Arch Linux

rsolva

Member

Registered: 2015-03-18

Posts: 19

Install Arch on 32bit-only EFI

First post!

I want to install Arch on two of my old mac's; MacBookPro2,1 and MacBook3,1. Both have a 32bit-only EFI. I have tried a lot of things to get these machines to boot an arch ISO from USB, without any luck. Hopefully someone can help point me in the right direction, so I can make use of these old but quite adequate machines :)

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: Install Arch on 32bit-only EFI

See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ma … sion_2.2C1
What exactly have you tried?

rsolva

Member

Registered: 2015-03-18

Posts: 19

Re: Install Arch on 32bit-only EFI

I tried to build a 32bit EFI version, and to remove the UEFI part. I have no idea if I did it correctly, but I tried the tricks mentioned in the wiki without success.

bmentink

Member

From: New Zealand

Registered: 2009-08-23

Posts: 442

Re: Install Arch on 32bit-only EFI

Hi All,

I have an Atom based micro PC that has a 32-bit EFI bios so the normal ISO won't boot either .....
The links above do not help much for me as they are targeted at MAC's. Can anyone help me out?

Cheers

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 11,604

Re: Install Arch on 32bit-only EFI

bmentink, what have you tried so far? Personally, I would do a i686 installation to USB from another system and see if the Atom system would boot it.

bmentink

Member

From: New Zealand

Registered: 2009-08-23

Posts: 442

Re: Install Arch on 32bit-only EFI

bmentink, what have you tried so far? Personally, I would do a i686 installation to USB from another system and see if the Atom system would boot it.

I have tried putting a 32bit EFI file (Ubuntu) in the /boot directory of the EFI partition, that gave me a grub prompt, but did not boot the Arch kernel probably because it was looking for the wrong kernal name/version ...

I don't want to do a 32bit install, I want 64bit's .... Ubuntu 64bits is running fine on the box at the moment.
It just seems really strange that Arch is lacking 32bit EFI support when other distros like Ubuntu and Debian do .....

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 11,604

Re: Install Arch on 32bit-only EFI

If you've already got Ubuntu on it, just follow the instructions in the wiki for installing from an existing linux.

bmentink

Member

From: New Zealand

Registered: 2009-08-23

Posts: 442

Re: Install Arch on 32bit-only EFI

If you've already got Ubuntu on it, just follow the instructions in the wiki for installing from an existing linux.

I see no such page on the wiki ... can you please link ..

Thanks

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 11,604

Re: Install Arch on 32bit-only EFI

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … ting_Linux

bmentink

Member

From: New Zealand

Registered: 2009-08-23

Posts: 442

Re: Install Arch on 32bit-only EFI

Hi Guys,

I have had some success with this, I followed this guide to make a bootable USB stick for 32-bit EFI. -->  http://www.taylorbyte.com/docs/wiki/arc … fi-gpt-usb

However, when it gets to grub, it won't boot the default grub entry, ... complains about the UUID for the root partition ... , I have to go into the fallback initramfs  entry and that boots ok

The section in the guide for installing grub is:

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/mnt/esp/ --boot-directory=/mnt/esp/ --bootloader-id=boot --modules=part_gpt
grub-install --target=i386-efi --efi-directory=/mnt/esp/ --boot-directory=/mnt/esp/ --bootloader-id=boot --modules=part_gpt
#grub-install /dev/sdd --boot-directory=/mnt/esp/ --bootloader-id=boot --modules=ntldr
mv /mnt/esp/EFI/boot/grubx64.efi /mnt/esp/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi
mv /mnt/esp/EFI/boot/grubia32.efi /mnt/esp/EFI/boot/bootia32.efi
grub-mkconfig -o /mnt/esp/grub/grub.cfg
rm -r /boot/grub/

Having a look at the grub.cfg generated, there is not a lot of difference between the standard entry and the fallback initramfs one, the same root UUID is used in both entries ..
So it looks like the default /boot/initramfs-linux.img does not boot, but the /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img one does ..

Anyone know how to fix this?

Last edited by bmentink (2016-02-01 18:35:25)

bmentink

Member

From: New Zealand

Registered: 2009-08-23

Posts: 442

Re: Install Arch on 32bit-only EFI

Update:

I notice from the wiki:

By default, the mkinitcpio script generates two images after kernel installation or upgrades: /boot/initramfs-linux.img and /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img. The fallback image utilizes the same configuration file as the default image, except the autodetect hook is skipped during creation, thus including a full range of modules. The autodetect hook detects required modules and tailors the image for specific hardware, shrinking the initramfs.

I notice when the kernel boots with the fallback image, that I get messages about a missing sound driver module, could this be the cause of not booting with autodetect?

EDIT: I found that if I booted to the fallback image and ran mkinitcpio -p linux then I could boot the normal image .. so all good now.

Hope this helps someone else.

Last edited by bmentink (2016-02-02 20:21:39)