installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

dashboard · 2012-11-19 06:43:50

i put together a guide here: http://pcavdisor.blogspot.ca to help people install arch 64bit using refind bootloader on a efi/uefi motherboard, let me know anything you would like changed and ill updated it, also post any other guides that may be of a help to beginners trying to install arch on a uefi/efi system.

AlanF00 · 2012-11-19 18:59:01

I'm a rank beginner trying to install ArchLinux on a UEFI board, so your help comes at a perfect time. Below is my first very rough cut at following your guidance.

Please note that my comments are not prettied-up and are only my very first attempt. Eventually, with your help, perhaps I can post a nicer looking response.

This shouldn't be too hard to follow, though. My comments are in between your numbered ones.

I got stuck at several points, but completely so near the end. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Alan

1 download the archlinux ISO here https://www.archlinux.org/download/
2 install the archlinux iso onto a usb thumb drive or a CD
3 boot into the CD (please note if you can boot up using the EFI bootloader on the cd it will save you time - when i installed at the time of this guide i got a error booting efi directly off of the cd caused by a known bug hence the usb shell...)

How does one boot up using the EFI bootloader? If you boot from a CD or USB stick, you don't get such a choice.

4 format your drives using cfdisk by running #cfdisk - dont forget to write the changes to the disk before quiting

I found cfdisk unusable, so I used gdisk instead. Also, it appears that you're assuming that users know that these tooks create GPT partitions rather than the old DOS style partitions. As a newbie myself, I've found this knowledge crucial.

You should say something about exactly what partitions should be created. As best as I can tell, your scheme here is something like this:

/dev/sda1 /boot 1024MiB
/dev/sda2 / ???GB

Here's what I created using gdisk (this is a partial listing from gdisk; note that I'm using /dev/sdc):

Number Size Code Name
/dev/sdc1 1024 MiB EF02 BIOS boot partition
/dev/sdc2 16.0 GiB 8200 Linux swap
/dev/sdc3 200.0 GiB 8300 Linux filesystem

5 partition your EFI drive using parted, run these commands after entering parted by typing #parted in your terminal: #mkpart primary 1 1024
next type #toggle 1 boot

After using gdisk, the boot flag on /dev/sda1, as listed by parted "print", was "bios_grub". So I used parted, did "toggle 1 boot", and the boot flag became "boot".

6 format your GPT partition using the mkfs command #mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sda1

Ok.

For the swap space I used "mkswap /dev/sdc1".

7 use the mkfs command to format your sda2 partition with #mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2

With this done, "print" from parted shows this:

Number Size File system Code Name
/dev/sdc1 1024 MiB fat32 EF02 BIOS boot partition
/dev/sdc2 16.0 GiB linux-swap(v1) 8200 Linux swap
/dev/sdc3 200.0 GiB ext4 8300 Linux filesystem

8 mount the root partition on /mnt using #mount /dev/sda2 /mnt

mount /dev/sdc3 /mnt

9 make a partition name /mnt/EFI/boot using the command #mkdir /mnt/EFI/boot

This would not execute as given. Instead:
cd /mnt
mkdir EFI
cd EFI
mkdir boot

10 mount sda1 (your EFI vfat partition) to /mnt/EFI using #mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/EFI

Ok.

11 install your base system using #pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel (note you must have a internet connection, you can establish it using #dhcpcd eth0)

No problems here. I'm actually astonished that my Internet connection was detected without a hitch, and everything installed just fine. Great job, ArchLinux people!

12 after installing your base system, generate your fstab using #genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab and edit it #nano /mnt/etc/fstab ""IMPORTANT"" write down the UUID for your ROOT partition sda2

For /dev/sdc3 UUID=86814cb0-004f-452f-9b62-74c3c71a7824

you will need it later also remove the CP from the cp437 line

??? Do you mean removed just the string "cp"? Or do you mean remove the entire entry "codepage=cp437"?

13 now chroot your new system using #arch-chroot /mnt

Ok.

14 next setup your clock by editing the locale.gen usiing #nano /etc/locale.gen and uncomment the en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8

Ok.

15 next create a locale.conf using #echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf and #export LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Ok.

16 create a symbolic link from /etc/localtime to /usr/share/zoneinfo/ by running #ln -s /usr/share/Canada/Pacific
/etc/localtime (please note that your timezone may be diffrent edit it according to where you live)

The link command should be:
ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Canada/Pacific /etc/localtime

I used ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York /etc/localtime

17 run #hwclock --systohc --utc

Ok.

18 enable your network service by running #systemct enable dhcpcd@eth0.service

There is no "systemct" in the installation.

19 now setup your root password by running #passwd

Ok.

20 now setup your user password and username by running #useradd -m -g users -s /bin/bash (your username)

Ok.

21 setup your user password by running #passwd (your username)

Ok.

22 install your EFI bootloader with by following these steps
22-1 copy your vmlinuz-linux to /EFI/boot/vmlinuz-linux.efi using #cp /boot/vmlinuz-linux /EFI/boot/vmlinuz-linux.efi (note EFI ending)

I had to first make "boot" in /EFI:
mkdir /EFI/boot
Then the copy worked ok.

22-2 copy your initrd files to /EFI/boot using #cp /boot/initramfs-linux.img /EFI/boot/initramfs-linux.img and

Ok.

copy the initramfs-linux-fallback by running #cp /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img /EFI/boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img

Ok.

