Trying to install Linux on a Windows netbook with 32-bit UEFI firmware?

There are some netbooks/tablets/cheap laptops with an x64 capable processor, that are crippled by 32-bit UEFI firmware and originally ran 32-bit Windows only.

The reason for that is because Microsoft received less money for licensing Windows on netbooks than for laptops and desktop PCs, so most of these netbooks ran software like Windows 7 Starter with reduced functionality.

If customers with these 64-bit machines wanted full Windows functionality, then they would need to buy a fresh license from Microsoft.

Just in case you were wondering how much tax Microsoft paid on a profit of $315bn (£222bn) for the year ending June 2020, the answer is zero!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ofit-last-year

I had an ASUS T100T netbook with 32-bit UEFI boot and here is how I installed MX Linux 21.3 (64-bit):
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...d-linux-38954/

Could you get around this by installing a 32-bit GRUB? I found this, which is not quite parallel because they are using an mbr boot, but it should be possible to adapt it to a uefi system. In fact it could even be easier, because you could copy a suitable GRUB executable over to the esp by hand rather than having to install it automatically out of a 32-bit OS.

The idea is that once you have a 32-bit GRUB in place, you can install a 64-bit OS and update grub from that to get the final menu.

Can you replace the UEFI firmware with something else, such as coreboot?

It isn't really microsoft. It's the whacky 32 bit 64 bit deal that atom processors had. Plenty of web articles on how to get past it but seems rather odd they did it.

I know this is over a week old, but:

This isn't totally Microsoft's doing as jefro mentions.

This was an effort by the manufacturers to save costs. By installing a 32 bit OS, even with a 64 bit processor, they could get away with using less memory.

You can install a 64 bit OS, but have to do a bit of extra work. A 32 bit GRUB is possible. You can find one online (if you trust the source), or build it yourself. GRUB has a 32 bit UEFI implementation which means you do NOT have to resort to Legacy/CSM/BIOS booting.

I have an old Atom machine that runs 64 bit Linux just fine.

See this for some direction:

https://www.benchadwick.com/2015/01/...ws-8-1-system/

He goes on later into detail on building the 32 bit GRUB on the running machine.

goumba & jefro,

Yes, you are probably right.

It is all down to the missing bootia32.efi file.

Info:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Uni...ware_Interface

This link turned up and is relevant to this now ancient thread:

http://sininenankka.dy.fi/~sami/uefi_fact_sheet.txt

It has a clear comparison between UEFI and BIOS. It cements the observation that UEFI is an overly complicated solution in search of a problem.