EFI menu invisible

nameanyone · 2014-09-01 08:00:59

Hi everyone,

Installed Arch using this guide: http://hole.tuziwo.info/install-arch-li … pport.html

Everything works, except the EFI menu is not visible. It works, I know because I booted into arch and increased the timeout, so I got to see the black screen longer at the next boot...

jasonwryan · 2014-09-01 08:12:41

Random blog posts are not a supported method for installing Arch: use the Official Installation guide or the Beginner's Guide.

In your case, read the gummiboot page on the wiki...

nameanyone · 2014-09-01 09:27:16

Ok, I installed Arch using Beginners Guide and ended up with a blank screen for EFI boot menu. The menu is there, i can increase the timeout, I can blindly push keys and it reacts, but I can't see it. I read FAQ, Beginners Guide, Gummiboot page and supplemented with that blog post. I re-read Gummiboot page a few times, ever more carefully. Don't see what I've missed.

Last edited by nameanyone (2014-09-01 16:53:23)

jasonwryan · 2014-09-01 17:56:58

So you can boot successfully and log in; it is only the menu that you can't see?

nameanyone · 2014-09-01 19:32:24

Correct. It boots. I see text fly by once it starts booting. Before that, it's black screen.

jasonwryan · 2014-09-01 19:39:01

Please post your configs...

nameanyone · 2014-09-01 22:43:02

loader.conf:

default a337775f4e3f4bc2ac413171df1807c8-3.16.1-1-ARCH.arch.x86_64
timeout 4

a337775f4e3f4bc2ac413171df1807c8-3.16.1-1-ARCH.arch.x86_64.conf:

title		Arch Linux
version		3.16.1-1-ARCH.arch.x86_64
machine-id	a337775f4e3f4bc2ac413171df1807c8
options		root=PARTUUID=2997abde-78d5-49a1-8952-476069b3072f rootflags=subvol=@root_arch rw
linux		/a337775f4e3f4bc2ac413171df1807c8/3.16.1-1-ARCH.arch.x86_64/vmlinuz-linux
initrd		/a337775f4e3f4bc2ac413171df1807c8/3.16.1-1-ARCH.arch.x86_64/initramfs-linux.img

Filesystem tree:

/boot/efi
├── a337775f4e3f4bc2ac413171df1807c8
│   ├── 3.15.7-1-ARCH.arch.x86_64
│   │   ├── initrd
│   │   └── linux
│   └── 3.16.1-1-ARCH.arch.x86_64
│       ├── initramfs-linux.img
│       └── vmlinuz-linux
├── EFI
│   ├── Boot
│   │   └── BOOTX64.EFI
│   └── gummiboot
│       └── gummibootx64.efi
└── loader
    ├── entries
    │   ├── a337775f4e3f4bc2ac413171df1807c8-3.15.7-1-ARCH.arch.x86_64.conf
    │   └── a337775f4e3f4bc2ac413171df1807c8-3.16.1-1-ARCH.arch.x86_64.conf
    └── loader.conf

Namarrgon · 2014-09-02 22:16:47

Perhaps it is not the same issue but I see the same symptom: Gummiboot's menu is not visible.
The POST completes, I see a black screen tough the menu is fully functional; blindly I can select either the Arch or the Windows entry and it will boot fine. The timeout set in loader.conf is respected as well.

This happens on an Asus H97M Mainboard with the latest Firmware and with an Nvidia 750 Ti GPU and the strange thing is that the ISO's gummiboot v38 worked just fine. Downgrading to the same version yields a black screen again.

None of the boot-related options I changed in the UEFI-FW were of any help so far. A parallel grub setup is able to display a proper menu, for what it's worth…

nameanyone · 2014-09-03 01:11:24

Same symptoms exactly, including ISO's menu displayed ok. Mine is Asus Z97-A with an ASUS Radeon card. This is a PCI-e card. I should try to connect my display to the on-board Intel graphics...

This is a separate issue, but is your partitioning the same? I wasn't able to get GRUB working with an EFI partition mounted at /boot/efi and /boot being a btrfs subvolume. That's why I decided to try Arch in the first place. Coming from Debian testing. If anyone knows how to get that working with Debian, please open a new thread and post a link here.

Namarrgon · 2014-09-03 19:10:05

nameanyone wrote:

[...] This is a separate issue, but is your partitioning the same? I wasn't able to get GRUB working with an EFI partition mounted at /boot/efi and /boot being a btrfs subvolume. That's why I decided to try Arch in the first place. Coming from Debian testing. If anyone knows how to get that working with Debian, please open a new thread and post a link here.

I have not tried your setup but going by grub's documentation it should be possible, though, I would certainly recommend to keep your marbles in place and just mount the ESP to /boot. In case of UEFI the installation only differs in the addition of the --efi-directory option which should tell grub-install where the ESP-mountpoint is to be found. Apart from that, the well established double-stanza still applies:

grub-install --efi-directory=$ESP /dev/sdX
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Now for the main part...

After working my way through all the undocumented options of the madness that ASUS claims to be a UEFI-implementation (4! different menus to configure the bootorder), by pure chance and with the last shreds of hope flaring up, I dis-/enabled several seemingly unrelated options among which was the graphical boot-splash. Booting with that option set to 'on' gummiboot was finally able to display the menu. In light of that I fail to understand why it makes a difference whether one boots gummiboot from a flash-drive or from a harddisk‽

So, now the ASUS logo is mocking me during every boot but at least i can reduce the timeout for it and/or close my eyes for the duration...

Arch Linux

#1 2014-09-01 08:00:59

EFI menu invisible

#2 2014-09-01 08:12:41

Re: EFI menu invisible

#3 2014-09-01 09:27:16

Re: EFI menu invisible

#4 2014-09-01 17:56:58

Re: EFI menu invisible

#5 2014-09-01 19:32:24

Re: EFI menu invisible

#6 2014-09-01 19:39:01

Re: EFI menu invisible

#7 2014-09-01 22:43:02

Re: EFI menu invisible

#8 2014-09-02 22:16:47

Re: EFI menu invisible

#9 2014-09-03 01:11:24

Re: EFI menu invisible

#10 2014-09-03 19:10:05

Re: EFI menu invisible

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