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MP 1,1-5,1 A question for Mac Pro 2,1 and 1,1 owners about Windows and Linux installation

arkieboy72472

arkieboy72472

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 4, 2017
128
29
for any 1,1 or 2,1 owners who have windows 7-10 or Linux only on their old Mac Pro, how does it run? Was installation hard? Does everything work? If you also have wireless and Bluetooth built in, does that work also? How big of a hard drive will it detect size wise? Does it see dual processors and all the ram?

Which distro of linux worked the best or was easiest to install?
 
Windows 10 runs great on my 1,1 after getting it to boot in AHCI mode. Before that it was a pain on HDD, with an SSD it probably wouldn't matter. For the initial W7 install I had to modify the .iso to be bootable. W10 installed hassle free on top of that. I then installed the original OEM drivers where possible (Intel for chipset/network, Realtek for audio, AMD for graphics).

Additional drivers were a different thing, to be honest I lost track of which and how many Bootcamp drivers I tried to install, mostly for Apple keyboard and Cinema Display (volume and brightness controls), and what method I used. It was a mix of pointing Hardware Manager to drivers, running single .msi normally or as administrator or using cmd.exe.

Wifi doesn't work with Apple drivers, I had to install some third party driver for an HP or Acer branded laptop. Bluetooth doesn't work with Apple's Magic Mouse, don't know if it works at all, I don't have other Bluetooth devices.

I use this for games only, I'm impressed with what this machine is still capable of with a R9 280X.

So quite a journey. Now that I think about it, maybe I'll do it again from scratch just for the fun of it and to streamline the process ;)
 
Sko said:
Windows 10 runs great on my 1,1 after getting it to boot in AHCI mode. Before that it was a pain on HDD, with an SSD it probably wouldn't matter. For the initial W7 install I had to modify the .iso to be bootable. W10 installed hassle free on top of that. I then installed the original OEM drivers where possible (Intel for chipset/network, Realtek for audio, AMD for graphics).

Additional drivers were a different thing, to be honest I lost track of which and how many Bootcamp drivers I tried to install, mostly for Apple keyboard and Cinema Display (volume and brightness controls), and what method I used. It was a mix of pointing Hardware Manager to drivers, running single .msi normally or as administrator or using cmd.exe.

Wifi doesn't work with Apple drivers, I had to install some third party driver for an HP or Acer branded laptop. Bluetooth doesn't work with Apple's Magic Mouse, don't know if it works at all, I don't have other Bluetooth devices.

I use this for games only, I'm impressed with what this machine is still capable of with a R9 280X.

So quite a journey. Now that I think about it, maybe I'll do it again from scratch just for the fun of it and to streamline the process ;)
Click to expand...

So, I am installing 7 and THEN 10? I don't think I have ever done a direct upgrade one on top of the other. That will be new for me. At what point do I do the AHCI change and why? I plan on using a SSD. Did you use windows update for the drivers or did you use some driver site?

I also take it internal wifi and bluetooth was not something you tried to get going?

I wonder if I should boot it up with the El Cap install and use system info to make note of what parts are what so as to find drivers.

It looks like hrutkey mods has a few videos on everything. I am not finding much on the post install process for drivers and compatibility.

My goal is to make it a media and file server.
 
I think you can go with W10 directly. At the time I installed W7 usb booting wasn't that much of a thing with Windows if I remember correctly, I had to create a CD. I suppose it's working fine know.

AHCI has advanced features and is much faster than PATA/IDE mode. You have to patch the MBR and some entries in the registry. You can do that any time you like after initial install.

I did use Windows Update for drivers except for the few I mentioned which I download from the original manufacturer. Only for the WiFi I ended up on mostly obscure driver sites with tons of unwanted downloads and live update installers and what not. Wifi is definitely working, but Bluetooth I don't know.

For a file server, you just need a minimum driver configuration I guess, and standard Windows 10 install should take care of that. Maybe add original graphics driver for transcoding in Plex or the like.
 
I installed win7 on my 1,1 without issue. It’s running dual quads, 16gb ram, and an ATI X1900. I’m running win7 on a 250gb WD enterprise drive, and the other three slots are Apple-branded 1tb drives ive pulled from various iMacs. Boot camp 4 had all the drivers I needed. I use it for recording and editing audio, and writing news stories. It runs just fine as a shoutcast server, and lighttpd for web hosting.
 
