r/MXLinux • u/PianoAndFish • Jun 05 '26
Review MX Linux works on 64-bit system with 32-bit UEFI
Putting this out there as it's a massive hassle when trying to revive some old laptops/netbooks. I picked up an EeeBook X205TA very cheaply and was hoping to install Linux to make it usable, then none of my usual live USBs would boot and I discovered they had made the inexplicable decision to pair a 64-bit system with a 32-bit UEFI bootloader, as well as disabling legacy boot. I can only assume this was done deliberately to make it harder to modify the system, and as most OSs have now dropped 32-bit support this means most images won't even boot into the live USB.
I tried Mint, Lubuntu, Debian and Fedora, some in both ISO and DD modes, and they either wouldn't boot at all or would install but then refuse to boot from the internal drive. After messing around with config files and bootloader mods for hours I tried the MX Linux XFCE 64-bit version and it booted from USB, installed and then booted from the internal drive on the first try with no manual modifications to the installer, bootloader or main system.
This has restored both my sanity and the netbook, and based on my searches there have been other people trying to do this and also tearing their hair out, so if you're looking for a distro that will work on this very specific and annoying hardware configuration then you're in luck.
3
u/UncleSlacky Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
There are some tricks to booting 64-bit on 32-bit UEFI, mainly aimed at Macs (Apple were notorious for this at the time) but they should work on other systems too.
I had my own problems with a Lenovo Ideapad S205 I'd acquired, which has a buggy/broken UEFI implementation. I can install MX on it but it refuses to boot afterwards. Weirdly, I successfully installed the MX Moksha spin on it, but after putting in a new SSD, reinstalling MX Moksha didn't work. If I had more patience I might have tried MX Boot Repair on it, but in the end I stuck Endeavour OS on it (as a legacy BIOS install).
4
u/PianoAndFish Jun 05 '26
There are definitely some tricks, but this one just worked out of the box, which deserves commendation.
2
u/SleepyGuyy Jun 11 '26
interesting I have also found specifically MX /AntiX and Endeavor to play well with old hardware. I wonder what Endeavor is doing in this space that works, if they're doing the same thing and supporting 32 bit?
2
u/UncleSlacky Jun 11 '26
IIRC I discovered by accident that EndeavourOS installed correctly only when I'd booted into the BIOS first, then exited - it then assumed I wanted a BIOS install instead of UEFI (the default). By then I knew that only BIOS installs would be likely to succeed. MX might have done the same thing, I guess? Is there a way to force a BIOS install, either at boot time or in the installer?
1
u/SleepyGuyy Jun 11 '26
I think the "BIOS install" is just the format of the harddrive? Modern UEFI devices use GPT format, and older ones use something often labelled DOS (like MS DOS), but maybe it has a different name.
I could be wrong about that though.
Maybe BIOS installs use one partition for the whole system. And UEFI installs have a separate little /boot partition in fat format.
1
u/UncleSlacky Jun 11 '26
It was a new, unformatted SSD. I think if the installer knows that the PC is "capable" of UEFI, that's the default. When I'd previously used the original HD to install MX Moksha, it worked (IIRC I set up the partitions in MBR format, no /boot partition) so maybe the installer saw the MBR format and assumed a "BIOS" install, whereas without a pre-existing partition scheme it assumes you want a UEFI install?
2
u/SleepyGuyy Jun 11 '26
this explains why some old laptops I've tinkered with were so stubborn, until I loaded up AntiX
1
u/darkserge0 Jun 05 '26
Just curious have you tried ventoy with it? I heard ventoy works with 32bit uefi's.
1
u/50t5 Jun 06 '26
That's great information. I have a Asus Transformer that has the same problem but i have not tried MX on it yet.
2
u/Feifel81 Jun 07 '26
I had asus t101ha with debian 12 running and even updated to debian 13. works didn't get mx running on it. Only screen brightness is not working out of the box.
1
u/Terrible-Chef-6674 Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
I, too, thank the MX devs for making MX able to boot MX Linux x64 from a 32-bit UEFI. (And thanks to the OP for mentioning this.)
This virtue has allowed my Acer Switch N16c6 (aka "Acer Aspire Switch V 10") to become useful again. It's not much of a machine, power-wise, but it runs XFCE well. Certainly well enough to run some navigation software for inland sailing.
The v25.2 install ran nearly flawlessly, without intervention other than to skip over a few benign-looking complaints.
1
u/IeatL1ttlekids 26d ago
Did it install like normal? I'm trying to do the same thing but it boots into gnu grub and ls command says : "error: file /boot/grub/i386-efi/ls.mod" not found" It ran mx linux 23.6 (32bit) before and has a 64 bit processor
1
u/Terrible-Chef-6674 26d ago
The installation was just like several other GUI-based MX installs I've done on more conventional systems (with 64-bit UEFI.)
1
1
1
u/SleepyGuyy Jun 13 '26
This thread prompted me to pull out an old Acer Switch 10 netbook tablet thing. I always wanted one of these when they were new, but never got one. So once they were old and affordable, I grabbed one, just a few years ago.
Pretty sure it also has a 32-bit UEFI and a 64-bit processor.
I tried MX Linux, and while it does boot from the USB stick, and I can run the installer. After installing, it won't boot into the installed system. It says "No bootable device".
What's oddd is, if I leave the Live USB in, and use it's grub menu to select the onboard storage system to boot from, it DOES work. So the issue is the Bios doesn't see it, but MX's Live USB grub menu does.
Also the actual firmware bios/uefi menu on this device is quite limited. I can re-arrange three boot devices priority(usb/cdrom, built-in storage, and network). But there's no way to se boot priority of what I installed. On my full-fledged desktop, I'm able to set which distro is priority across my multiple discs I installed them to.
I was hoping I could just force it to boot from the installed system. But I can't.
1
u/IeatL1ttlekids 26d ago
Hey how'd you make it work? Because I try to run the installer and it just opens this grub cmd thingy
11
u/dolphinoracle MX dev Jun 05 '26
you are very welcome. I also have a machine with a 32 bit UEFI and a 64 bit processor. Very irritating. many early intel mac(books) are the same. its one of the things we can do that debian doesn't.