[SOLVED] UEFI woes

FerretBuster · 2013-11-01 01:22:45

cfr wrote:

FerretBuster wrote:
I've managed to find an article on the installation for my netbook - https://plus.google.com/app/basic/strea … nrgjfxyt04
so what I can glean from this is that I should try using grub? And then booting using the mentioned menu entry in the bios?
Those instructions are out of date. Moreover nothing there indicates that grub is required to work around the problem. The only thing there which might be helpful is the suggestion to use the bcfg command to create the menu entry. But copying the efi application to the default/fallback position should avoid the need for that entry.
Take srs5694's advice. He's the author of rEFInd and knows more about this stuff than anybody else I know.

I just took from it that as he got grub working correctly, then I had a fairer chance of getting it to work as compared to gummiboot. Nonetheless as i have mentioned everything is fine now apart from having to boot via the shell option in my netbook's boot menu. In addition I mentioned that I did end up using gummiboot anyway installed through the legacy environment, while it did not create an entry as the efivar variables were not mounted, it did manage to copy files into their respective folders - notably it copied gummiboot into /boot/EFI/Boot/BOOTX64.EFI. The partition is also formatted as fat 32, with 1gb of space.

If I am unable to solve the problem with basic troubleshooting I will come back and post a boot info script, however It seems this kernel panic is a common problem with my netbook when attempting to install an entry to the bootloader. So I shall search the net to see if i can find a fix.

EDIT: This is going to sound really stupid, but surely it doesn't matter that the bootx64.efi is in capitals? (that's how gummiboot copied it) looks like this - BOOTX64.EFI

EDIT2: Having checked multiple sources, it seems anyone who has the same laptop as me has had issues with booting using the default/fallback location. Meanwhile adding a boot entry is not an option as it results in kernel panic. It really seems like i'm out of options here... But anyway I will try and post a boot info script file tomorrow when I get time.

EDIT3: After giving it some thought I think it's worth just doing a traditional MBR install of Arch. I did manage to get it partly working with a proper bootloader screen without having to mess around in the bios every time I want to start the system up earlier, however I didn't continue with it as I wanted to attempt to get UEFI working. However I really think it has reached the point where the problems far outweigh the benefits for this particular system. But now I have more knowledge than I thought I would learn in a lifetime about UEFI - I think I might give installing arch on my main system a go in a few weeks

Thanks to everyone who helped.

Last edited by FerretBuster (2013-11-01 02:06:22)

cfr · 2013-11-01 03:00:03

Did you try adding the entry in the EFI shell?

No. Capitals don't matter. It's fat 32 - case-insensitive filesystem.

You could try GPT + BIOS booting if you wanted.

srs5694 · 2013-11-01 16:07:07

In theory, capitalization doesn't matter. On most computers, this is true in practice. I know of one very buggy EFI implementation that does have case-sensitivity issues -- it's Gigabyte's hybrid EFI. Even this doesn't directly affect the case used in filenames, but if a program tries to compare one filename to another, case-sensitivity can become an issue with this implementation.

I've heard of several EFIs that don't work well with efibootmgr. With them, it often helps to use the bcfg command in the EFI shell instead. See the Arch wiki for details. That's what I recommend doing in your case.

FerretBuster · 2013-11-02 02:52:53

cfr wrote:

You could try GPT + BIOS booting if you wanted.

I did just that. It works like a charm. THANK YOU :3

cfr · 2013-11-02 04:02:32

You're welcome. My firmware refuses to boot GPT in BIOS mode. I think UEFI is trying to mirror the vast variety of bugs in the insect world...

Arch Linux

#76 2013-11-01 01:22:45

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI woes

#77 2013-11-01 03:00:03

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI woes

#78 2013-11-01 16:07:07

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI woes

#79 2013-11-02 02:52:53

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI woes

#80 2013-11-02 04:02:32

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI woes

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