Bug#795538: debian-installer: 990FX boards cant install in UEFI mode
Package: debian-installer
Severity: important
Tags: d-i patch
This is simply a manufacturing defect on 990FX boards made by ASUS. I can
confirm at least on the Crosshair V that ASUS refuses to fix the problem. UEFI
is technically supported and windows 8+ uses it as these are 64-bit boards.
HOWEVER, along comes a penguin and all goes to hell. EVERY SINGLE LINUX I try
is forced to use MSDOS/MBR setup instead of UEFI/GPT. It doesnt matter if the
install succeeds or boots. One change after install to the boot sequence and
the hard disk is no longer bootable.This is caused by the BIOS forcing a seek
to partition 4/5 of the drive where the bootloader is not.Using USB media with
EFI files will not work either, the partition is in the wrong place for the
BIOS to boot from it. This should never be. EFI files should boot from the
FIRST partition of ANY device. I believe INTEL made this specification.
The ONLY way this system will work is to install (or force install) into
MSDOS/MBR mode, where partition 4/5 are therefore bootable.
This can be accomplished in two ways:
1) install and intentionally cause the drive to fail to boot, then reinsert
install media and try again.
2) wipe the disk, install another i386 version of linux and say no to UEFI
mode. DO NOT FORCE it. The installer will not force UEFI by itself during
partitioning.
3) throw the x64 install media away and use the i386 one instead.
As I said, this is a 64bit system, so really no point in doing #3.
This bug is not debian specific.Fedora flip flops between the two modes and
forces a system wide format on each install.It took awhile to figure out the
problem. A BIOS update may fix this if ASUS could be bothered to produce one.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: stretch/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386
Kernel: Linux 4.0.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
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