MacBook Intel core duo 2,1

knottulf · 07-14-2016, 03:31 PM

I got this old mac (2007): MacBook Intel core duo 2,1
Which has served me well with OSX until Apple put it in the recycle bin offering no more updates.
So now I thought it would be a nice thing to have Linux Mint running on it.
However, as soon I found out, this box wont understand that it really is 64bit.
The Mint 17.1 64 bit cd gives me this boot prompt: Select cd-rom boot type: with options 1 and 2. This is reported on the internet as caused by the "new" hybrid iso format.
So I found some good tips here:
https://danielquinn.org/blog/fedora-...white-macbook/
suggesting to remake the bootimage with this command:

Quote:

mkisofs -r -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -V Fedora-Live-Desktop-x86_64-19-1 -o /tmp/fedora.img /tmp/image/

Obviously replacing the fedora things with mint.
OK, so I did, and luckily my mac booted and showed me the mint logo, just to tell me (from busybox) that it could not find any live filesystem.

Now what do I do? Anybody tried something similar?

notKlaatu · 07-14-2016, 03:35 PM

In my experience, Linux-on-Mac is easiest with Debian. I've tried all kinds of alternatives, and while it "can be done", pure Debian just makes it so simple by comparison.

Not to discourage you from trying what you are trying; I'm just letting you know that pure Debian has, so far, made the process of "fixing" Macs (ie, running Linux on them) really simple.

knottulf · 07-14-2016, 03:53 PM

OK, thanks! This is a good tip.
However, the mac is meant for basic everyday usage for a person who is not into computing at all. So facebook, flash, java for the bank account, should just work for him. Then it would have to be a 64bit distro, as I just learned that google chrome is not issued for 32bit linux anymore, and firefox and flash are not at good terms.
Debian is really conservative--which is good--but this is not what I need now.

Mint has worked well on another laptop, which just broke down. So I would like to try it.

beachboy2 · 07-14-2016, 04:15 PM

knottulf,

Post #5 offers the suggestion below:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2222881

Quote:

I'm guessing the problem with trying to install 14.04 64-bit directly on a MacBook 2,1 (late 2006) is the 32-bit EFI bootloader on these systems. I tried to install 13.04 from a DVD last year and it wouldn't boot. Eventually, I found a '12.04 LTS for Mac' iso that would boot.

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/12.04/release/

I have done the following:
1) Installed rEFInd
http://www.rodsbooks.com/ubuntu-efi/

2) Installed 12.04 (64-bit) LTS
3) Immediately upgraded to 14.04 LTS using the update manager

With exception of the webcam, everything seems to work. I found the fan running pretty constantly when using the Unity desktop and have additionally installed the Lubuntu desktop for a quieter/cooler experience.

I hope this of help to you.

knottulf · 07-15-2016, 03:17 AM

Hi, thanks beachboy2. I tried your approach, with success––at least until the upgrade.
I used Mint's v13 release, though. When upgrading from this one, I met a problem with the original repositories being removed. I found new ones under archive.ubuntu, except for one issue:
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ quantal partner
which I can't find any updated repository which I could put in its place.

This is of course a predictable issue when upgrading from old releases. But it could get easier when I got this one sorted out, and hopefully reached the next release.

seasons · 07-16-2016, 01:34 PM

You're not supposed to upgrade to Quantal (12.10). You're supposed to go from 12.04 directly to 14.04 (Trusty). And from there, you can probably go to 16.04 if you wish.

seasons · 07-16-2016, 01:50 PM

Also, is there a reason you really need to run 64-bit? It helps with performance in some areas (media encoding, compilation), but if you don't do those tasks frequently, it may not be worth the hassle on your specific system. In fact, unless you upgraded your system to 4GB RAM, 32-bit may be a better choice since it uses a bit less RAM.

knottulf · 07-28-2016, 02:37 AM

@seasons, thank you! I was not aware of the option to upgrade directly from Mint 13 to 17. This worked almost perfectly. I have some issues on Qiana, but they don't seem important.
Concerning the necessity of using 64 bit, the only reason is that I want flash to work for a normal user. Chrome seems to be the easiest way to do that, and Google has discontinued development of Chrome for 32 bit Linux. I suppose Chrome won't be the only of this kind in the future.

Matthew. · 07-06-2020, 08:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by beachboy2

knottulf,

Post #5 offers the suggestion below:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2222881

I hope this of help to you.

