Boot 21 MacBook

borgward · 03-07-2023, 10:27 PM

MacBook Mid 2010. Can't boot 21.1 USB or DVD. DVD drive is good. Tried option key at chime. Also tried C at chime. Option key brings me to screen to select the HDD or the repair drive. C only brings up OS X 10.10

business_kid · 03-09-2023, 08:38 AM

Mint ≥20 requires UEFI and 2010 is probably before that. Try others. You need to do a legacy install. I know slackware does both.

borgward · 03-09-2023, 09:19 AM

That's right. I assumed that since the Mid 2010 Unibody 13" MacBook w/Core2Duo 64bit processor would boot a 64bit OS. Not. The Mac OS was still 32 bit. The 2010 15" one w/i5 processor was 64bit all the way and it's Mac OS was 64bit. Boy Apple makes some beautiful hardware but they do some really weird things. I have it running mint 20 64bit modified to boot it. Will install 21 in a few minutes.

https://everymac.com/mac-answers/sno...-bit-mode.html
Hope this helps anyone installing linux on an old Mac.

business_kid · 03-09-2023, 11:55 AM

A 64bit pc should run a 64 or 32 bit OS, imho. I have run both. But as you say, Apple may have taken a cheap way out. A 32bit OS should work fine.

When you install, mark this thread solved.

goumba · 03-09-2023, 03:08 PM

business_kid is right, a 64 bit processor can run either.

Around that time low end 64 bit PCs and devices would run a 32 bit implementation of UEFI with a 32 bit OS (less memory requirements, supposedly). Cheap tablets did exactly this. If this is the case, you can run a 64 bit OS, but need a 32bit EFI bootloader stub.

This wiki page mentions that it is *known* that 2008 and prior MacBooks used a 32 bit UEFI implementation. Perhaps there were some holdouts.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Uni...rmware_bitness