23 install the refind bootloader to your system by following these steps
23-1 #pacman -S refind-efi
23-2 make the directory /EFI/refind by using #mkdir /EFI/refind
23-3 copy refindx64.efi to /EFI/refind by running #cp /usr/lib/refind/refindx64.efi /EFI/refind/
23.4 copy the refind.conf to /EFI/refind/refind.conf by running #cp /user/lib/refind/config/refind.conf /EFI/refind/
23.5 copy the icons to your EFI/refind/icons directory by using #cp -r /user/share/refind/icons /EFI/refind/icons
23.6 edit your refind.conf using nano editor by running #nano /EFI/refind/refind.conf
26 scroll down to the bottom of the file until you find examples, uncomment the linux example and edit it to copy mine
menuentry Linux {
# icon /refind/icons/os_linux.icns
icon /EFI/refind/icons/os_linux.icns
volume KERNELS
loader /boot/vmlinuz-linux.efi
initrd /boot/initramfs-linux.img
options "ro root=UUID=YOUR ROOT UUID YOU COPIED FROM YOUR /etc/fstab"

}

Modify "icon ..." above???

24 type #exit then type #umount /dev/sda #umount /dev/sda1 #umount /dev/sda2 now reboot using #shutdown or #halt

The umounts that I did:
umount /dev/sdc1
umount /dev/sdc3

Then what? Restart the computer, I assume. Boot into what system? The CD or USB installation system? The new ArchLinux system?

The latter does not work because all I get is a "GRUB" prompt that does not respond to keyboard input.

So I'm assuming that you mean for the user to boot into whatever distro he's normally using. In my case it's Fedora.

25 download the shellx64.efi from here https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Un … load_links

I assume you mean click the link x86_64 UEFI Shell 2.0 (Beta)? There are 4 links.

Clicking that link lets me download the file "Shell.efi". I put it in my ~/Downloads folder.

26 format a usb stick in FAT32

A list of steps would be helpful for newbies like me. Here's what I did in Fedora:

Insert my USB stick. Fedora recognized it and called it "/dev/sdd" which I found by using "fdisk -l" (as root).

I didn't care about any data on the USB stick, so I invoked fdisk:
fdisk /dev/sdd
The sequence of fdisk commans I ran was:
o
p
n
p
RET
RET
+1G
p
m
l
t
1
b
p
w
This created a 1GB FAT32 partition.

I don't know if the intent here is to make a FAT32 filesystem on the USB partition, but I did it anyway:

umount /dev/sdd
mkfs.vfat -F32 -I /dev/sdd
mount /dev/sdd /usb1 # /usb1 is an already-created directory I've used for random USB mounts

and make a folder called EFI

cd /usb1
mkdir EFI

next make a folder in EFI called boot,

cd EFI
mkdir boot
cd boot

next past the shell.efi file in the boot folder and rename it to bootx64.efi

cp /home/alan/Downloads/Shell.efi bootx64.efi

27 boot into the EFI shell

What does that mean and how does one do it? What environment are we in here?

I'M STUCK HERE.

and run these commands, (please note the SHELL> is a representation of the shell not what you will type only type what is listed after the > symbol.)

SHELL>map -r (this lists the avaible drives for mounting, find the EFI partition you created, in my case it was FS1:)
now type SHELL>FS1: (replace the FS1: with the name of your drive)
now type FS1>ls (lists the files in the drive so you know if you got the right one..)
now enter your refind folder if you are in the EFI partition
EFI> cd refind
now list the files available
refind>ls
now run your refindx64.efi file by
refind>refindx64.efi
you should be in your refind boot loader, select linux and bootup

ANOKNUSA · 2012-11-20 01:43:04

This looks like a whole hell of a lot more work than I did by just following the Arch wiki. Oh, wait--that's because it seems intended to supplant the perfectly good Beginner's Guide we have here.

@AlanFOO: Whether your machine boots from UEFI or classic BIOS is determined in the BIOS settings screen for your machine. There's a key specific to your machine you need to press, after powerup/reboot but before the bootloader runs, to enter it. You can also usually change the boot order from there.

dashboard wrote:

if you find any problems with my syntax / commands or anything else please email me at seth@pcadvisor.ca and i will be happy to upload them

Isn't this guide intended for absolute beginners? You know, the kind that don't know the proper syntax/commands?

Yeah, I know I'm being a crank, but directing people to an off-site guide that may well become outdated a few months from now (and will likely never get updated, unlike our fine wiki) seems senseless.

dashboard · 2012-11-20 01:51:15

thanks for your replay, and welcome to arch linux! ill go over each of your questions starting with number 1 but first note that you have to edit your files / commands to meet your partition setup

1 my boot partition is not mounted at /boot, its mounted at /EFI, but mounting it at /boot is fine - my seccond partition /dev/sda2 is the rest of the drive, so in my case its 79gb's of the 80gb hardrive because i have 1gb for my /EFI partition
2 yes remove the CP from the fstab string, or it wont boot-up
3 dont modify the icons, sorry the # was just a comment in the file, the string is a menuentry for the refind bootloader, i had this so you could edit yours to look the same, this is located near the bottom of the refind.conf file in your refind directory nano into it and change the menuentry to look like this with exception for your partition setup and uuid string

menuentry Linux {
# icon /refind/icons/os_linux.icns (the # means that that whole line is commented out)
icon /EFI/refind/icons/os_linux.icns (edit the icon directory here to fit where you put your refind icons)
volume KERNELS
loader /boot/vmlinuz-linux.efi (edit this to fit where your vmlinuz-linux.efi is located, please note that the /boot means it is mounted on the EFI partition to /boot)
initrd /boot/initramfs-linux.img (edit this to fit where your initramfs-linux.img is located)
options "ro root=UUID=YOUR ROOT UUID YOU COPIED FROM YOUR /etc/fstab" (do not remove the "" off of this line but rather remove the YOUR ROOT UUID etc and place your uuid instead)
}

