Re: Boot Order

[Dan Norton <dnorton@mindspring.com>]

On Sat, 24 Feb 2018 18:37:02 +0100
Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> wrote:

> On Fri, 2018-02-23 at 22:18 -0500, Dan Norton wrote:
> > Installing either stretch or buster via netinst results in changes
> > to the bios menu. Under "UEFI Boot Sources" the term "Hard Drive" is
> > replaced with "debian" and this entry is put first in the boot
> > order.
> > 
> > The PC is:
> > Hewlett-Packard HP Pro 3400 Series MT/2ABF, BIOS 7.16 03/23/2012
> > 
> > Please tell me the justification for putting "debian" in the menu
> > and having it boot first, ahead of CD/DVD/USB. Thanks.  
> 
> If there are multiple bootable operating systems on local hard drives,
> I think the installer sets Debian to be higher priority than the other
> operating systems.
> 

In my case, there are multiple debian installations and the installer
positions the last installation at the top of the *grub* menu. This
makes sense. But why change the *bios* menu? With the variability in
manufacturers bios code, changing the bios menu seems like a risky,
tricky, and tedious undertaking. AFAICT it's instigated by the
installer and presumably a necessary thing. I've searched for the
rationale, but have missed it, if it's out there. Can you refer me to
something?

> But as far as I am aware, the relative priority of boot entries on
> removable vs hard drives is solely controlled by the BIOS/UEFI
> firmware.
> 

That just doesn't seem logical. There was a perfectly good priority,
before installs of Debian, I think it went:

UEFI Boot Sources
  ATAPI CD/DVD Drive
  USB Floppy/CD
  Hard Drive
  USB Hard Drive
Legacy Boot Sources
  ATAPI CD/DVD Drive
  USB Floppy/CD
  Hard Drive
    SATA0

After installing stretch, it changed to:

UEFI Boot Sources
  debian
  ATAPI CD/DVD Drive
  USB Floppy/CD
  USB Hard Drive
Legacy Boot Sources
  [...]

If done by firmware, wouldn't grub or the installer have to tell
the firmware to put "debian" in the bios menu and make it first? In its
past life, this PC ran Windows 7 but in order to boot from mountable
media there was no need for the user to change the boot order.

 - Dan