Bug#705961: installation-reports: debian-installer does not create an EFI partition by default
On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 11:11:06PM +0200, Jorge Sanz Forcada wrote:
>Hi Steve
>
>Thanks for your help. Yes, I was surprised of this problem because I
>did not see anything in the release notes, despite of having some
>information on the UEFI issues. Let me extend a bit more on the
>process followed:
>
>The PC came with Windows 8 pre-installed. That implies also a
>recovery partition, so grub now "offers" two Windows starts: one for
>normal Windows, one for the recovery partition (I guess this is
>standard). Anyway, I tried to boot from the installation CD of
>squeeze. I had to do that through the "legacy" mode and deactivated
>the "secure booting" just in case. d-i did not notice that there were
>EFI partitions, and installed linux in the space I freed from the
>disk. No need to mention that I could not boot the linux partition
>even from the legacy mode. Then I decided to move on to Wheezy. I
>"formatted" the linux partition to prepare the new installation (see
>below)
Ah... If you've set things up initially using squeeze, that may
explain things... :-/ Squeeze didn't have any EFI support at all for
amd64. Unless you deleted all the newly-created partitions and started
again using the Wheezy installer, it will not have attempted to create
the partition layout it needed.
>El 22/04/13 22:05, Steve McIntyre escribió:
>>On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 09:29:57PM +0200, Jorge Sanz Forcdada wrote:
>>>Package: installation-reports
>>>Severity: normal
>>>
>>>
>>>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.
>
>Yes, Windows 8 was installed before. When I tried the first
>installation of Wheezy the bios only showed the UEFI Windows boot
>(and the linux CD too), so I could not boot the new linux
>installation and decided to repeat the installation preparing a new
>EFI partition. The debian installer saw the Windows EFI partition
>already present in the disk before installation. Besides, I think it
>recognized (?!) the former linux squeeze partition as an EFI
>partition (not 100% sure of this).
It most likely would be shown as a GPT partition, but most likely
*not* EFI.
>I must say that during the whole process I kept a doubt about a
>partition of 1 MB that I believe was created by squeeze, but I
>prefered not to delete it just in case it was a bios thing (it
>still there, it does not bother :-) ).
Right.
>>>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".
>
>I believe so. I certainly had that intention, and I don't think the
>d-i would have seen the former partitions as EFI if booting in legacy
>mode, right?I remember to see that weird message "prefix not found",
>but I do not remember in which boot. I am sorry I could nto send this
>report before, I would have this information more fresh in my mind.
>I hope it helps, but if you do not receive any similar report it may
>have to do with the two trials of installation before the succesful
>one.
Yes, I think so. If you're prepared to delete your existing Debian
installation and try again from scratch using Wheezy, that's more
likely to work. But I understand if you don't want to spend the time
on that now...!
>Thanks for pointing about the other bug on the grub not booting the
>Windows 8. I will fix it now.
Cool, glad to help here. :-)
>I agree with you that the graphics issue is not related, I just
>mentioned it just in case somebody wants to insist in the
>installation docs (I think it is written already) about the need of
>using non-free packages to make some graphic cards to work. Newbies
>use to be discouraged of using Debian because of this kind of things
Yup.
--
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com
"Every time you use Tcl, God kills a kitten." -- Malcolm Ray
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