4 the "shell" is intel's EFI toolkit solution, its more like a windows console then a linux console in the sense that you use \ instead of / for directory's, other then that many commands are the same, such as ls (list your files) cd (enter a directory) etc, you can view a full list of commands by typing help -b (-b makes it so you can scroll to see everything)
5 once in the shell you need to locate your refindx64.efi it should be in your efi partition under the refind folder - to mount your efi drive type map -r -b then find your sata drive that is the fat32 efi drive, after locating it you enter it by typing the name of it that is located on the left of the screen under map -r .. a example of entering a partition would be this SHELL>FS1: (notice the : symbol don't forget it when you type your drive name in) after entering your efi partition use the cd command to enter your refind directory, once in the refind directory run the refindx64.efi by typing refindx64.efi this should boot into your refind bootloader, if you have not edited your refind.conf as stated in my guide you will have to bypass the refindx64.efi and boot into your linux directly by finding the directory that has your vmlinuz-linux.efi and using the command vmlinuz-linux.efi root=UUID=(your root uuid) add_efi_memmap initrd=\your\initramfs\.img\file\location it should be something like \boot\EFI\arch\initramfs-linux.img mine was \EFI\boot\initramfs-linux.img this will boot your linux directly with no need for a bootloader (if you have been using arches beginners guide, the names that you setup may be different then stated here IE arch says to make your initramfs-arch.img instead of -linux.img also they say to make your vmlinuz-arch.efi instead of vmlinuz-linux.efi use the commands here based on your setup....)
6 thanks for your advise, ill update the blog and try to make stuff more clear.

remember you can always boot back into a arch-linux cd, and mount the partitions back to /mnt and you can always chroot your system again from your cd after mounting the drives.

dashboard · 2012-11-20 01:57:20

@ANOKNUSA

ANOKNUSA wrote:

This looks like a whole hell of a lot more work than I did by just following the Arch wiki. Oh, wait--that's because it seems intended to supplant the perfectly good Beginner's Guide we have here.

as stated the reason why i didnt mod-probe and use the efibootmgr command when i first chrooted the system is because of a error that i could not get around when booting into the cd using the efi mode..... you can criticize what other people are doing but i spent alot of time figuring things out and i can tell you that the "beginners guide" that you talked about is not as easy as you may make it, its like walking in a forest blindfolded with no path to follow - there are just to many options - even if what i have put together here is longer then your "beginners guide" it's more simple to have a set of commands to run instead of a set of commands you "can run" i hope this makes sense to you.

stevepa · 2012-11-20 02:22:48

dashboard wrote:

@ANOKNUSA
ANOKNUSA wrote:
This looks like a whole hell of a lot more work than I did by just following the Arch wiki. Oh, wait--that's because it seems intended to supplant the perfectly good Beginner's Guide we have here.

as stated the reason why i didnt mod-probe and use the efibootmgr command when i first chrooted the system is because of a error that i could not get around when booting into the cd using the efi mode..... you can criticize what other people are doing but i spent alot of time figuring things out and i can tell you that the "beginners guide" that you talked about is not as easy as you may make it, its like walking in a forest blindfolded with no path to follow - there are just to many options - even if what i have put together here is longer then your "beginners guide" it's more simple to have a set of commands to run instead of a set of commands you "can run" i hope this makes sense to you.

Not sure if your mention was of the Unofficial https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_Guide or Offical Beginners Guide https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Of … tall_Guide. When I first started with Arch, I found the unoffical guide more helpful.

If your linked to site helps one person, then no harm done and I am not going to criticize.

Good luck.
Steve.

dashboard · 2012-11-20 02:34:24

stevepa wrote:

@stevepa
If your linked to site helps one person, then no harm done and I am not going to criticize.
Good luck.
Steve.

Thanks Steve, i agree with you completely, from my point of view the more guides/helpful info available the better, but that's just me

srs5694 · 2012-11-20 05:04:25

dashboard wrote:

i put together a guide here: http://pcavdisor.blogspot.ca to help people install arch 64bit using refind bootloader on a efi/uefi motherboard, let me know anything you would like changed and ill updated it, also post any other guides that may be of a help to beginners trying to install arch on a uefi/efi system.

I haven't gone over your guide very carefully, and I'm not an expert on Arch Linux specifically, but I did develop both GPT fdisk and rEFInd, and I do have some comments:

Steps 4 & 5 -- cfdisk is an MBR partitioning utility. As such, it doesn't "format" disks, and in fact its function is redundant with that of parted, except that parted can handle both MBR and GPT disks. It's unclear which disk(s) you're preparing in these steps. If it's your main disk, I recommend using gdisk, cgdisk, or parted, not sfdisk; and if you use parted, include instructions to make a GPT partition table. If the disk has existing data, you must address how to preserve it.
Steps 5-7 -- On UEFI-based systems, I recommend creating a separate ~200-500MiB /boot partition that uses FAT, ext2fs, ext3fs, or ReiserFS. This isn't required for all configurations, but doing it this way will increase your options for how to configure your boot loaders and boot managers. (OTOH, see my next point....)
Steps 9-10 (and subsequent) -- This places the EFI System Partition (ESP) at /EFI in the final Linux filesystem. Although the mount point for the ESP isn't standardized in the FHS, /EFI is a rather weird place for it, and advising users to put it there is likely to create confusion down the road when they read other documentation. Most distributions place the ESP at /boot/efi, but a strong minority (especially in the Arch community) place the ESP at /boot. In fact, after your numbered steps, you suggest creating a link from /boot to /EFI. This would become redundant if you just mounted the ESP at /boot to begin with. If you did this, then your ESP would become your /boot partition, so creating a separate one (as in my previous comment) would be unnecessary.
Steps 23.2-23.6 & 37 -- rEFInd comes with an installation script, install.sh, that will do all this if the ESP is mounted at /boot or /boot/efi and if the system is booted in EFI mode. If it's not booted in EFI mode, the latest version of the script (in rEFInd's git repository) includes a new --usedefault option that tells it to install using a default filename (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi) on the FAT filesystem pointed to by the option. That is, "install.sh --usedefault /dev/sda1" will install to /dev/sda1 in such a way that it should boot if the computer isn't configured to boot from elsewhere via NVRAM entries.
Step 23, substep 26 -- Your refind.conf entry will work only if the kernel is on a volume called "KERNELS". If I'm reading everything else correctly, you can simply omit this line in the configuration.

