experiences with debian amd64 EFI test CD, build 3
Hi all,
I just tested the debian amd64 EFI test CD, build3
(http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/efi-development/upload3/)
and since the author asked for feedback I summarize my experiences here.
I have a Gigabyte B75M-D3H mainboard and want to have Windows 7 and
Debian as dualboot. I installed Windows 7 first as UEFI (the mainboard
supports BIOS and UEFI and I configured it to run in "EFI compatible
mode". It also has a legacy ROM mode). The installer created three
partitions:
Number Start End Size File system
Name Flags
1 1049kB 106MB 105MB fat32 EFI system
partition boot
2 106MB 240MB 134MB Microsoft reserved
partition msftres
3 240MB 220GB 220GB ntfs Basic data partition
After Windows was running I installed Debian using the amd64 EFI test
CD, build 3. My expectation was that Debian would just use the first
partition as EFI boot partition (the one which has been created by the
Windows installer), which is why I only created a root and a swap
partition. However when I did that, the installer complained that it did
not find an EFI boot partition. So I went back and created another EFI
boot partition:
Number Start End Size File system
Name Flags
1 1049kB 106MB 105MB fat32 EFI system
partition boot
2 106MB 240MB 134MB Microsoft reserved
partition msftres
3 240MB 220GB 220GB ntfs Basic data partition
4 220GB 220GB 128MB
fat32 boot
5 220GB 221GB 1000MB linux-swap(v1)
6 221GB 247GB 26.0GB ext4
Afterwards, the installer worked fine and I ended up with an UEFI
Debian. However it did not detect the Windows so I had to choose between
Windows and Debian by pressing f12 on boot (to launch the board's boot
menu). In order to fix that I wrote a small script for grub that has to
be stored in /etc/grub.d:
#!/bin/bash
cat <<EOF
menuentry "Windows 7" {
set root='(hd0,gpt1)'
chainloader /efi/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
}
EOF
I stored the file as "11_windows" and execute "update-grub2". Afterwards
I was able to configure the Debian EFI boot partition as default boot
partition. It will now launch grub2 which allows me to choose between
Debian and Windows.
Summarizing, I think the only thing that is really missing is the
detection of another UEFI OS. Maybe that can be solved if the installer
would be able to detect the other EFI boot partition?
Apart from that: All perfect and I am happy :)
best regards
Carolin
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