Bug#771465: i386 hd-media image does not boot on Macbooks with 32-bit EFI
Package: debian-installer
Severity: important
Hi,
I recently installed jessie on a 2007 intel Macbook by booting d-i
from a USB drive. Getting the installer to start required quite a bit
of hand tuning.
The Macbook versions Macbook1,1 and Macbook2,1 from 2006-2007 require
a 32-bit EFI bootloader and thus do not work with amd64 version of
d-i. On the other hand, the i386 hd-media/boot.img.gz image only works
with BIOS systems.
I got the installer running by manually installing GRUB (the i386-efi
version) to a USB drive with an MBR partition table and a FAT32
filesystem, copying grub.conf from the amd64 netboot ISO image and
copying the kernel image and initrd from the i386 netboot image. This
procedure is straightforward, but requires an existing linux computer
and probably does not win any usability awards.
The straightforward fix would be to install both syslinux and GRUB to
the hd-media image, as they seem to be able to coexist without
problem. If this is for some reason not possible, then the procedure
to get i386 EFI systems booting should be at least documented on the
Installation guide, somewhere around chapter 4.3.3.1.
Best,
Teemu
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