Re: Debian 7 and UEFI/GPT
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.
"
--
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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