On 15/03/2025 19:31, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
We currently still build debian-mac-12.10.0-i386-netinst.iso and debian-mac-12.10.0-amd64-netinst.iso images. These are for an *old* Intel-based Mac Mini that had issues with image booting from certain disk layouts. From the wiki https://wiki.debian.org/MacMiniIntel#Macmini_2.2C1 - this was a long time ago. Most of these machines will be long since gone.
Some time ago someone donated me 2 old Mac Minis, a 1.66 from 2006 [1] and a 4.1 from 2010 [2], for use with Debian. Technically they are still working, and I've not found the time yet to properly set them up. Even the oldest one has a 64-bit processor.
In the same way that
we stopped producing specific 32 bit UEFI images and rolled those into the 64 bit installer - removing the need for those multi-arch images - can we now afford to do the same for these images?
In live-build there is some code mentioning 32-bit UEFI, but I haven't tested that.
*Most* modern Intel-based Macs will boot from the standard AMD64 install media though some may then have other firmware issues e.g. T2 chip and touch bar. Users have occasionally been confused and downloaded the wrong image. I noticed the images were still there in the release testing for 12.10 today. Thoughts?
If the netinst and live images are able to properly detect the hardware they are running on (including firmware bugs etc), I think it would be nice to remove the mac-specific images. Also given that i386 images are not generated any more for trixie, IMO at least the i386-mac images can be removed for trixie. If there are not bug reports for bookworm, I don't see a need to remove them for bookworm already.
My 2 cents, Roland Clobus [1] https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_mini/specs/mac_mini_cd_1.66.html[2] https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_mini/specs/mac-mini-core-2-duo-2.4-mid-2010-specs.html
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