Re: And yet another UEFI/BIOS question: Work on both.
Le 23/09/2018 à 18:18, Patrick Bartek a écrit :
On Sun, 23 Sep 2018 10:58:54 -0400
Wayne Sallee <Wayne@WayneSallee.com> wrote:
What do you recommend for setting up a system that will boot in
either UEFI or BIOS mode, so if it is moved back and forth between
UEFI and BIOS, it will boot every time?
I recommend you learn how to use Google or DuckDuckGo, etc. searches for
such basic queries.
This is not a basic query. I have spend quite some time doing
experiments and have not come up with a perfect universal solution yet.
If you want your system to work with old 32-bit CPUs, you must install
the i386 architecture. After the installation you can add the amd64
architecture with dpkg and install a 64-bit kernel. Note that a 32-bit
kernel can work with a 64-bit UEFI firmware but EFI variables will be
available only with a 64-bit kernel. A 64-bit kernel can work with a
32-bit UEFI firmware (if the CPU is 64-bit of course) and EFI variables
will be available.
You must choose the partition table format between GPT and DOS/MBR.
I read that some broken BIOS may not boot a disk with a GPT partition
table, although I haven't seen any yet.
I also read that some broken UEFI implementations may force boot in
native EFI mode when a GPT partition table is present, and in
BIOS/legacy mode when a DOS/MBR partition table is present, although I
haven't see any either yet.
However I have observed that quite many BIOS or UEFI implementations
operating in legacy mode won't boot a disk (either GPT or DOS/MBR) if no
partition in the DOS partition table/protective MBR has the boot flag
set. But setting the boot flag on the protective GPT partition is
against the GPT specification, and I have one example of a UEFI
implementation which will not boot such a disk in native EFI mode.
So I guess you get a better chance with a DOS/MBR partition table. Note
that this is what the Debian installer/live ISO-hybrid images use.
If you choose GPT anyway, it is recommended to create a 1 MiB
unformatted "BIOS boot" partition for GRUB BIOS.
Create a 10 to 100 MB EFI system partition formatted as FAT and mount it
on /boot/efi.
In order to boot either in BIOS or EFI mode, you have to install both
BIOS and EFI boot loaders. If you choose GRUB for both, the packages are
- grub-pc to install GRUB for PC with BIOS
- grub-efi-amd64 to install GRUB for PC with 64-bit UEFI firmware
- grub-efi-ia32 to install GRUB for PC with 32-bit UEFI firmware
But these packages conflict with one another so are mutually exclusive.
You could install one and run grub-install, then uninstall it, install
the next one and run grub-install again and so on. But I suggest to
install one, say grub-pc, and install grub-efi-{amd64,ia32}-bin instead,
which do not conflict with each other.
Now you can install the different GRUB boot loaders for each platform :
# BIOS
grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda
# EFI 32 bit
grub-install --target=i386-efi --removable
# EFI 64 bit
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --removable
These commands work regardless of whether the system was booted in EFI
or BIOS mode or EFI variables are available.
The --removable option will install the boot loader in the "removable
device" path /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi.
The following was the first result in the list of my
search. Total time spent: about 15 seconds.
https://truthseekers.io/everything-you-need-to-know-to-dual-boot-uefi-gpt-bios-mbr-partitions-swap-space-and-more/
Also, read up on "chainloading."
Dual boot and chainloading have nothing to do with Wayne's query.
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