Arch Linux

PrincessMidna

Member

Registered: 2017-11-04

Posts: 3

["Fixed": Non-issue] Getting archiso to boot on old EFI32 Mac Pro 1,1

Hello,

I have an old Mac Pro 1,1 mostly running Windows 10 but issues related to the Windows AMD driver clashing with the Mac GPU cause random BSODs which cannot be fixed as the GPU is essentially abandoned now.

Thus, I want to repurpose it using Arch Linux on a relatively small drive.

The problem is that archiso cannot boot UEFI DVDs due to Apple's great wisdom in providing a "Select boot option" prompt before loading keyboard drivers in the firmware, preventing any access to the legacy BIOS boot.

A solution for this is to remove the UEFI boot system from archiso, as the wiki covers.

The problem is that the new DVD crashes Apple's firmware and causes the system to reboot constantly until you eject the DVD by manually unlocking the drive with a paperclip.

I don't really know what can cause this issue. Removing the -appid, -volid, -preparer etc. did not help so I'm not sure of what causes the DVD to break the firmware. I haven't tried to boot the DVD on another BIOS system yet.

The DVD was made using the 2022-11-01 archiso and I followed the exact instructions from the wiki. The volid is ARCH_202211 (but Apple's firmware identifies any bootable BIOS DVD as Windows anyway).

Any ideas? Cheers.

EDIT

By looking around the forums, I stumbled on this post stating that archiso's UEFI boot system was recently changed from systemd-boot to GRUB2.

GRUB2 can boot in UEFI mode on EFI32 systems, meaning the archiso DVD indeed boots on the Mac using the "EFI Boot" option. The removal of UEFI from the media is subsequently no longer required.

Last edited by PrincessMidna (2022-11-11 22:09:31)