Whoa!
Happy random find.
You may have - that is MAY HAVE - just saved my sanity.
I have not been able to figure out why my mid-2007 macbook 2,1 Core 2 Duo will not boot from a Linux Mint USB or internal SSD (Put Mint on the SSD via 2011 macbook pro booted from Mint USB stick).
It cannot be the case that the 2007 machine is a 64-bit machine but it has a 32 bit boot loader (by that I mean UEFI / boot menu), can it?
So is that why the 2011 MBP runs Mint 19 but the 2007 machine will not?
I need a Linux ditro that a 32-bit macbook UEFi/boot-loader will recognise, is that it?
Thanks.... I think.

obobskivich · 07-07-2020, 05:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matthew.

It cannot be the case that the 2007 machine is a 64-bit machine but it has a 32 bit boot loader (by that I mean UEFI / boot menu), can it?
So is that why the 2011 MBP runs Mint 19 but the 2007 machine will not?
I need a Linux ditro that a 32-bit macbook UEFi/boot-loader will recognise, is that it?
Thanks.... I think.

I don't know if this is true of the laptops, but the Apple towers from that era (with the first-gen (on Mac) Intel processors) actually do have 32-bit EFI implementations, which created problems not just for running linux (or whatever else) on them, but for Apple themselves (which is why those machines were EOL'd a lot 'earlier' than the later Xeon and Core i7 towers (some of which were/are still supported, last I knew)). The Apple community had some patchwork solution to try loading the newer 64-bit versions of OS X on the towers, but I also know a lot of that depended on the machine having pretty extensive hardware upgrades towards modernity (memory, graphics, storage, etc) to work too, and that won't be possible in the laptop. I don't know if this will or won't work, but Slackware still ships a 32-bit distro, but as the above (fairly dated) posts point out, there are likely to be 'issues' if you want to use 32-bit as a 'daily driver' machine as some software has gone to 64-bit only. Probably also as the world moves more and more towards 64-bit, this will become increasingly impossible to support, especially when the manufacturer has considered these boxes a dead-end for almost a decade.

Matthew. · 08-11-2020, 07:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by obobskivich

I don't know if this is true of the laptops, but the Apple towers from that era (with the first-gen (on Mac) Intel processors) actually do have 32-bit EFI implementations, which created problems not just for running linux (or whatever else) on them, but for Apple themselves (which is why those machines were EOL'd a lot 'earlier' than the later Xeon and Core i7 towers (some of which were/are still supported, last I knew)). The Apple community had some patchwork solution to try loading the newer 64-bit versions of OS X on the towers, but I also know a lot of that depended on the machine having pretty extensive hardware upgrades towards modernity (memory, graphics, storage, etc) to work too, and that won't be possible in the laptop. I don't know if this will or won't work, but Slackware still ships a 32-bit distro, but as the above (fairly dated) posts point out, there are likely to be 'issues' if you want to use 32-bit as a 'daily driver' machine as some software has gone to 64-bit only. Probably also as the world moves more and more towards 64-bit, this will become increasingly impossible to support, especially when the manufacturer has considered these boxes a dead-end for almost a decade.

Thanks.
Apparently there is a way to get 64bit Linux onto the 64bit-with-32bit-UEFI macbook 2,1.
Though I do not recall now where I saw the info, and logged into this site to day to see if it was here. I do not think it was.

ofbarea · 10-30-2020, 11:40 AM

It is possible to install Ubuntu on these old macbooks with 32 bits EFI

Just need a custom ISO installer that you can download or create following the instructions of this link:
https://mattgadient.com/linux-dvd-im...e-2006-models/

I'm running Lubuntu on a Macbook 2006 for several years already.
The laptop itself was upgraded to 4 GB RAM (only 3.2 usable) and the HD was replaced by an SSD.
I migrated to Lubuntu x64 on 2019. Currently I'm running Lubunto 20.10 with 5.8 Kernel.

On mattgadient web page, he has uploaded a Lubuntu 20.04 ISO modified for Mac with 32 bits EFI.
I would start with that.

After you have Lubuntu running, you will need to enable the web cam. The firmware for the isight needs to be extracted from the MacOS partition.

