Re: Thinkpad X13s boot loop after install

[Michael Parson <mparson@bl.org>]

On Wed, 20 Aug 2025, Lionel Élie Mamane wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 11, 2025 at 11:21:57AM -0500, Michael Parson wrote:
>
> > I've had this X13s for a while now, (...)
>
> > 1) "Install additional packages"
>
> > We're instructed to install:
> >     - firmware-qcom-soc
> >     - protection-domain-mapper
> >     - qrtr-tools
> >     - acpi
>
> > The first one installs, but the other 3 error out as being
> > unavailable packages.  OK, maybe they're not needed anymore?
>
> They are very much needed, but not to boot I think. They enable stuff
> like seeing the battery level, etc.
>
> protection-domain-mapper is in the archive
> https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=protection-domain-mapper
> not sure why you have problems with that.
>
> Same for qrtr-tools
> https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=qrtr-tools
> and acpi
> https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=acpi
>
> Back when I made my install one also had to manually enable the
> service that comes with qrtr-tools, not sure if with newer version it
> is enabled by default. It is called qrtr-ns so something like
> # systemctl enable qrtr-ns.service
>
> > 2) Go back to main screen and Continue, which reboots, get the grub
> > screen, tries to load the default and it reboots.
>
> > I found a thread from May 2023 where someone else reported the same
> > boot loop.
>
> That someone is me.
>
> > His solution:
>
> > > Something had changed the "debian" EFI boot option to load directly
> > > grubaa64.efi instead of DtbLoader.efi.
> > >
> > > I added another boot option "Debian-LEM" that loads DtbLoader.efi
>
> > Thing is, I can't get back into even the installer or recovery-mode
> > from the installer image
>
> That's not where you have to do that stuff. It happens in the
> firmware's command line. I don't think the firmware's GUI
> configuration allows to create/edit entries.
>
> See chapter 4 of
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WuxE-42ZeOkKAft5FuUk6C2fonkQ8sqNZ56ZmZ49hGI
> for inspiration.

Thanks for that info.  Seems somethings have moved around a bit since
those docs were written.

The Debian 13 image did not have a Shell.efi on it, I had to grab the
Debian 11 one linked to in that document from web.archive.org

Poking around a bit in the Efi shell, Looks like the partition on my
setup was FS16:\EFI\deiban\shima64.efi

Changing this to use DtbLoader.efi (which I found on another partition,
copied it to the same location as the shima64.efi) did not change
things.

I removed the 'quiet' entry from grub to see if I could see anything
else before it reboot and I saw "EFI stub: Generating empty DTB" which
made me think that it wasn't picking up the "sc8280xp-lenovo-thinkpad-x13s.dtb"
that you're supposed to copy into place based on the Debian Wiki?

I tried copying that file to the root of FS16: as well as into
\EFI\debian, same results.

--
Michael Parson
Pflugerville, TX