Hey all,
I have a bit of a personal project, it's a thrown-away Mac Pro that I've put upgraded dual qc 3.0ghz procs from a Mac Pro 2,1 (2007) into, upgraded firmware and SMC coding to handle the higher TDP of the new procs, and bundled all the RAM into. 8gb total, haha.
Of course, this machine won't run recent MacOS versions and the latest one it will run isn't even receiving security updates. In addition, I already have a couple of much more modern and powerful macs running MacOS so I'd rather get a Linux distro running on this system instead to play around with. It's fun.
This thing does have 32bit EFI so I've already implemented the required workarounds to get Linux booted. However it's only very occasionally that I can actually boot Linux. If I force the system into it's CSM mode, I can boot, and install Linux from CD or DVD, and run Linux fine but I just don't like the idea of running it in bootcamp/CSM/compatbility mode. And the fact that it *occasionally* boots natively into EFI mode makes it feel like it's so close!
Does anybody know how to make these old intel mac pros boot linux in EFI mode reliably? For all I know nobody else has a problem doing this (e.g., Fedora 27 or later have native support for 32bit EFI, I can boot and install it on my 2007 iMacs with 32bit EFI and 64bit procs just fine, along with a couple other distros I've added the 32-bit efi file to like Linux Mint and ElementaryOS).
It might be a problem with my hardware? I just haven't been able to find much evidence suggesting people actually run Linux in EFI mode on these old Mac Pros, perhaps it's not worth the effort. Despite that, I'm still pretty keen to try! Any input very much appreciated.
Thanks,
~Micah
[doublepost=1544824199][/doublepost]Oh also should probably mention that I can run OS X just fine, nothing weird at all there, just runs fine.
I have a bit of a personal project, it's a thrown-away Mac Pro that I've put upgraded dual qc 3.0ghz procs from a Mac Pro 2,1 (2007) into, upgraded firmware and SMC coding to handle the higher TDP of the new procs, and bundled all the RAM into. 8gb total, haha.
Of course, this machine won't run recent MacOS versions and the latest one it will run isn't even receiving security updates. In addition, I already have a couple of much more modern and powerful macs running MacOS so I'd rather get a Linux distro running on this system instead to play around with. It's fun.
This thing does have 32bit EFI so I've already implemented the required workarounds to get Linux booted. However it's only very occasionally that I can actually boot Linux. If I force the system into it's CSM mode, I can boot, and install Linux from CD or DVD, and run Linux fine but I just don't like the idea of running it in bootcamp/CSM/compatbility mode. And the fact that it *occasionally* boots natively into EFI mode makes it feel like it's so close!
Does anybody know how to make these old intel mac pros boot linux in EFI mode reliably? For all I know nobody else has a problem doing this (e.g., Fedora 27 or later have native support for 32bit EFI, I can boot and install it on my 2007 iMacs with 32bit EFI and 64bit procs just fine, along with a couple other distros I've added the 32-bit efi file to like Linux Mint and ElementaryOS).
It might be a problem with my hardware? I just haven't been able to find much evidence suggesting people actually run Linux in EFI mode on these old Mac Pros, perhaps it's not worth the effort. Despite that, I'm still pretty keen to try! Any input very much appreciated.
Thanks,
~Micah
[doublepost=1544824199][/doublepost]Oh also should probably mention that I can run OS X just fine, nothing weird at all there, just runs fine.