[debian-cd] The trixie 13.0 installer ISO does not boot on a x86-64-v1 MacMini 2010
Hello
I went to the debian-cd download page [1], downloaded the Debian 13
(trixie) netinst ISO image [2] and burned it to a DVD-RW disc to perform
a clean install in my old MacMini mid-2010 (Macmini4,1) that has a very
old Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 processor which only supports the x86-64-v1
subarchitecture [3].
The result that I expected was the installer to boot using EFI and then
I would be able to install Debian 13 (trixie) as usual. I have this
machine running Debian 12 (bookworm) without issue. Although the option
for EFI boot was detected I was not able to boot the installer into EFI
mode, I got a blank screen even after leaving the machine sitting for
half an hour.
I went ahead and rebooted the machine into BIOS mode (the CD icon
appears with "Windows" in the MacMini boot options screen) and then I
was able to install Debian 13. I created the EFI partition but the
installer did not perform the EFI installation because I booted into
BIOS mode (this is expected).
The end result is that the installer finished and I could not boot into
the new installation because the EFI partition was not initialized
correctly because I installed in BIOS mode. I fixed this by attaching
the disk to other MacMini that I have around and copying my EFI
partition contents with the GRUB files, then chrooting into the install
and replacing grub-pc with grub-efi. This is just a workaround test that
I did to see if any further issues were also happening. [4]
I feel that the technical issue is that the GRUB EFI boot loader that
the Debian 13.0 ISO was compiled for the x86-64-v2 subarchitecture. I
saw the following in the "ArchitectureSpecificsMemo" wiki page [5]
related to the sub-architectures for amd64 (also known as x86_64):
> ArchitectureSpecificsMemo
> …
> Each Debian architecture has a baseline indicating the oldest or
least capable CPU on which the architecture can be used.
> The baseline can change between Debian releases.
> The baseline is mostly defined by the gcc-N package, which is
configured to produce baseline binaries when options like -march= are
not used.
> …
> amd64
> x86_64 with no optional extensions (psABI baseline).
> The core specification includes MMX, SSE and SSE2 so these are
OK, but SSE3 and up are not guaranteed.
> (The default is -march=x86-64, but not -march=x86-64-v2 or later.)
I have had a similar issue with install ISO images not booting on old
machines that do not support the x86-64-v2 architecture or newer. One
example of this is Proxmox that dropped x86-64-v1 on the 8.x release, I
have the exact same symptoms happening with their install ISO on this
machine.
I went ahead and booted the exact same Debian 13 DVD-RW on a sightly
newer MacMini 2011 (Macmini5,1) [6] that I have around here that does
support x86-64-v2 and the installer booted without issues in EFI mode.
Maybe we need to replace the GRUB EFI image that is present in the
Debian 13 installer ISO to be compatible with older x86-64-v1 machines
according to [5].
NOTE
This is my first bug report, I am not sure if I should format this
using "reportbug" [7] or send this to other mailing list.
Thanks in advance
--
Andrés Hernández
= ^ . ^ =
> [1]: https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-cd/
> [2]:
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-cd/debian-13.0.0-amd64-netinst.iso
> [3]:
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_mini/specs/mac-mini-core-2-duo-2.4-mid-2010-specs.html
> [4]: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2536210400?X=Debian-13-MacMini-2010-001
> [5]: https://wiki.debian.org/ArchitectureSpecificsMemo
> [6]:
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_mini/specs/mac-mini-core-i5-2.3-mid-2011-specs.html
> [7]: https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting
Reply to: