arch=i386 not working

[v7kF4U2HTd]

i looked around for a while but couldn't find any proper info about this. so here comes the question:

 

is arch=i386 not supported by more recent clover versions anymore?

 

more recent as in 42xx or newer. i've seen a couple of older posts of people using that with clover so i assume it worked at some point.
to the point: if i use arch=i386 and verbose i see "64 bit mode enabled" right after it starts booting. same happens when i hit space on the partition icon and select it from there. in other words 32bit options seem to be ignored.

[Slice]

arch=i386 is supported up to system 10.7.5 and supported by recent Clover.

64 bit mode enabled is a kernel message tells you that 64bit program can be launched in 32bit system AFAIK.

[v7kF4U2HTd]

okay with that "64 bit mode enabled" out of the way, something still doesn't seem to fit. i get an AppleEFINVRAM panic quite early in the boot process.
my clover does have 32bit drivers and efi drivers. anything else i have to do to get 32bit working?

for the record it boots fine in 64bit mode and also fine with chameleon in 32bit mode.

[Slice]

AppleEFINVRAM is not working in 32bit system. You have to block the kext or erase it.

[v7kF4U2HTd]

i actually had to remove the parent AppleEFIRuntime.kext as well. but now it's working :-)

so chameleon does disable that by default in 32bit mode? because i never did anything in that regard before.

[Slice]

Chameleon didn't provide NVRAM services at all. So why it works.

[BuXb]

@Slice

is arch=i386 (for my 10.7.5 OS 2ndary Laptop I just revived with a speedy SSD) still supported by the most recent Clover 5126? (I need to boot it in 32bit mode due to a x86 only video driver and would like to switch it from Chameleon to Clover).

 

 

[Slice]

It is not a Clover affair. It is kernel argument and Clover does send any arguments to kernel.

[BuXb]

so in other words, since the kernel obviously DOES support arch=i386 which Cameleon proves, if I also use the flag in clover.plist, it WILL be passed on to the kernel even by most recent versions of Clover - correct?
 

 

[BuXb]

Epic reply, Hervé, you're a superb tutor/ educator!

 

So then: S U C C E S S !! Lion booting just fine here now with Clover 5122, with for now just a very basic config.plist only containing most appropriate smbios MacBoobPro3,1 + boot args arch=i386 -v. + dsdt.aml in ACPI/patched. No drivers loaded for now.

 

Clover 5126 NOT booting with the same environment as above -> Kernel panic: "Error loading AppleACPIPlatform - IOPCIFamily not found":

No difference if I remove AppleEFINVRAM from AppleEFIRuntime.kext, or even remove AppleEFIRuntime.kext (and sure, rebuild kextcache afterwards). As a matter of fact, that's the same KP when I boot Clover 5122 or Chameleon w/o arch=i386 because IOPCIFamily.kext happens to be a modified 32bit only kext.

 

Still, for now I'm really stoked because even r5122 = the last before integrated OC support is awesome on this old but usefully speedy HackTop.

 

I'm out now for the week-end and can dig into the KP with Clover 5126 next week.

Thanks for your help until here @Slice @Hervé !!

Edited November 21, 2020 by BuXb

[BuXb]

Thanks for confirming @Hervé. Kind of consoling. Still makes me wonder if there might be other flags Clover 5126 (or 5123+?) does not pass over to the kernel anymore. Since @Slice wrote it's meant to still do so I guess we can call that a bug.

[Slice]

Clover 5124+ is intended for systems 10.9 - 11.xxx

[BuXb]

Gotcha, @Slice  - thanks for taking the time to resolve this. So I'll simply stick to 5122 for this ole lady - no need to polish her even more with the 5123 make-up ..