Re: Procedure do Install NetBSD in a Macbook White 2006

[Martin Husemann <martin%duskware.de@localhost>]

On Thu, May 07, 2020 at 12:08:50AM -0300, Marcos Onisto wrote:
> Hello NetBSD,
> 
> I really like to contribute with you and I wrote one procedure how to
> intall NetBSD 8.1 in a Macbook White 2006 like below

I think it would have been easier with NetBSD 9 as that directly allows
a UEFI installation without tricks.

> Macbook White - A1181 (Late 2006)
> CPU: Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz - T7200
> Mem: 4 GB RAM - 667
> EFI: 32 Bits
> 
> Even though the CPU is 64 Bits, the EFI is 32 Bits, this way only the 32
> Bits Operationg System can be installed in this computer.

I don't think this is true for NetBSD. On my amd64 UEFI installation I have
(on the EFI partition):

efi/boot:
total 454
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  239575 Feb  9 12:33 bootia32.efi
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  224482 Feb  9 12:33 bootx64.efi

and file says:

efi/boot/bootia32.efi: PE32 executable (EFI application) Intel 80386 (stripped to external PDB), for MS Windows
efi/boot/bootx64.efi:  PE32+ executable (EFI application) x86-64 (stripped to external PDB), for MS Windows

So your firmware shoud be able to load efi/boot/bootia32.efi and that will
be able to boot either a 32bit i386 or a 64bit amd64 kernel.

With 4G RAM the difference is typically not very important though.

Martin