Re: Debian 7 and UEFI/GPT
On 12/03/2015, Bret Busby <bret.busby@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/03/2015, David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> wrote:
>> Quoting Bret Busby (bret.busby@gmail.com):
>>
>>> I have now found that, against my wishes, the Linux installations were
>>> done as "legacy BIOS" installations, instead of UEFI/GPT
>>> installations, so I now have a system that (after repairing the nasty
>>> PC-BSD installation damage) kind of works, but, the UEFI/GPT part of
>>> the system, is not seen by the Linux part of the system.
>>
>> How did you express your wishes, and how did Debian contradict them?
>> It would help to file a bug report if there's a genuine problem,
>> especially at this time when the installer is having its problems
>> ironed out before its release.
>>
>
> A problem with this, is that the Debian 7 installation on the UEFI?GPT
> system, was done some months ago, and it was not until the last day or
> so (today and the last immediately previous, couple of days), that I
> have come to realise that the Debian 7 installation was, apparently,
> done as a "legacy BIOS" installation.
>
> A thread about this, is on the GRUB-HELP mailing list.
>
> I do not know exactly what actions I took, in the course of the
> original Debian 7 installation, but I had, as it now appears,
> erroneously, assumed that the installation would automatically proceed
> as a UEFI/GPT installation, in the absence of me directing it to do
> otherwise.
>
> So, as it is some months now, between the installation, and my finding
> that the installation did not proceed as I had believed, I believe
> that, unless I do a complete rebuild of the system (which would, I
> believe, be a sod of a thing to attempt, with the lack of any
> installation physical media having been supplied with the computer,
> for the dreaded MS Win8), and log each step, I would not be able to
> create any kind of worthwhile bug report, "due to the effluxion of
> time".
>
>>> Does Debian Linux 7 amd64, install as a UEFI/GPT operating system, or,
>>> is it strictly a "legacy BIOS"/FAT/MBR system, and, if Debian Linux 7
>>> amd64 can install and/or operate as a UEFI/GPT system, can my
>>> apparently "legacy BIOS" installation of Debian Linux 7 amd64, be
>>> converted to a UEFI/GPT installation, or, otherwise, interface with
>>> the UEFI/GPT system, so that the bootloader, GRUB 2, can find the MS
>>> Win8 installation within the UEFI system?
>>
>> Googling debian installer uefi returns as hit #2
>> https://wiki.debian.org/GrubEFIReinstall
>> Is this of help to you?
>>
>
> In going to that web page, it seems to be, primarily, about the
> scenario "If your EFI based PC is not booting debian".
>
> The scenario that I have, is that I can boot Debian, and, Ubuntu, and
> those two operating systems are all that I can boot, from the HDD, on
> that system, but, the being able to boot either Debian or Ubuntu
> Linux, is apparently, via BIOS and not UEFI, with the UEFI boot system
> (if that is the correct terminology), being apparently hidden from the
> GRUB bootloader that allows me to boot either Debian Linux or Ubuntu
> Linux.
>
> For the UEFI component, as I had posted to the GRUB-HELP list, when
> all that I could get to function, on that system, was the GRUB CLI
> from within the broken PC-BSD system, in addition to the "dummy
> installation" mentioned below;
>
> "
>
> Now, with what you have said about MSWin8 being installed in EFI mode
> and Linux being installed in BIOS mode, in the course of a dummy
> installation process (taking the installation process to the
> particular point, and then aborting it) for PC-BSD, after the bad
> installation (the one that sabotaged the system), at the stage of
> "Disk Selection", using
>
> <Customize>
>
> Setup mode -> slected "Advanced" (for use of GPT partitioned HDD)
>
> "Selected disk" - ada0 - selected (only physical HDD present)
>
> "Selected partition" (to list the available partitions; to select one
> for the installation of PC-BSD)
>
> "
> Use entire disk
> ada0p1 400MB bios-boot)
> ada0p2 300MB efi)
> ada0p3 128MB ms-reserved)
> ada0p4 95367MB ms-basic-data)
> ada0p6 95367MB efi)
> ada0p7 95367MB ms-basic-data)
> ada0p8 30518MB linux-swap)
> ada0p9 95367MB ms-basic-data)
> ada0p10 95367MB freebsd-zfs)
> ada0p11 95367MB ms-basic-data)
> ada0p12 100000MB ms-basic-data)
> ada0p13 100000MB ms-basic-data)
> ada0p5 17409MB 1de94bba4-06dt)
> "
>
> which shows two partitions; partitions 2 and 6, as apparently EFI.
