Bug#705961: installation-reports: debian-installer does not create an EFI partition by default
On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 09:29:57PM +0200, Jorge Sanz Forcdada wrote:
>Package: installation-reports
>Severity: normal
>
>Dear Maintainer,
>*** Please consider answering these questions, where appropriate ***
>
> * What led up to the situation?
> I wanted to install Debian in a disc with Windows 8 inside
> * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
> ineffective)?
> The guided partition created a single partition for Linux, while
> in a UEFI system it is needed an EFI partition to start up. I
> solved the problem by manually creating a small (36 MB) EFI
> partition.
> * What was the outcome of this action?
> The problem was solved. Otherwise linux does not boot after
> installation.
> * What outcome did you expect instead?
> The guided partition of the installer should prepare an EFI
> partition in this kind of system, or at least warn the user to
> do it manually
Hi Jorge,
I must admit that I'm very surprised to see this bug report - I've
written a lot of the amd64 UEFI support code in debian-installer, and
it's been working just fine for me in testing. So, if you could answer
a few questions for me that would help enormously in working out
what's gone wrong here.
1. You say that you want to install on a disc with Windows 8 - is
Windows 8 installed there already? If so, then the installer code
*should* pick up on the existing EFI system partition that Windows
will have created, and use it accordingly I'm guessing you didn't
already have Windows 8 installed, from the information further
down.
If it doesn't find an exiting EFI system partition, d-i should
create one itself automatically.
2. Are you *100%* sure that you booted the installer in UEFI mode? You
can check this by looking at startup messages as the machine
boots. If it's booting via UEFI, you'll get a cosmetic complaint
from grub at early boot: "prefix not found".
>Boot method: CD netinst
>Image version: debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso (version 20130417)
>Date: 2013-04-17, 18:00 UT (20:00 CET)
>
>Machine: HP Pavillion p6-2306es, Intel core i5, 6 GB RAM
>Partitions:
>rootfs rootfs 653954576 156762724 463972884 26% /
>udev devtmpfs 10240 0 10240 0% /dev
>tmpfs tmpfs 608444 664 607780 1% /run
>/dev/disk/by-uuid/23716695-21dc-4f05-8429-291f7621f862 ext4 653954576 156762724 463972884 26% /
>tmpfs tmpfs 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
>tmpfs tmpfs 2466160 292 2465868 1% /run/shm
>/dev/sda7 vfat 34260 117 34144 1% /boot/efi
>
>
>Base System Installation Checklist:
>[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it
>
>Initial boot: [O]
>Detect network card: [O]
>Configure network: [O]
>Detect CD: [O]
>Load installer modules: [O]
>Clock/timezone setup: [O]
>User/password setup: [O]
>Detect hard drives: [O]
>Partition hard drives: [E]
>Install base system: [O]
>Install tasks: [O]
>Install boot loader: [E]
>Overall install: [O]
>
>Comments/Problems:
>- The initial partitions in the "guided partition" of the disk made
> just two linux partitions, the main one and the swap. With that
> scheme I did not manage to boot the system. THen I made my own
> partitions, using ~36 MB for an EFI partition, plus the main
> partition (where / is mounted) and the swap. That scheme worked
> fine, except for...
>
>- The grub installed almost correctly. It enters to Debian
> smoothly. But when I try to enter to Windows 8 it tells me:
>
> Error: unknown command 'drivemap'
> Error: invalid EFI file path
>
> Right now I have to go through the startup menu of the Bios to
> enter Windows 8. I haven't managed to solve this problem myself.
OK, *this* is a known issue that I've reported myself. See
http://bugs.debian.org/698914 for the bug report, and information on
how to work around it.
>The question of the guided partition must be solved for the UEFI
>systems (I believe this should be easy), or at least a note should be
>put somewhere telling how to make your own manual partition.
ACK - I expect the code to already work...
>- Finally, the graphics did not work correctly until I installed the
> packages related to the (non-free) driver of fglrx (for AMD/ATU
> Radeon HD series). Before that it displayed some graphics but
> gnome3 was not able to start.
OK, that's an unrelated issue..
--
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com
"I've only once written 'SQL is my bitch' in a comment. But that code
is in use on a military site..." -- Simon Booth
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