Re: Dangerous installation of bullseye: What shall i do next?

[songbird <songbird@anthive.com>]

Datakanja de Bruyn wrote:
...
> 1. bullseye installer had installed grub2 over refind, thereby killing
> my setup made for safety purpose.


  some of this may not fit your system, but it may help get
you further in the ballpark.  :)


here are my notes and suggestions from previous events:

  if grub gets reinstalled it can remove or mess up the boot menu so the following command will recreate the entry if it has been deleted:

# efibootmgr -c -L Debian_Refind -l "\EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI"


  this shows the current setup:

# efibootmgr

BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0001,0000,0006,0007,0005
Boot0000* Debian_Refind
Boot0001* debian
Boot0005* ASUS    DVD-E818AAT   a
Boot0006* Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB
Boot0007* Samsung SSD 860 EVO 2TB


  this sets the boot order:

# efibootmgr -o 0,1,5,6,7
BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0001,0005,0006,0007
Boot0000* Debian_Refind
Boot0001* debian
Boot0005* ASUS    DVD-E818AAT   a
Boot0006* Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB
Boot0007* Samsung SSD 860 EVO 2TB



  If reinstalling grub gets rid of your 40_custom menu entry this will work:

  you may need to change where the root is in the script below
using the file /etc/grub.d/40_custom replace it with:
=====
#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
# 
menuentry "Refind Menu" {
    insmod part_gpt
    insmod fat
    insmod chain
    root=hd0,1
    chainloader /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI
    }
=====


> 2. Also, when i tried to boot into the oldstable by hand, it failed to
> come up due to some error in fstab, bcoz the installer, while
> reformatting the free partition, assigned a new partuuid to it, which no
> longer corresponded to the entry in fstab.

  yes.  it may also set up a new swap partition.


> 3. Furthermore, it installed a grub2 version, that is buggy and which
> cannot boot the bootentries, i was used to resort to in case of trouble
> (a.k.a. booting straight from an ISO image as an emergency system. The
> version installed was known to fail to boot on my kind of hardwae since
> several years, and i assumed (my mistake), that a stable debian would
> have been fixing the issue by now. (I refer to the links at the bottom).
>
> 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?

  see if you can fix the UEFI setup and add the other thing
above to give you a way to get back to refind even if grub
gets installed by accident again.  i've had to use the above
efibootmgr a few times.


> 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?)
> 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.)
> 3. Continue to work with oldstable, which increasingly causes problems
> due to the outdated software involved. That is, what i am using right now=
>=2E
>
> 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!
>
> The bug, i mentioned seems to be related to grub2 2.04 and UEFI booting,
> which is necessary on my machine:
> https://superuser.com/questions/755641/grub2-boot-error-out-of-memory
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=3D1838633
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1851311
> https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=3D2430437
>
> Any hint will be greatly appreciated.
> DdB

  hopefully what i've provided above will help.  i don't use
ZFS myself.  i try to keep thing simple.  but i do dual boot
stable and testing/unstable and also have both grub and refind
installed.


  songbird