Discussion, talk and tips
https://forum.puppylinux.com/
Just got last month a 2008 macbook pro intel core duo.
I dont have macOS and finally figure it out to install on sata internal HDD xubuntu64, Fatdog64 and reFind, but the fun lasted only about 1 week. ReFind looks ok but both systems wont boot up anymore.
Is there a fix/repair EFI bootloader for macbook running Linux?
Thanks!
Do you know exactly which model of Macbook you have?
On my MacBookPro8,1, there is a hidden 200MB EFI partition on the hard disk. I don't know whether it is required to boot any EFI O/S, or whether it is required only to boot the HFS-Plus [MacintoshHD] partition on the same disk. There may be a plan where someone with the same hardware retrieves a copy for you.
Do you have an external optical drive? If so, and if you're lucky, then booting with "option" held down will get you a row of pictures of all of the top-level bootloaders. Puppy Bionic and puppy Fossa offer two; "Windows" and "?EFI?". Both work on my oldest mac; only EFI works on the Pro8,1.
What does "won't boot up" look like? Are there any error messages that you could photograph?
After removing macOS, I reset the nvram on a 2013 macbook pro by booting up whilst holding Option-Command-P-R key combo.