WonderWoofy · 2012-11-20 06:23:35

hostname? /usr/sbin/locale-gen? Missing some things methinks... otherwise, I know you think the more guides the better, but this is waaaayyy moer confusing than the beginners guide, and only accounts for one use case... yours.

I have to agree with srs5694 that your choice of what you are doing with the EFI System Partition is very strange indeed. I am not even sure where you got this idea, as I have never seen anyone before think this was a good idea. I personally just mount the ESP to /boot and it is wonderful. That way, when the kernel gets installed (and intramfs gets built), they get put on the partition I need them. Then a simple path/service appends .efi for me.

Take the advice of others here, and learn a bit more about partitioning. You seem a bit confused as to what formatting is as well.

dashboard · 2012-11-20 07:07:11

srs5694 wrote:

dashboard wrote:
i put together a guide here: http://pcavdisor.blogspot.ca to help people install arch 64bit using refind bootloader on a efi/uefi motherboard, let me know anything you would like changed and ill updated it, also post any other guides that may be of a help to beginners trying to install arch on a uefi/efi system.
I haven't gone over your guide very carefully, and I'm not an expert on Arch Linux specifically, but I did develop both GPT fdisk and rEFInd, and I do have some comments:
Steps 4 & 5 -- cfdisk is an MBR partitioning utility. As such, it doesn't "format" disks, and in fact its function is redundant with that of parted, except that parted can handle both MBR and GPT disks. It's unclear which disk(s) you're preparing in these steps. If it's your main disk, I recommend using gdisk, cgdisk, or parted, not sfdisk; and if you use parted, include instructions to make a GPT partition table. If the disk has existing data, you must address how to preserve it.
Steps 5-7 -- On UEFI-based systems, I recommend creating a separate ~200-500MiB /boot partition that uses FAT, ext2fs, ext3fs, or ReiserFS. This isn't required for all configurations, but doing it this way will increase your options for how to configure your boot loaders and boot managers. (OTOH, see my next point....)
Steps 9-10 (and subsequent) -- This places the EFI System Partition (ESP) at /EFI in the final Linux filesystem. Although the mount point for the ESP isn't standardized in the FHS, /EFI is a rather weird place for it, and advising users to put it there is likely to create confusion down the road when they read other documentation. Most distributions place the ESP at /boot/efi, but a strong minority (especially in the Arch community) place the ESP at /boot. In fact, after your numbered steps, you suggest creating a link from /boot to /EFI. This would become redundant if you just mounted the ESP at /boot to begin with. If you did this, then your ESP would become your /boot partition, so creating a separate one (as in my previous comment) would be unnecessary.
Steps 23.2-23.6 & 37 -- rEFInd comes with an installation script, install.sh, that will do all this if the ESP is mounted at /boot or /boot/efi and if the system is booted in EFI mode. If it's not booted in EFI mode, the latest version of the script (in rEFInd's git repository) includes a new --usedefault option that tells it to install using a default filename (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi) on the FAT filesystem pointed to by the option. That is, "install.sh --usedefault /dev/sda1" will install to /dev/sda1 in such a way that it should boot if the computer isn't configured to boot from elsewhere via NVRAM entries.
Step 23, substep 26 -- Your refind.conf entry will work only if the kernel is on a volume called "KERNELS". If I'm reading everything else correctly, you can simply omit this line in the configuration.

good point, i didnt use cfdisk to format it you can see i used mkfs.ext4 or mkfs.vfat i meant to say use cfdisk to DELETE the partitions....and as far as mounting it on the /boot partition its what ever works, you still have to make a symbolic link where ever you mount it so it doesn't really matter

thanks for your thoughtful reply and i respect your position, im getting way more hate then i expected, the only reason i made this guide was because the ISO had a BUG where it would not boot into the EFI boot manager, i googled it and found that it was a bug with their latest ISO so i found a way around it and thought that others might benefit from my experience....

AlanF00 · 2012-11-20 14:49:36

ANOKNUSA wrote:

This looks like a whole hell of a lot more work than I did by just following the Arch wiki. Oh, wait--that's because it seems intended to supplant the perfectly good Beginner's Guide we have here.

The problem is that, even though I carefully followed everything in those references (at least, I THINK I did), there appears to be a fatal problem with installing to a system with a UEFI bios. A number of people have run into this. C.f. my initial post from a couple of days ago: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=153170

@AlanFOO:

LOL! My wife might want to call me AlanFOO at times. But those are zeroes, not O's. :-)

Whether your machine boots from UEFI or classic BIOS is determined in the BIOS settings screen for your machine. There's a key specific to your machine you need to press, after powerup/reboot but before the bootloader runs, to enter it. You can also usually change the boot order from there.

Yeah, I eventually figured that out. It's F8 on late-model ASUS boards. When I do that, in trying to boot ArchLinux from a USB stick, I get two choices:

(1) Boot from the regular bios.
(2) Boot from the UEFI bios.

Number (1) works; number (2) yields an error message:

"No loader found. Configuration files in /loader/entries/*.conf are needed."

This appears to be the same error message that others have gotten.

dashboard wrote:
if you find any problems with my syntax / commands or anything else please email me at seth@pcadvisor.ca and i will be happy to upload them
Isn't this guide intended for absolute beginners? You know, the kind that don't know the proper syntax/commands?

You're right, but something is needed because the regular beginners' guide does not work for some users. And no one has yet come up with a solution that works for me.

Yeah, I know I'm being a crank, but directing people to an off-site guide that may well become outdated a few months from now (and will likely never get updated, unlike our fine wiki) seems senseless.

I'm willing to be a guinea pig on this, as time permits. Do you have any specific suggestions on how to proceed?

Alan

AlanF00 · 2012-11-20 15:06:44

dashboard wrote:

thanks for your replay, and welcome to arch linux!

You're welcome, and thanks!

ill go over each of your questions starting with number 1 but first note that you have to edit your files / commands to meet your partition setup

You mean things like changing your "/dev/sda2" to my "/dev/sdc5"? If so, you'll see that I've done that.

2 yes remove the CP from the fstab string, or it wont boot-up

Again, do you mean remove just the string "cp"? Or do you mean remove the entire string "codepage=cp437"?

4 the "shell" is intel's EFI toolkit solution, its more like a windows console then a linux console . . .

Great information, but again: How do you fire it up? And in what environment?

Alan

srs5694 · 2012-11-20 15:48:54

dashboard wrote:

as far as mounting it on the /boot partition its what ever works, you still have to make a symbolic link where ever you mount it so it doesn't really matter

The problem with the "use whatever works" argument is that the difference can cause confusion down the line. Suppose somebody says "I accidentally deleted my /EFI/EFI/zomblif/flegmon.efi file and now I can't boot! Help me!" Given your mount point and some additional "whatever works" changes to filenames, that's a perfectly valid location for an EFI boot loader. The trouble is that it's completely uninformative to somebody who knows the usual names. A reader wouldn't know what boot loader is being used, or even know for sure that a boot loader on the ESP had been deleted. On the flip side, suppose somebody mounts the ESP at /EFI, as you suggest, and then reads instructions about editing /boot/efi/EFI/refind/refind.conf. The different path to the configuration file could lead to confusion or an inability to follow the instructions, particularly if the person is unfamiliar with Linux, mount points, etc., and/or if the person had forgotten the detail about where (s)he had mounted the ESP.

As to the symbolic link, no, you do not need to create a symbolic link if you mount the ESP at /boot! That's one of the reasons I suggested doing so -- it simplifies things. (Mounting at /boot/efi necessitates either copying the kernel to an unusual location or using filesystem drivers to load the kernel off a separate /boot partition, which is its own type of complexity but enables reserving the ESP for non-kernel boot files.)

im getting way more hate then i expected

Don't confuse criticism for hate. My criticism, at least, is intended to be constructive -- so you can update and improve your documentation.

dashboard · 2012-11-20 17:03:20

AlanF00 wrote:

Yeah, I eventually figured that out. It's F8 on late-model ASUS boards. When I do that, in trying to boot ArchLinux from a USB stick, I get two choices:
(1) Boot from the regular bios.
(2) Boot from the UEFI bios.
Number (1) works; number (2) yields an error message:
"No loader found. Configuration files in /loader/entries/*.conf are needed."
This appears to be the same error message that others have gotten.

Alan

Hi Alan, thanks for confirming the ERROR that i got when i tried to boot into the EFI loader on the CD, hence why i made the guide to help people who were getting the error anyways heres what you have to do, dont mess with your partition setup its find. remove just the 2 letters cp from the fstab string not the whole codepage=cp437. to fire up the "shell", fire it up just like a CD when you boot, select the UEFI bios then select the EFI thumbdrive, once in it follow the steps on finding your vmlinuz-linux.efi and booting directly into your system using the vmlinuz-linux.efi root=UUID=your root uuid ro add_efi_memmap initrd=\boot\EFI\boot\initramfs-linux.img - remember to change out theses file locations with your own.. once you have booted up modprobe the efivars install efibootmgr and run the command and fix your refind.conf to match what i have copied in my guide. thanks -Seth

dashboard · 2012-11-20 17:12:08

srs5694 wrote:

dashboard wrote:
as far as mounting it on the /boot partition its what ever works, you still have to make a symbolic link where ever you mount it so it doesn't really matter
The problem with the "use whatever works" argument is that the difference can cause confusion down the line. Suppose somebody says "I accidentally deleted my /EFI/EFI/zomblif/flegmon.efi file and now I can't boot! Help me!" Given your mount point and some additional "whatever works" changes to filenames, that's a perfectly valid location for an EFI boot loader. The trouble is that it's completely uninformative to somebody who knows the usual names. A reader wouldn't know what boot loader is being used, or even know for sure that a boot loader on the ESP had been deleted. On the flip side, suppose somebody mounts the ESP at /EFI, as you suggest, and then reads instructions about editing /boot/efi/EFI/refind/refind.conf. The different path to the configuration file could lead to confusion or an inability to follow the instructions, particularly if the person is unfamiliar with Linux, mount points, etc., and/or if the person had forgotten the detail about where (s)he had mounted the ESP.
As to the symbolic link, no, you do not need to create a symbolic link if you mount the ESP at /boot! That's one of the reasons I suggested doing so -- it simplifies things. (Mounting at /boot/efi necessitates either copying the kernel to an unusual location or using filesystem drivers to load the kernel off a separate /boot partition, which is its own type of complexity but enables reserving the ESP for non-kernel boot files.)
im getting way more hate then i expected
Don't confuse criticism for hate. My criticism, at least, is intended to be constructive -- so you can update and improve your documentation.

thanks for your help, i only stated mounting it on /EFI because that's what i tried and that's what i used, i knew it would work for others, if you have a simpler way then great make a guide that i can follow for the best system out there! ive updated my guide to fit most of what you said, but since i know nothing about "ESP at /boot" i need you to enplane more in order for me to update it... as far as the "use what ever works" thats stated to the experts here, im not a expert and dont claim to be a expert, in my guide i say nothing about "use what ever works" if you follow every step of it you will get a working EFI system with a refind bootloader by getting around the ISO's EFI bootloader error "No loader found. Configuration files in /loader/entries/*.conf are needed." anyways im glad that your contributing, but in a way i feel like im on a FREEBSD Forum and not a friendly linux forum.

AlanF00 · 2012-11-20 18:00:35

srs5694 wrote:

I haven't gone over your guide very carefully, and I'm not an expert on Arch Linux specifically, but I did develop both GPT fdisk and rEFInd, and I do have some comments:

Great! So you must be Rod Smith. Over the past several weeks I've read a number of your blog posts and learned much from them. I've been using gdisk and it's an excellent, easy-to-use tool.

But I'm still confused about the details of getting ANY flavor of Linux installed on a UEFI bios system.

Following the advice that you and others have given, I now have the following partitions on a 1.5GB disk, as reported by gdisk (gdisk -l /dev/sdc):

##########
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 2099199 1024.0 MiB EF00 BIOS boot partition
2 2099200 35653631 16.0 GiB 8200 Linux swap
3 35653632 455084031 200.0 GiB 8300 Linux filesystem
##########

And as reported by parted (parted -l):

##########
Model: ATA WDC WD15EARX-00P (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 1500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 1075MB 1074MB fat32 BIOS boot partition boot
2 1075MB 18.3GB 17.2GB linux-swap(v1) Linux swap
3 18.3GB 233GB 215GB ext4 Linux filesystem
##########

I just finished trying your advice here: http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloader … ation.html but without success. I'm starting to think that I have a chicken-and-egg problem, because when I boot ArchLinux from the USB stick, my bios automatically boots it without UEFI, and nothing I do to change that (such as in the CSM menu in the bios) allows booting from the USB stick in UEFI mode -- the bios always gives me an error message that it can't boot that way.

Steps 23.2-23.6 & 37 -- rEFInd comes with an installation script, install.sh, that will do all this if the ESP is mounted at /boot or /boot/efi and if the system is booted in EFI mode. If it's not booted in EFI mode, the latest version of the script (in rEFInd's git repository) includes a new --usedefault option that tells it to install using a default filename (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi) on the FAT filesystem pointed to by the option. That is, "install.sh --usedefault /dev/sda1" will install to /dev/sda1 in such a way that it should boot if the computer isn't configured to boot from elsewhere via NVRAM entries.

I seem to be at the chicken and egg problem again with booting ArchLinux from a USB stick. Until ArchLinux is installed, I can't alter anything in the filesystem because it resides on the USB stick. Or am I missing something basic?

Alan

dashboard · 2012-11-20 18:31:54

@AlanF00 use the usb stick to boot up your installed system by running the commands that i gave you above.. that way you can modprobe and run the efibootmgr command, there is no other way around this.

srs5694 · 2012-11-20 21:36:52

AlanF00 wrote:

I just finished trying your advice here: http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloader … ation.html but without success. I'm starting to think that I have a chicken-and-egg problem, because when I boot ArchLinux from the USB stick, my bios automatically boots it without UEFI, and nothing I do to change that (such as in the CSM menu in the bios) allows booting from the USB stick in UEFI mode -- the bios always gives me an error message that it can't boot that way.

Unfortunately, EFI implementations vary a lot in how they decide whether to boot in EFI mode or in BIOS mode. You'll either have to figure it out for yourself or find help from somebody with the same board (or at least a board from the same manufacturer). Things that can trip up an EFI boot loader include a stray MBR boot loader on the disk, the presence of other MBR-bootable disks on the computer, firmware settings, and even the size of the hard disk (at least one type of firmware favors BIOS-mode booting on sub-2TiB disks, for instance).

That said, here's a procedure that should work on most systems:

Take an empty USB flash drive (or one with data you're willing to sacrifice) and plug it into a Linux computer.
If it's not already installed, install gdisk.
As root, type "sudo sgdisk -Z /dev/sdd", changing "/dev/sdd" as necessary to refer to the USB drive.
Launch gdisk, cgdisk, parted, GParted, or any other partitioning tool and create a GUID Partition Table (GPT) on the disk with an EFI System Partition (ESP) as the first partition.
If it wasn't achieved in the preceding step, place a FAT-32 filesystem on the USB flash drive's ESP.
Download rEFInd and unpack it.
Download this updated rEFInd installation script and copy it over the install.sh script in the version you downloaded.
Change into the rEFInd directory.
As root, type "bash ./install.sh --usedefault /dev/sdd1" (changing "/dev/sdd1" to refer to the ESP on your USB drive).
Shut down your computer.
Unplug your hard disk(s).
Boot with the USB flash drive and your Arch medium installed. Select the USB drive. rEFInd should boot and give you a menu enabling you to boot the Arch installer in EFI mode. Try it. You won't be able to install because your hard disk is disconnected, but this will at least test your ability to boot Arch in EFI mode.
If the preceding step succeeded, shut down, plug your hard disks back in, and try again.

If you can then boot and install in EFI mode, everything's fine, at least at this point. If not, it could be that your hard disk has a stray MBR boot loader or some other problem that's giving the system fits.

AlanF00 · 2012-11-21 13:43:22

srs5694 wrote:

That said, here's a procedure that should work on most systems:
Take an empty USB flash drive (or one with data you're willing to sacrifice) and plug it into a Linux computer.
If it's not already installed, install gdisk.
As root, type "sudo sgdisk -Z /dev/sdd", changing "/dev/sdd" as necessary to refer to the USB drive.
Launch gdisk, cgdisk, parted, GParted, or any other partitioning tool and create a GUID Partition Table (GPT) on the disk with an EFI System Partition (ESP) as the first partition.
If it wasn't achieved in the preceding step, place a FAT-32 filesystem on the USB flash drive's ESP.

I assume that "mkfs.vfat -F32 -I /dev/sdd" is what you had in mind. That's what I did, in any case. However, using various tools I couldn't tell if there really was a FAT32 filesystem on the flash drive, but "gdisk -l /dev/sdd" showed a partition of type "ee00" with a lable of "EFI Filesystem".

[list=6][*]Download rEFInd and unpack it.[/*][/list]

I take it this is the binary version. I thought at first it might be the source version, but discovered that the required *.efi files are not there.

[list=7][*]Download this updated rEFInd installation script and copy it over the install.sh script in the version you downloaded.[/*]
[*]Change into the rEFInd directory.[/*]
[*]As root, type "bash ./install.sh --usedefault /dev/sdd1" (changing "/dev/sdd1" to refer to the ESP on your USB drive).[/*]
[*]Shut down your computer.[/*]
[*]Unplug your hard disk(s).[/*]
[*]Boot with the USB flash drive and your Arch medium installed. Select the USB drive. rEFInd should boot and give you a menu enabling you to boot the Arch installer in EFI mode. Try it. You won't be able to install because your hard disk is disconnected, but this will at least test your ability to boot Arch in EFI mode.[/*]
[*]If the preceding step succeeded, shut down, plug your hard disks back in, and try again.[/*]
[/list]

Unfortunately, it did not seem to work. According to the Arch Beginner's Guide ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_Guide ) you should do this to find out if you booted in UEFI mode:

# modprobe efivars # before chrooting
# ls -1 /sys/firmware/efi/vars/

But after following your instructions, the directory /sys/firmware/efi/ does not exist.

If you can then boot and install in EFI mode, everything's fine, at least at this point. If not, it could be that your hard disk has a stray MBR boot loader or some other problem that's giving the system fits.

I guess it must be "some other problem" because all of the hard disks are unplugged.

I wonder if there's something odd about ASUS boards in terms of UEFI. I only bought this board a week and a half ago, and this is my first experience with UEFI and Linux together.

Thanks for your help! I'm going away for the Thanksgiving holiday and won't be back until next week.

Alan

swordfish · 2012-11-21 15:38:33

AlanF00 wrote:

However, using various tools I couldn't tell if there really was a FAT32 filesystem on the flash drive, but "gdisk -l /dev/sdd" showed a partition of type "ee00" with a lable of "EFI Filesystem".

Use gParted - it's a graphical tool and very easy to handle.

AlanF00 wrote:

Unfortunately, it did not seem to work. According to the Arch Beginner's Guide ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_Guide ) you should do this to find out if you booted in UEFI mode:
# modprobe efivars # before chrooting
# ls -1 /sys/firmware/efi/vars/
But after following your instructions, the directory /sys/firmware/efi/ does not exist.

Sorry, Alan, that's wrong. It has to be:

# ls -l /sys/firmware/efi/vars/

it's "-l" not "-1"

AlanF00 wrote:

I wonder if there's something odd about ASUS boards in terms of UEFI. I only bought this board a week and a half ago, and this is my first experience with UEFI and Linux together.

Alan, I got here an Asrock H77M-ITX board. Asrock is - as far as I know - a sub-division of Asus. With this information and the advice of the user the.ridikulus.rat I was able to create an USB stick that boots in UEFI mode.

So, I'm pretty sure, it's not a problem with your board. You can check by starting an USB stick with Ubuntu. It can definitely start in UEFI mode without hassle. But first check in the user manual of your motherboard how to choose between different starting devices (by hitting a special Fn-key; on my Asrock it's F11) and how to secure that the board will start in UEFI mode and not in BIOS legacy mode.

By the way: If you are - as you write - making your "first experiences" with Linux and UEFI together, my humble advice would be: Start learning about Linux first and then invest some time in examining UEFI.

srs5694 · 2012-11-21 15:43:43

AlanF00 wrote:

srs5694 wrote:
If it wasn't achieved in the preceding step, place a FAT-32 filesystem on the USB flash drive's ESP.
I assume that "mkfs.vfat -F32 -I /dev/sdd" is what you had in mind. That's what I did, in any case. However, using various tools I couldn't tell if there really was a FAT32 filesystem on the flash drive, but "gdisk -l /dev/sdd" showed a partition of type "ee00" with a lable of "EFI Filesystem".

Yes, mkfs.vfat should do the trick. There is no valid GPT fdisk type code of ee00, so I assume you mean ef00, which takes a name of "EFI System" (not "EFI Filesystem") by default. Given these adjustments to what you've reported, it sounds correct at this point.

[list=6][*]Download rEFInd and unpack it.[/*][/list]
I take it this is the binary version. I thought at first it might be the source version, but discovered that the required *.efi files are not there.

I assume that you ultimately got the binary version, which is what you need.

[list=7][*]Download this updated rEFInd installation script and copy it over the install.sh script in the version you downloaded.[/*]
[*]Change into the rEFInd directory.[/*]
[*]As root, type "bash ./install.sh --usedefault /dev/sdd1" (changing "/dev/sdd1" to refer to the ESP on your USB drive).[/*]
[*]Shut down your computer.[/*]
[*]Unplug your hard disk(s).[/*]
[*]Boot with the USB flash drive and your Arch medium installed. Select the USB drive. rEFInd should boot and give you a menu enabling you to boot the Arch installer in EFI mode. Try it. You won't be able to install because your hard disk is disconnected, but this will at least test your ability to boot Arch in EFI mode.[/*]
[*]If the preceding step succeeded, shut down, plug your hard disks back in, and try again.[/*]
[/list]
Unfortunately, it did not seem to work.

Did you at least see a rEFInd menu? If not, then the flash drive you prepared did not work. If you booted straight into Arch, then that suggests that your firmware bypassed the USB drive. I have three ideas about this:

Your system may have been configured to boot from the Arch medium first. Using your firmware's boot selector might get around this.
Your system may have Secure Boot enabled. On my one Secure Boot-capable system, if Secure Boot is enabled and you tell the computer to boot from an unsigned UEFI boot medium, it quietly ignores your command, giving you no error messages. Instead, it skips to the next available boot device. Oddly, if it can't find a signed UEFI boot loader, it starts trying BIOS/legacy devices and will boot one of them if found, despite the fact that they're unsigned. If this is what's happening, you'll have to disable Secure Boot.
The rEFInd installation may have gone awry. Posting an "ls -R /mount/point" output on the disk, where "/mount/point" is wherever you've mounted it, should enable me to verify proper installation. Basically, you should have an EFI/BOOT directory on the disk, which should contain a bootx64.efi file, a refind.conf file, and an icons subdirectory.

lano1106 · 2012-11-22 04:13:48

I had problems loading with UEFI with the error message:

no loader found \loader\entries\*

I was blindly following the Beginnner guide which says that you have to copy the arch and the EFI folders to the USB key.

One important omission is that you also need to copy the loader directory :-) and edit one of .conf file to change the kernel option 'archisolabel' to archisodevice with the partition UUID if applicable to you.

wwgfd · 2012-11-26 17:19:36

I'm relatively new to Arch (I've installed it a couple of times before but not enough to have committed the process to memory - yet!)...

Anyway, I've just built a brand new PC (Intel i7 on MSI mobo with their "Click BIOS II", which is a UEFI system), and I'm having some difficulties in getting my system to boot properly with UEFI. I'm using the Kernels built in EFISTUB and I've got a boot entry showing up in my 'BIOS' (for want of a better word) only it doesn't work -- I get this error:

"Kernel Panic - not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0) ...."

However I am able to boot to a UEFI shell provided by my mainboard and manually navigate to the correct path for my "vmlinuz-arch.efi" file and load it with the necessary parameters typed on the command line, this gets me into my system and everything runs fine from there (using it to type this now!).

Any ideas?

-- Specifically regarding the OP's post though --

@stevepa -- I agree with your comment about the 'unofficial' beginners guide being very (and perhaps more) helpful for newbies.

@dashboard -- I'm afraid that I have to agree with some of the other comments on here -- your guide does seem to miss out on a few 'crucial' configuration steps and/or is missing important information, as well as sometimes perhaps being a bit too vague / unclear (especially for real newbies who need a full step-by-step-with-nothing-missed-out guide) but congrats+thanks for the effort and willingness to help others!

FYI: Arch (as I understand it) is all about choice and simplicity -- (all newbies should) read The Arch Way. The fact that Arch provides users with ability to configure the system specifically for (and tailored to) their needs through a fairly minimal set of 'simple' configuration files is a fantastic achievement! One that I feel should be be celebrated and highly praised. The one caveat of this (of course) is that you have to be willing to learn and experiment, accept that some 'failures' during this process are inevitable and carry on regardless (--read as "persevere"--).

Truthfully I am amazed at the detail and the quality of the documentation available on the Arch Wiki, especially when compared to some of the other (including major) Linux Distros out there, many of which I've found actually refer to the Arch documentation for core / technical information! (It's also a fantastic resource for people like me who want to know exactly what is going on in their system, what all of the configuration options are and what they do!)

-- Seriously, if I 'google' a Linux problem the top results are almost always the Arch and/or Gentoo wiki's -- these people know their stuff! The other one worth mentioning is LinuxQuestions.org

Thanks Arch!
Goodluck my fellow newbies!

and thanks to anyone who has / will help me on this forum

JPorter · 2012-11-26 23:06:30

Hey what's up, good thread - just wanted to add that there is definitely something wrong with the new iso, when I try UEFI with the new November.iso I have the same error:

"No loader found. Configuration files in /loader/entries/*.conf are needed."

But when I use the iso from a few months it works fine...just thought I'd share that FYI.

srs5694 · 2012-11-27 00:08:00

wwgfd wrote:

Anyway, I've just built a brand new PC (Intel i7 on MSI mobo with their "Click BIOS II", which is a UEFI system), and I'm having some difficulties in getting my system to boot properly with UEFI. I'm using the Kernels built in EFISTUB and I've got a boot entry showing up in my 'BIOS' (for want of a better word) only it doesn't work -- I get this error:
"Kernel Panic - not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0) ...."
However I am able to boot to a UEFI shell provided by my mainboard and manually navigate to the correct path for my "vmlinuz-arch.efi" file and load it with the necessary parameters typed on the command line, this gets me into my system and everything runs fine from there (using it to type this now!).

Chances are you haven't passed the right options to the kernel via efibootmgr (or bcfg or whatever you used to enter the NVRAM entry for it). In particular, you may well be missing the root filesystem specification, or it may be set incorrectly. Posting the output of "df -h" and "efibootmgr -v" might provide clues.

That said, configuring the system to boot directly in this way can be rather awkward and error-prone. That's one of the reasons the rEFInd and gummiboot boot managers exist; they enable easier adjustment of boot options by editing files rather than passing options through a kilometer-long pipe. You might want to consider installing one or both of these boot managers and configuring one of them as your primary boot program rather than booting the kernel directly, at least as a starting point. If using rEFInd or gummiboot offends your sensibilities, you can always remove it later, once you've got a better grasp on the situation.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-11-19 06:43:50

installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#2 2012-11-19 18:59:01

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#3 2012-11-20 01:43:04

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#4 2012-11-20 01:51:15

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#5 2012-11-20 01:57:20

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#6 2012-11-20 02:22:48

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#7 2012-11-20 02:34:24

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#8 2012-11-20 05:04:25

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#9 2012-11-20 06:23:35

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#10 2012-11-20 07:07:11

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#11 2012-11-20 14:49:36

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#12 2012-11-20 15:06:44

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#13 2012-11-20 15:48:54

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#14 2012-11-20 17:03:20

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#15 2012-11-20 17:12:08

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#16 2012-11-20 18:00:35

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#17 2012-11-20 18:31:54

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#18 2012-11-20 21:36:52

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#19 2012-11-21 13:43:22

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#20 2012-11-21 15:38:33

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#21 2012-11-21 15:43:43

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#22 2012-11-22 04:13:48

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#23 2012-11-26 17:19:36

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#24 2012-11-26 23:06:30

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

#25 2012-11-27 00:08:00

Re: installing arch on efi/uefi 64bit motherboard

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