Late 2008 MacBook running only parrotsec Debian BIOS update question for RAM upgrade

My computer is flying on Debian even though I would like to replace the main distro with a minimal one that I can configure the hell out from the ground up. Parrot is a little too buggy with a macbook this old and the ker.log is consistently listing:

"CPUs have inconsistent MTRR settings probably your BIOS does not setup all CPUs"

Besides resolving the BIOS issue my problem is this: I want to do the 8GB RAM upgrade made available in the 2.8 EFI firmware update released by Apple 2012-02-28.

When I was running OSX El Capitan I had the correct Boot ROM version for the upgrade: MBP51.007E.B06

But now the kernel is recognizing the original base install specs including:

• SMBIOS 2.4 present
• DMI: Apple Inc. MacBook5,1/Mac-F42D89C8 04/27/09
• Microcode updated early to revision 0X60F date=2010-09-29
• gcc version: 7.3.0?!?
• BIOS: MB51.88Z.007D.B03.0904271443

If more specs needed let me know

My plan for the system is to follow (as much as possible), the Debian hardening recommendations and partition the drive accordingly (provided I do not find a more suitable distro). Stability wise I wish I would have done it sooner as there have been two complete loss crashes due to various bugs one in the debian20 -amd64 ker specifically. I do need to update gcc to get ext2-3 support at least and to maybe resolve some package install inconsistencies.

• Question 1: Can I upgrade the EFI firmware to a version which allows the upgrade to 8GB RAM without recovering OSX?

• Question 2: If I have to recover the system for the BIOS to upgrade to the qualifying version, and I upgrade the RAM will the BIOS version revert when I get rid of OSX completely again? I don't believe that would be good at all.

• Question 3: Should I try this at all and just sell the new RAM? I've been planning this for months. The switch to Linux was after I purchased the RAM and a bit of a split forced decision because of a particularly rough and unsupported homebrew issue, which made me stop tossing the idea around and just do it.

I would really rather not reinstall OSX my laptop seems very opposed to the idea.

Unrelated Question: Suggestions on a distro that is relatively lightweight, easily supports many development environments (python3, perl, sml, lua, etc.) and is extremely configurable.

ArchLabs has promising lightweight specs but it is very young and I like the stability of Debian. It doesnt need to come with a DM as long as I can add one later, (perhaps Openbox). Which base would be best for an old but still very usable system. I mostly use terminal applications but really cant do without GUI emacs for mostly LaTeX reasons. I prefer vim in terminal. I've thought of having just a terminal version but do need some gui applications.

I know I will have to replace the MacBook eventually but I love the aluminum unibody which has survived at least five drops down concrete stairs with no problems. This system has lasted 8 years longer with less issues than any PC I've ever owned including laptops which for me have had an approx 2-4 year life span. I don't like the new MacBook designs. The bar is beyond ridiculous, I can't think of a single reason to disrupt my keyboard flow by adding that. I do wish the keyboard was smaller since I have small hands, but its easily worked around so far. I just love this particular model, aside from the hardware specs.

I plan to upgrade to an SSD after the RAM.

I am somewhat new to Linux as a main distro, I've used it on servers before excepting a few months on a secondary desktop running Debian. I'm not entirely up to speed on desktop usage differences so please try not to flame me too much lol.