Bug#658352: amd64 UEFI support

["Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net>]

Hi,

> Regular El Torito then.

At least grub-mkrescue makes it that way. Better ask a grub-devel for
advise and options.


> UEFI booting requires a GPT and a special partition, which would
> probably be impossible to implement along with the MBR hack for hybrid
> booting.

I am clueless enough to look into wikipedia about GUID Partition Table.
The is room for a "Protective MBR" of 512 bytes.
So somebody would need to teach me how to announce the range of the
ISO image and the range of the FAT partition in a GPT.

Further one would have to discuss with Vladimir Serbinenko at grub-devel
about the layout of the first 32 kB of the ISO image, where MBR, GPT,
and GRUB2 code have to reside side-by-side.

Finally one would have to explore the chances to get Debian bootable
ISO images onto GRUB2 rather than ISOLINUX.

Then one would develop a friendly fork of grub-mkrescue as proof-of-concept
of the various bootabilities in one single ISO image:
- amd64 BIOS from CD
- amd64 BISO from USB stick
- amd64 UEFI from CD
- amd64 UEFI from USB stick
For this we'd need to enhance xorriso by GPT production.


Alternatively one could find out how far SYSLINUX is with UEFI support.

Or whether a ISOLINUX BIOS setup can be combined with a GRUB setup
in a FAT partition. (ISOLINUX occupies no space in the first 32 kB of
the image. So the GPT would have room there.)

I assume this would be easier to integrate into the existing Debian
image production.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas