On Fri, Nov 27, 2020 at 01:34:25AM +0000, Gustavo Pinent wrote: > Hi! First of all, congratulations for this awesome OS! > I have a Mac Mini mid 2007 with hybrid architecture, a 32 bit firmware with > 64 bit CPU. I installed a Debian 10 32 bits and it runs just fine! Problem > is, 32 bits has been abandoned, products has been discontinued, soon there > will be not much to run on it besides FireFox. So I am trying to install a 64 > bit version... > Then the problems starts: this machine does not have an optical drive > anymore, I changed it for more HDD storage. Only USB boot, and more > compatibility issues. As long I decided to change again and work only with a > SDD and to buy some used superdrive, this initiative can be useful to some > situations when you just don't have an optical drive connected to the core. > External ones won't boot, in fact, using USB ports will only boot Mac OS > Lion, a special third part Mac OS Mojave, Windows 7 and Debian. And in the > particular case of Debian, only through BIOS emulation mode, EFI refuses to > run the installer. > My two attempts of installing the 64 version was... - To build a hybrid > bootable USB image by keeping the 32 bit boot but change the call for the 64 > bit installer. Basically mixing 32 with 64 versions. But I could not make the > image, don't have the tools for that. - Converting the 32 bit version already > installed into a 64 bit on-the-fly by, well, changing the files. I could make > it boot in 64 bit! But it didn't go through the end and goes to command line. > At some point I lost the partition and didn't try again, thought is too > complicated. > So I'm asking for help on this. First, witch way is easier, thinking about > left some legacy, and once decided the way, how can be done. Of course, if > this is not the right place to ask, please point me the right direction. > My working machine now is a MacBook Pro 2012 running Mojave (Catalina does > not work well). I have a Windows 10 in a partition and I am thing in > installing some Linux too. I have Virtual Box but it is a bit slow, and you > know, never perfect. > Thanks for hearing me!Gustavo.
On a PC, the multi-arch netinst boots and does this - 32 bit UEFI and 64 bit userland. You are using https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-cd/debian-mac-10.6.0-amd64-netinst.iso ? If not, you might be stuck with the 32 bit version at https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/i386/iso-cd/debian-mac-10.6.0-i386-netinst.iso There was also some discussion about whether we needed the oldest of the Mac images on the debian-cd list a few months ago. The original Intel mac mini needed the 32 bit version, I think, but the firmware could be upgraded. https://lists.debian.org/debian-cd/2020/07/msg00017.html refers and the wiki page at https://wiki.debian.org/MacMiniIntel#Macmini_1.2C1 is also helpful. Hope this helps, Andy C.
