Re: Suggestions for CD images - following CD talk at Debconf
On Sat, Aug 22, 2015 at 08:41:36AM +0100, Ian Campbell wrote:
> On Fri, 2015-08-21 at 22:26 +0000, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> >
> > [Off topic for _this_ list: I've got UEFI netboot working with
> > bootnetx64.efi which is different from the grub etc. for CD/DVD -
> > which is iikely to continue?
>
> I'm not sure what the question is, are you asking if UEFI netboot is
> likely to continue to be supported? I think so, yes.
>
[Extended to debian-efi list because this overlaps]
Sorry, I wasn't being clear:
"Legacy" PXE boot over the network and UEFI boot don't appear to work
together well.
If the PXE server is set up to serve pxelinux.0 and you switch your
computers boot mechanism to UEFI rather than CSM compatible/legacy
mode then the process will fail silently and you are left wondering
what you did wrong.
This is now becoming more important with some motherboards not supporting
"legacy" settings, with the Bay Trail machines having 32 bit UEFI and 64
bit processors - thanks for the fact that this now just works, Sledge.
Different distributions handle this UEFI net booting differently:
CentOS 6 _ought_ to work with bootnetx64.efi - but doesn't appear to for me.
Debian 8 Jessie can use bootnetx64.efi - serve that from your TFTP server
with all the other files from the default debian-installer available in /srv/tftp and you get
a text mode install which actually works quite well.
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS uses grubnetx64.efi.signed and a special grub.conf file. This produces a minimal
install but you can then add e.g. ubuntu-desktop.
CentOS 7 can also use a grubnetx64 and a similar grub.conf file. If you invoke the right parameters
you end up in a full graphical install.
UEFI installation media - the Jesie netinst.iso, for example, appears to use grub - not bootnetx
Are we likely to move to the grubnetx64.efi / grub.conf method for UEFI network booting?
> If you are asking if the grub used for CD/DVD is likely you continue to
> differ from the one used for network boot then I'm not sure. It might
> be possible to combine them into one larger grub with all the relevant
> modules, but at the moment they have different "prefixes" (the place
> where they search for grub.cfg) encoded in the binary, one defaults to
> on the disk (indirectly via a memdisk) and the other looks to the
> network. Combining them would be the subject of some investigation to
> determine if this can be avoided (perhaps using some more advanced
> scripting). I had a brief look at one point and it seemed non-trivial
> (plus I was worried about breaking existing uses)
>
> Ian.
>
Thanks, understood from your perspective: non-trivial at least for trivial values of trivial.
Anybody else got any ideas on this or how we will go on from here? I begin to feel I'm the
only person recently who's tried UEFI network booting :)
All the best,
AndyC
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