RE: Debian install issues with i386 EFI based system
Howdy Robert,
The original posting was to solve an EFI boot CD need. Otavio is obviously a
supporter of GRUB and wondered if there was a solution based on it. I don't
think there is at the moment.
My thought for an i386 Legacy/EFI Install CD is that it would use the Hard
Drive emulation mode instead of the No Emulation mode. This means the El
Torito section needs to point to a Partition Table which has only one (32MB)
partition which contains a Boot Sector which loads this original BootImage
as a file now in a FAT File System instead of a raw image contained in the
El Torito area. The file can be hidden. The rest of the files in the FAT
File System area of the El Torito Hard Drive Emulation area would be the
i386/AMD64 EFI files StartUp.nsh, elilo.efi (or eGrub.efi), elilo.conf (or
eGrub.conf), initrd, and vmlinux.
There are some components of this fix which are related to the packaging
process to the build, some related to fixes in files, and some related to
the install process.
I am going to repost something a little more descriptive perhaps starting
with debian-cd and when I identify the packages that need to be fixed, move
back to debian-install and/or debian-boot.
Charles
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Millan [mailto:rmh@aybabtu.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 7:30 AM
To: Otavio Salvador
Cc: debian-boot@lists.debian.org; Charles Abdouch
Subject: Re: Debian install issues with i386 EFI based system
On Tue, Dec 11, 2007 at 05:22:45PM -0200, Otavio Salvador wrote:
> Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl> writes:
>
> > On Tuesday 11 December 2007, Charles Abdouch wrote:
> >> I haven't tested GRUB2 yet.
> >>
> >> > From your wording "suppose to support" it doesn't appear you have
tested
> >> > it either. It would need to produce an EFI executable to work.
> >>
> >> I will look into it after I get the initial work done.
> >
> > Note that grub2 may be an option for the installed system, but I have
doubts
> > if it is a real option for CD images. Please consult with the debian-cd
> > people before you go down that road.
>
> CD support is being worked on upstream side.
>
> Robert, do you have any status from it?
Work has been done as part of GSoC to:
- make GRUB able to boot from CD via eltorito
- make GRUB cable to chainload to eltorito CDs
I plan to get that synced with CVS and merged upstream. I haven't got
time to do it yet, though.
Other nice features that may be interesting for CD images are 64-bit cpu
detection, and scripting support.
As for EFI (is this thread about EFI?), it's supported, but still not very
well (check the BTS). Anyway, most of non-ia64 EFI machines are Apple boxen
which provide a way out of the EFI madness (so-called boot camp).
--
Robert Millan
<GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call!
<DRM> What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak?
(as seen on /.)
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