I Followed this guide from steps 1 to 7…
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/use-...ntu-38894.html

then reboot.
Then I installed “cheese” to test the cam and all good.
$ sudo apt-get install cheese

Another problem I had was high CPU utilization coming from kworker (IRQ9/ACPI).
This was noticed by my kid when her Teacher switched from ZOOM to google meet.

To fix it I added boot parameter acpi_mask_gpe=0x17 to GRUB and rebooted.
> use the boot parameter acpi_mask_gpe=0x17

in Debian/Ubuntu add this to /etc/default/grub line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT.
In my case I use nano editor.

My line looks like this after I modified it.

Quote:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_mask_gpe=0x17"

then run

Quote:

update-grub

and reboot.

I found the problem with this command:
grep . -r /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/

The issue gpe17:
/sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/gpe17: 3491042 EN enabled unmasked

All other gpe were OK.

Matthew. · 10-30-2020, 11:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ofbarea

It is possible to install Ubuntu on these old macbooks with 32 bits EFI

Just need a custom ISO installer that you can download or create following the instructions of this link:
https://mattgadient.com/linux-dvd-im...e-2006-models/

I'm running Lubuntu on a Macbook 2006 for several years already.
The laptop itself was upgraded to 4 GB RAM (only 3.2 usable) and the HD was replaced by an SSD.
I migrated to Lubuntu x64 on 2019. Currently I'm running Lubunto 20.10 with 5.8 Kernel.

On mattgadient web page, he has uploaded a Lubuntu 20.04 ISO modified for Mac with 32 bits EFI.
I would start with that.

After you have Lubuntu running, you will need to enable the web cam. The firmware for the isight needs to be extracted from the MacOS partition.

I Followed this guide from steps 1 to 7…
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/use-...ntu-38894.html

then reboot.
Then I installed “cheese” to test the cam and all good.
$ sudo apt-get install cheese

Another problem I had was high CPU utilization coming from kworker (IRQ9/ACPI).
This was noticed by my kid when her Teacher switched from ZOOM to google meet.

To fix it I added boot parameter acpi_mask_gpe=0x17 to GRUB and rebooted.
> use the boot parameter acpi_mask_gpe=0x17

in Debian/Ubuntu add this to /etc/default/grub line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT.
In my case I use nano editor.

My line looks like this after I modified it.

then run

and reboot.

I found the problem with this command:
grep . -r /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/

The issue gpe17:
/sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/gpe17: 3491042 EN enabled unmasked

All other gpe were OK.

Thank you very much for that. I will try it. At my skill level, this is a challenge.

I have already tried doing what you suggest for the 2007 core 2 duo macbook with a modified iso of Linux Mint 19.3 from Matt Gadient's site.
I used a Windows tool called Rufus to partion and put the iso into a 4GB USB stick.
It did not work (there was no response or atempt by the 2007 machine to boot).
I was able to boot my 2011 macbook pro from it, so I think the USB itself is good.
Thankfully my 2011 MacBook Pro boots from a live Linux (Mint 20 XFCE) USB so there is no rush.
I do want to have the old white 2007 core 2 duo running Linux, too, though.

I still have a lot to learn.
Thank you again.

ofbarea · 10-31-2020, 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matthew.

Thank you very much for that. I will try it. At my skill level, this is a challenge.

I have already tried doing what you suggest for the 2007 core 2 duo macbook with a modified iso of Linux Mint 19.3 from Matt Gadient's site.
I used a Windows tool called Rufus to partion and put the iso into a 4GB USB stick.
It did not work (there was no response or atempt by the 2007 machine to boot).
I was able to boot my 2011 macbook pro from it, so I think the USB itself is good.
Thankfully my 2011 MacBook Pro boots from a live Linux (Mint 20 XFCE) USB so there is no rush.
I do want to have the old white 2007 core 2 duo running Linux, too, though.

I still have a lot to learn.
Thank you again.

Just remember that installing Linux x64 in a machine with EFI32 bits, like our laptops, it's abit more chalenging.
To keep it simple, begin installing OSX Lion.

Ensure it works and boots.

Then install rEFInd Boot Manager:
https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/installing.html

This will greatly facilitate choosing the system you will be booting to.

Then, from OSX, use BootCamp tool, to partition the disk.
Allocate a big chunk for Windows. You will be installing Linux in the space that tool allocated.

When you have that ready, Install Linux into that partition using a DVD from Matt Gadient site.
I attempted to do the installation using USB, but I was not sucesfull.

Good luck with that.