Problems with Macbook Pro (Late 2007), efi 1.5.3, and Bootcamp

I have a macbook pro 3,1 (Late 2007) with Lion and the latest updates installed. I am having trouble booting to a bootcamp partition, USB Linux operating system, Windows 7 install disc, Windows 7 install USB, and Linux installation ISO. I think it is a problem with compatibility of efi 1.5.3 and booting to these things. I have tried using rEFit and also have tried manually putting a bootx64.efi Unix gub boot file and booting using rEFit. I have also tried using the bootcamp assistant to make a partition and install from a USB and DVD with no success on booting the installation. Does anyone know of any ways to get this to work? Thanks!