/Z3735F-linux

linux on Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU Z3735F, Bay Trail

GNU General Public License v3.0GPL-3.0

Z3735F-linux

linux on Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU Z3735F, Bay Trail

A 64bit CPU forced working in a 32bit OS, what EFI matters?

CPU is supporting 64bit intruction sets, vendors sell products running 32bit OS, booted by a 32bit EFI.

  • EFIshell.ia32 can load 32bit EFI applications
  • GRUB2 can be built as 32/64bit EFI application
  • Once you have GRUB2, you can boot a 64bit OS

GRUB

  • Build our TARGET:
$ grub-mkimage -C xz -o grub2ia32.efi -O i386-efi -p /usr/lib/grub/i386-efi/*.mod
$ file grub2ia32.efi
grub2ia32.efi: PE32 executable (EFI application) Intel 80386 (stripped to external PDB), for MS Windows
  • Move it to one HDD partition, in my case C:\myefi below is shared and owned by my usermane, NTFS system partition.
mount.cifs //192.168.1.*/myefi /mnt/cifs -o username=*,password=*,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777
mv grub2ia32.efi /mnt/cifs/

Loading GRUB

  • Enter BIOS, lauch EFI shell
  • Execute GRUB, by entering full PATH