[GTALUG] distro support for 32-bit UEFI

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

I have a couple of devices with 64-bit Atom CPUs, built to be cheap
Windows devices, that have 32-bit UEFI firmware.  With no
old-fashioned BIOS or emulation thereof.  This seems to be intentional
crippling by Intel: they only provide power management firmware in
32-bit mode.

The devices I have are an Asus TF100 "convertible" (tablet with detachable 
keyboard) and a Dell Venue 8 Pro.

The Intel / Microsoft idea seemed to be: build very inexpensive devices
to compete with ARM / Android.  But be careful to limit the damage to
the market for full-fledged Windows systems.  It worked to some extent.

The Hugh idea was: cheap computers that should run Linux!  Close, but
no cigar yet.

What I want is a 64-bit distro that can boot from 32-bit UEFI.  That
could be managed but it doesn't seem to be available now.  (The 64-bit
Linux kernel knows how to call 32-bit UEFI functions.  This feature is
not always enabled.)

Almost as good would be a 32-bit distro that can boot from UEFI.
After all, these cheap boxes are limited to 2G of RAM anyway
(crippled: see above).

Scott informed me that 32-bit Debian Jessie (8.0) does support UEFI.
Wonderful!  But I'm chicken: there is no 32-bit UEFI live image and I
don't want to install without trying.  After all, there may well be
unsupported bits on these screwy devices.  (Sadly Linux distros seem
to be weak on touch, one of the strengths of these little devices.)

These cheap devices come with very little "disk".  Mine each have 32G;
some have 16G; a few have more.  That's not really enough space for
both Linux and Windows.

I have a netbook built in the same style, but with 64-bit UEFI.  I've
found 32G quite reasonable for Fedora Linux.

<https://wiki.debian.org/UEFI>

Another bit of news from Scott: the next generation of Atoms, or at
least some of them, drop support for virtualization!  What jerks.