>
> Now, using the GRUB CLI on that computer,
>
> "
> grub> ls (hd0,gpt6)
> Partition hd0, gpt6: Filesystem type ext* - Last modification time
> 2015-02-05 05:03:11 Thursday, UUID <UUID> - Partition start at <
> number of KiB> - Total size 97655808KiB
>
> grub> ls (hd0,gpt6)/
> lost+found/ var/ data1-ext4/ data2-ext2/ home/ etc/ media/ vmlinuz
> sbin/ usr/ lib/ lib64/ selinux/ bin/ proc/ dev/ mnt/ sys/ tmp/ root/
> boot/ run/ srv/ opt/ initrd.img seamonkey-2.26.1.tar.bz2
>
> grub> ls (hd0,gpt12)
> Partition hd0,gpt12: Filesystem type ext* - Last modification time
> 2015-03-09 07:43:22 Monday, UUID <UUID> - Partition start at <number
> of KiB> - Total size 102400000KiB
>
> grub> ls (hd0,gpt12)/
> lost+found/ home/ etc/ media/ bin/ boot/ dev/ lib/ lib64/ mnt/ opt/
> proc/ root/ run/ sbin/ srv/ sys/ tmp/ usr/ var/ vmlinuz initrd.img
> cdrom/ initrd.img.old vmlinuz.old
> "
>
> I assume that partition 6, apart from being designated as being an EFI
> partition, by the PC-BSD installation process, Disk Setup stage, is
> the partition ionto which Debian 7 was installed, and that partition
> 12 is the partition into which Ubuntu 14.04, was installed.
>
> Now, for the partition 2, from the GRUB CLI;
>
> "grub> ls (hd0,gpt2)
> Partition hd0,gpt2: Filesystem type fat - Label 'ESP' UUID <UUID>
> Partition start at <number of KiB> - Total size 307200KiB
>
> grub> ls (hd0,gpt2)/
> efi
>
> grub> ls (hd0,gpt2)/efi
> Microsoft/ Boot/ oem/
>
> grub> ls (hd0,gpt2)/efi/Boot
> bootx64.efi
>
> grub > cat (hd0,gpt2)/efi/Boot/bootx64.efi
> <machine code>
> "
>
> (So, that is not something that I can edit, to reconfigure)
>
> But, whilst, at the start of the boot process, is displayed
>
> "GRUB Loading
> Welcome to GRUB"
>
> No reference to Microsoft, or, to MS Windows, as a boot option, is
> displayed.
> "
>
> So, I am assuming that I need some GRUB kind of utility, that will
> create the machine code for the (hd0,gpt2)/efi/Boot/bootx64.efi file,
> that will find each of the UEFI/GPT installation of MS Win8, and the
> BIOS/MBR installations of Debian and Ubuntu, and, offer each of them
> as bootable options in a (GRUB, hopefully) bootloader menu.
>
> The man on the GRUB-HELP list, had advised me that the particular
> utility that I need, if it is available, would need to come from an
> operating system source (eg, for Debian, the Debian Project people,
> or, for Ubuntu (which is the source of the current GRUB bootloader
> that I am using, as the last usable OS installed), from, I assume,
> Canonical) - from the GRUB-HELP list;
>
> "
>>>>> Maybe, as Debian Linux, and Ubuntu Linux, have different versions,
>>>>> according to the CPU upon which they are to run (eg, x386, and amd64),
>>>>> they should also have different versions, to run on the different
>>>>> platforms, of UEFI/GPT and BIOS/MBR/FAT?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> That's possible. As you can use your installed system now - do you have
>>>> anything under /sys/firmware/efi/efivars or /sys/firmware/efi/vars?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> I am replying from the Ubuntu 14.04 installation on the particular
>>> computer; I have found Ubuntu 14.04 to be not user-friendly, and to
>>> have considerably reduced functionality (compared to Debian 6 and
>>> Ubuntu 12.04). And, Ubuntu 14.04 is difficult to use, but, it allows
>>> me to use an external monitor, wheras Debian 7 does not.
>>>
>>> On this platform, both commands return "No such file or directory",
>>> using
>>> sudo ls <path>
>>> .
>>>
>>
>> And, in using the Debian 7 installation, and a root terminal, I get
>> the same responses.
>>
>> In the Debian 7 installation, if I go up a level; in the root terminal,
>> running
>> ls /sys/firmware/efi/
>> I get the same response.
>>
>> In the root terminal, I get
>>
>> "
>> # ls /sys/firmware
>> acpi memmap
>> "
>>
>
> Which finally confirms that all your systems are installed and booted
> in legacy BIOS mode. You will need to find some way to boot any Linux
> media in EFI mode before you can consider next steps. I cannot tell
> how to do it - every vendor of consumer product has own
> (re-)implementation of EFI firmware, or at least user interface.
>
> "
>
So, now, what happens when one operating system is installed via
UEFI/GPT, and two are installed as BIOS/MBR, in terms of wanting to be
able to select any one of the three operating systems, to boot?
If I try to do something, to fix it, from one of the BIOS/MBR systems,
will that eradicate the UEFI/GPT system, or, do other harm, and,
conversely, if I do something from the UEFI/GPT direction, what will
that do, to the BIOS/MBR systems?
And, can UEFI/GPT systems, see BIOS/MBR installed opperaimg systems,
and, can BIOS/MBR installed operating systems, see UEFI/GPT operating
systems?
--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............
"So once you do know what the question actually is,
you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
A Trilogy In Four Parts",
written by Douglas Adams,
published by Pan Books, 1992
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