I have an unusual situation wherein my computer is 64 bit but the UEFI is 32 bit (Intel Compute stick with modern Intel Atom processor). It does not have compatability (legacy) mode.

Several distros that I would like to try-out don't accomodate this. (Some don't accomodate UEFI at all)

Can I make my own reusable USB stick with 32 bit UEFI onto which I could copy ISO's of various distros and boot it ?

If that isn't possible (or if it is very difficult), can I add 32 bit UEFI to a live USB which already has the installer ISO on it?

And then after the distro is installed, would it boot on my PC?

If these things are possible, would you please point me to resources that I could use (or give me instructions)?

Thanks.

Joe

Which distros and what have you done so far? The more information you give about what you have done and tried will help in getting better answers.

Some distros that I have recently created live USB's according to their instructions, tried to boot and failed are Puppy and Alpine and AntiX-core. When I investigated further, their websites/forums stated that they don't have UEFI support.

Try Puppy slacko-6.3.2-uefi.iso http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux...acko-6.3.2/32/

Thanks, but no go. See last line below. 32 bit UEFI not supported


Additional release notes and errata

The latest versions of Slacko and Slacko64 Puppy Linux have been released! Release Notes

Current versions: slacko-6.3.2 and slacko64-6.3.2

Minimum System Requirements

Recommended for 32 bit: 900MHz processor (P3 or AMD K7), 512MB RAM and either bootable cd access, usb boot or network boot access. A Hard Drive is not required

Recommended for 64 bit: 1.6GHz processor (IA64 or amd64), 1GB RAM and either bootable cd access, usb boot or network boot access. A Hard Drive is not required

Slacko (32 bit) has been known to run on a P3 733MHz processor with 256MB RAM. Slacko does not support old P2 or AMD K6 processors.

Features
NEW! UEFI support on the 32 bit and 64 bit iso images! NB: this only supports booting of 64 bit UEFI machines. 32 bit UEFI machines are rare anyway.

never mind

Have a lot at http://www.linuxium.com.au/how-tos

What I picked up from reading this is that he has written a bootloader especially for stick PC's with Intel Atom processors. That's great! But the downside seems to be that you can only copy ISO's rather than installing them, which makes persistence impossible.

Is there a way that I can preserve the bootloader so that it doesn't get eliminated during the installation of a distro. Or is there a way I can add the bootloader after installing a distro?

Also just to be sure I understand - can all 32 bit or 64 bit x86 distros be installed and run on a 32 bit UEFI x86-64 PC if secure boot is disabled and a bootloader for 32 bit UEFI is present?

If it is that simple why didn't all distros add UEFI support after the first FOSS UEFI bootloader program was written ?

Are you saying you cannot boot from a usb unless it is using UEFI? I would expect that the UEFI/Legacy CSM options would be for installed systems but I don't use UEFI so maybe someone more familiar with it will post. Everything else you refer to is obviously possible with some Linux distributions. Using Grub2 and simply installing to the MBR and a boot directory is possible. Booting an iso directly from Grub2 is also possible for many (not all) Linux systems and even simply booting an iso you can have persistence, again with some Linux systems but not all.

Yes. If I try to boot a live USB prepared exactly according to the distro's instructions, (even just an installer USB), if that USB doesn't have the EfI bits on it, then it won't even show up in the boot menu.

I'm not familiar with your hardware so can 't really suggest anything other than to check through your manual for the machine to check options for booting from usb. As I understand it, 32bit UEFI is pretty rare so I'm not sure how much luck you will have. Most major Linux distributions will be capabel of booting UEFI or CSM/Legacy and as I understand, detect whether the machine is UEFI capable when booted. Not using UEFI myself, I have nothing else to suggest. Good luck.