Feature changed by: Martin Pluskal (pluskalm) Feature #318252, revision 4 Title: 32-bit UEFI boot in 64-bit Distro openSUSE Distribution: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Desirable Requested by: David Poole (dspoole-novell) Partner organization: openSUSE.org Description: Allow for 64-bit versions of openSUSE to boot on to 32-bit UEFI hardware and allow for installation. Thus, hardware that supports only 32-bit UEFI and not legacy boot in BIOS yet has 64-bit processors (typically Intel Atom) would let openSUSE 64-bit install. Use Case: Some Ubuntu users have created a work-around to get their 64-bit kernel version installed on Dell Venue/Toshiba Encore Mini-series tablets using a custom 32-bit UEFI boot. This is not officially supported by Ubuntu but there has been some interest in getting Linux onto the sub-$200 tablet market. However, because it is basically a hack to do so and only on specific hardware, only the bravest Ubuntu users have accomplished this task. Business case (Partner benefit): openSUSE.org: There is a surge of low-end tablets starting to appear on the market. See the HP Stream 7 and 8 series, which start at $99 and $149 respectively. These tablets are equipped with quad-core Intel Atom Z3735G 1.83GHz 64-bit processors but are saddled with a 32-bit UEFI BIOS that does not support Legacy BIOS boot. As such, it is currently impossible to install openSUSE on this hardware since 32-bit legacy versions of openSUSE only support Legacy BIOS booting and 64-bit versions only support 64-bit UEFI booting. Since Linux kernel 3.14, the ability to boot from 32-bit UEFI into a 64-bit kernel has been supported. By supporting a 32-bit UEFI boot and a 64-bit kernel, openSUSE could open the door to installation on a new market of low-cost tablets and thus introduce openSUSE as an alternative to Microsoft Windows 8.1 32- bit which currently is the only option as an operating system. + Discussion: + #1: Martin Pluskal (pluskalm) (2014-12-22 21:46:09) + Well it is possible to build i586 iso image using kiwi that boots in + uefi on such platform (in my case I tried Prestigio MultiPad Visconte + Quad): # linux32 kiwi --target-arch i586 --build suse-13.2-JeOS --type + iso -d /root/kiwi ... resulting image boots fine from usb flash + attached to tablet. + It is also possible to boot current factory installer/live iso, all you + need is to copy grubia32.efi to image (efi boot partition on it_ and + then boot x86_64 kernel. + There are at least two things that should be done: 1) Build i586 + opensuse/factory images with grub2-efi (I am not sure it is missing + currently). 2) Add 32 bit grub2 to x86_64 image. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/318252