Debian, only for Ubuntu. But the start point is Ubuntu 32 bits that is not recognized either. There is a claim that is possible, but the optical media will be required. There is an old article in Ubuntu site and this one: Medium Article
- Try to install in a new partition using this installation - not sure if it possible, I might try to make a clone of this partition to try some experiments and not lose the only OS is working right here.
I did try to use Matt Gadients Mac friendly iso's but none of those worked either. So I'm content mostly with my AntiX 64 bit linux which is Debian based and so most any package you want is available... you can also install various desktops such as Cinnamon, Mate, Gnome, XFCE etc. But I still hope to be able to figure out this 32 bit EFI Apple brick... Cheers
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