Re: "Bug" in Debian Installer?
On Fri 21 Apr 2023 at 09:48:43 (+0700), Max Nikulin wrote:
> Opt-out variant for ESP sounds reasonable for me. However I am unsure
> if it is possible to complete installation with no ESP at all.
If you mean: to install Grub but not write to the ESP, I think you can
do this by saying Yes to:
┌─────────────────┤ [!] Install the GRUB boot loader ├──────────────────┐
│ │
│ The following other operating systems have been detected on this │
│ computer: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) │
│ │
│ If all of your operating systems are listed above, then it should be │
│ safe to install the boot loader to your primary drive (UEFI │
│ partition/boot record). When your computer boots, you will be able to │
│ choose to load one of these operating systems or the newly installed │
│ Debian system. │
│ │
│ Install the GRUB boot loader to your primary drive? │
and Go Back to:
┌──────────────────┤ [!] Install the GRUB boot loader ├───────────────┐
│ │
│ You need to make the newly installed system bootable, by installing │
│ the GRUB boot loader on a bootable device. The usual way to do this │
│ is to install GRUB to your primary drive (UEFI partition/boot │
│ record). You may instead install GRUB to a different drive (or │
│ partition), or to removable media. │
│ │
│ Device for boot loader installation: │
If there was already a working Grub on the disk, then it should be
straightforward to boot by editing one of its menu entries.
With anything less than that, it helps to be familiar with the Grub
rescue prompt.
> What may be considered as issues from my point of view:
> 1. From the disks overview screen it is not immediately obvious that
> installer is going to write to ESP partitions.
If, by disks overview, you mean the screen quoted just above, then no,
it is less obvious than ISTR in the past (up to buster), where MBR was
explicitly mentioned on BIOS machines.
Bullseye had a misfeature where it would, even on a BIOS machine,
solicit installing to the fallback location. I don't know whether
it was the presence of a GPT disk that caused this offer (I have no
MBR disks to try out instead), or whether it was a belt and braces
(suspenders) approach for mitigating buggy UEFI implementations.
If you forget which mode you booted with, then sure-fire confirmation
is given by # ls /sys/firmware/efi in VC2/VC3, which is present
only for UEFI. (Doesn't count as obvious, though.)
> 2. On a laptop having ESP partitions on 2 disks, both ones are marked
> for usage as ESP. I am unsure if it causes installation error later or
> grub is installed on both ones (taking into account single /boot/efi
> mount point).
I would assume not, as people complain about this as a single point of
failure in UEFI booting. I haven't tried repeating "Install the GRUB
boot loader" from the Main Menu, but I don't see why it shouldn't
work. But I don't think that that would get you two entries in NVRAM
without playing some tricks.
Cheers,
David.
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