Thank you Andrew, answering to your questions first: >>(...) Am 26.03.2022 um 23:45 schrieb Andrew M.A. Cater: > What _exactly_ did you do? Refind is not guaranteed to work. apt install refind refind-mkdefault > > Did you have two partitions on the disk / two separate disks to do the install > on? sgdisk -p /dev/nvme0n1 Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 976773168 sectors, 465.8 GiB Model: Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 500GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512/512 bytes Disk identifier (GUID): 9C76AED7-574B-48B6-9309-62D74E5303CB Partition table holds up to 128 entries Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33 First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 976773134 Partitions will be aligned on 16-sector boundaries Total free space is 14 sectors (7.0 KiB) Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name 1 48 1048623 512.0 MiB EF00 EFISYS 2 1048624 42991663 20.0 GiB 8300 buster-main <-- 3 42991664 84934703 20.0 GiB 8300 SOS <-- 4 84934704 87031855 1024.0 MiB BF01 bpool 5 87031856 683171839 284.3 GiB BF01 rpool 6 683171840 976773134 140.0 GiB 8200 swap For testing purpose, i used SOS to install to > > Did you use a graphical installer / text mode installer? > Did you use expert mode - which would ask you more detailed questions. > Yes, i used the graphical installer, becoz in the past, i was rarely able to answer skillfully to expertmode questions. Took me 3 years to learn installing, using virtualisation, before i did dare bare-metal. :( Nonetheless, yours is a valuabe hint, an i will give it another go as soon as time permits it. >>(...) > I've just spent an evening testing media: grub2 works well. UEFI would > install grub-efi which also works. Grub-efi with secure boot also works > for both Buster and Bullseye. Almost cannot believe this. On buster i have: dpkg -l grub* | grep ^ii ii grub-common 2.02+dfsg1-20+deb10u4 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader (common files) ii grub-efi-amd64 2.02+dfsg1-20+deb10u4 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader, version 2 (EFI-AMD64 version) ii grub-efi-amd64-bin 2.02+dfsg1-20+deb10u4 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader, version 2 (EFI-AMD64 modules) ii grub-efi-amd64-signed 1+2.02+dfsg1+20+deb10u4 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader, version 2 (amd64 UEFI signed by Debian) ii grub2-common 2.02+dfsg1-20+deb10u4 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader (common files for version 2) And in fact, i can boot to ISO files, if needed. But with grub 2.04, that did no longer work, just as in the reported links. Will have to investigate this some more, but i am afraid to lose my working machine one more time. (Fix was to chroot into the old partition and reinstall grub from there.) > >> Ok. After days in panic, i was able to straigthen out my old system and >> get it to boot again. But since then, i am totally undecided (and a bit >> overwhelmed) with the options, i have to decide about now. What shall i >> focus on next? >> > I would suggest a clean install of Bullseye in expert mode - once you've > backed up any configuration files that are vital to you. I would also > suggest that you check that the machine's firmware is set to boot UEFI > only. The latter, i can confirm immediately. Also /sys/firmware/efi is a directory, which should indicate, that i booted in UEFI mode right now. Of course i had a backup, but without an elaborate setup, i would not have been able to access my backup server running ZFS either. BTW: The ISO i am using for emergency has ZFS incorporated, which enables direct access to all of my storage pools. > >> 1. Try the whole process once again and manually downgrade grub2 in >> order to have the ISO-boot at hand? (What risk would that involve?) > The rescue mode put in by Bullseye and Buster is, effectively, the same > as an ISO boot in functionality ... but without zfs. :( > >> 2. Report a bug (but honestly, i am not skilled enough to even determine >> the package(s) causing the mess i encountered. I suspect at least one of >> grub2 packages to be involved, but also the installer itself does a >> pretty careless job IMHO. (I learned to create proper assertion checks >> before shooting a working configuration to death.) > Check to see which grub package is installed: for UEFI, it should be > grub-efi see above > >> 3. Continue to work with oldstable, which increasingly causes problems >> due to the outdated software involved. That is, what i am using right now. >> > I'd suggest that you do not do this: I'd suggest an upgrade in place - but > that might cause you as many problems. > >> Or is there a better option? - Like maybe someone willing to assist in >> the process or at least guiding me some steps further? >> But i am scared to show the details of what i am doing, as i am a ZFS >> user since many years, which is pretty much non-standard! >> > You are (slightly) on your own there - I certainly can't help you but there > may be others on the list who can. Hints on the hardware configuration would > also be very much appreciated. Hum. I am not a hardware guy, but the machine was built for me specifically, DUAL CPU's (32 cores in total without HT), 128 GB ECC-RAM, 1 NVME SSD + 8 Hotplug HDD's, used for plenty of virtualized machines. > >> (...) >> > With every good wish, as ever, > > Andy Cater > > [Part of the Debian media team producing CD/DVD/Blu-Ray images - which > is why I know that the installer generally works well in both BIOS and > UEFI mode - we've been testing for about 12 hours straight now] Oh, this is good news. As mentioned, with grub 2.04 i unfortunately was no longer able to use my ISO image, which is 4GB large. Looks like i should not allow any guests/visitors next weekend in order to have enough time to carefully test your suggestion... Thank you, Andy, for your fast and complete reply! May you be blessed for the week to come. DdB
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