Zeke D said:
I installed win7 on my 1,1 without issue. It’s running dual quads, 16gb ram, and an ATI X1900. I’m running win7 on a 250gb WD enterprise drive, and the other three slots are Apple-branded 1tb drives ive pulled from various iMacs. Boot camp 4 had all the drivers I needed. I use it for recording and editing audio, and writing news stories. It runs just fine as a shoutcast server, and lighttpd for web hosting.
Click to expand...

Do the other 2 SATA drive slots work ok? What about things like wireless and bluetooth?
 
Win10 in legacy mode, fairly easy, didn't bother to enable AHCI.

Used https://github.com/timsutton/brigadier to download Bootcamp 6 drivers for Windows 10, my R9 280X runs with current ATI drivers. My CinemaDisplay, magic mouse and apple keyboard work just like in MacOS. The only detail was that I had to install an earlier (Bootcamp 5?) Boot Camp Control Panel in order to comfortably reboot back into MacOS.

One funny thing, though... while running Windows, the sound from the rear analogue audio port is muted (I can much better hear the sound from the headphones connected to the front port). I have to physically tilt the jack in the socket a bit and then it starts playing. This does not happen in MacOS though. Bizarre.
 
arkieboy72472 said:
Do the other 2 SATA drive slots work ok? What about things like wireless and bluetooth?
Click to expand...
Yeah, for win7, the wireless and Bluetooth are included in bootcamp6. The “hidden” SATA ports work just fine, I routed a pair of low-profile right-angle SATA cables into the optical bay for a SATA optical drive, and a SATA DOM.
 
Zeke D said:
Yeah, for win7, the wireless and Bluetooth are included in bootcamp6. The “hidden” SATA ports work just fine, I routed a pair of low-profile right-angle SATA cables into the optical bay for a SATA optical drive, and a SATA DOM.
Click to expand...

So do I use bootcamp 4 or 5 or 6? what is the differences?
 
i no longer have my 1,1 pro but i remeber having to run a tool to modify windows isos to boot on the 1,1 since it had no usb booting same with linux diffrent processes though never did the wifi but once they were up and running they ran great i had a gtx 970 in mine at the time and i played modern games streamed to twitchand everything this was the base 2 2.66ghz cpu model 1,1 with 8gb 667 MHZ ddr2
 
If I had that mac I would install kubuntu or fedora/archlinux with the kde plasma user interface. The reason why I'm recommending linux is because it has all sorts of drivers in the kernel by default. On old hardware like the 5,1 mac pro or older you probably won't need to install a single driver. Everything will most likely be supported OOTB, that includes ethernet, sound, bluetooth, wifi, dvd drive, GPU if you have AMD and so on...

Usually open source drivers for older hardware in linux are much better than the old unmaintained ones under windows.
Another advantage is you don't have to worry about linux ever dropping support for your mac pro.
Frankly you would get better support and if you choose a distro like fedora or kubuntu getting your mac pro 3,1 up and running would probably be a lot easier than having to hack windows 10 on it...
 
arkieboy72472 said:
for any 1,1 or 2,1 owners who have windows 7-10 or Linux only on their old Mac Pro, how does it run? Was installation hard? Does everything work? If you also have wireless and Bluetooth built in, does that work also? How big of a hard drive will it detect size wise? Does it see dual processors and all the ram?

Which distro of linux worked the best or was easiest to install?
Click to expand...

If you are still thinking of Linux go to this site for Linux distro's modified for Mac Pro 1,1 - 2,1 32 Bit EFI Boot.

https://mattgadient.com/linux-dvd-images-and-how-to-for-32-bit-efi-macs-late-2006-models/

I used the Ubuntu 18.04 Desktop (64-bit Mac) – 1.8 GB ISO Image on my early 2006 Mac Pro 1,1
and it runs very well even though its only on a HDD not an SSD drive,
easy to make a DVD install Disc as well,
just save the ISO to desktop in OSX, insert a blank 4.7 gig DVD in your optical drive,
Right click the ISO image on your desktop and select burn to disc.

When its done it will most likely say some thing like it cant read the disc of so forth but you can ignore that,
just reboot and hold either "options" key for boot manager or "C" key to boot straight off the DVD.

The 18.04 Desktop ISO is also LTS (long term support=till 2023)


My Early 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 Specs

2 X 3.0 Gig Quad Core Xoen's
32 Gig 667Mhz ram
1Gig Radeon HD 5770 (genuine mac edition)
1 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM HDD in bay 1.
 
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