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#1 2018-01-24 20:52:21

nomorewindows
Member
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 3,362

UEFI firmware gateway laptop won't let me install Arch from anywhere

I've tried UEFI/syslinux/PXE...can't figure out what file(s) it wants for NBP (syslinux.efi, ldlinux.c32).
I've tried USB archiso and it doesn't like it, even though I had an older version of FreeBSD it booted into I couldn't use it because the text screen overlapped the graphics screen and I couldn't see what I was doing.  Most likely the Intel hardware wasn't supported in DRI mode in the version of FreeBSD that was on the stick. 

I've figured out how to disable SecureBoot by putting in an administrator BIOS password.  What's the point of that?  I switch back and forth between legacy mode and UEFI. In legacy mode it would recognize the usb stick, and it did when I had it in the FreeBSD that even when I put images of it or Archiso it won't recognize it. 

The only option that UEFI seems to only like is booting into Windows 8 (yes it's one of those machines).

I've had another disk that I had Arch on it working from legacy mode from another BIOS machine, but I can't do didly with UEFI, it's locking me out even if I do everything I think should get it to go.  In legacy mode, it won't expose efivars without having UEFI enabled, but I can't even get a good boot out of UEFI to do anything else. 

It's like it is hell bent on booting Windows only.

I can PXE boot Arch from Legacy mode, but not UEFI mode. I even have a base install on the disk, but can't do anything else. 

I'm using dd bs=4M if=archiso of=/dev/sdx status=progress oflag=sync (or as BSD likes conv=sync).


I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

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#2 2018-01-24 20:59:56

nomorewindows
Member
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 3,362

Re: UEFI firmware gateway laptop won't let me install Arch from anywhere

I found shell efi files in the archiso and put those in my pxe and it seemed to like that.
I at least have the uefi v1/v2 shell.

Last edited by nomorewindows (2018-01-24 21:01:40)


I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

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#3 2018-01-25 07:12:16

Head_on_a_Stick
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From: London
Registered: 2014-02-20
Posts: 7,680
Website

Re: UEFI firmware gateway laptop won't let me install Arch from anywhere

nomorewindows wrote:

I can PXE boot Arch from Legacy mode, but not UEFI mode. I even have a base install on the disk, but can't do anything else.

Have you tried installing a non-UEFI bootloader to the disk?

If you don't want to use Windows on that machine then you can install using systemd-boot and copy /usr/lib/systemd/boot/efi/systemd-bootx64.efi to $ESP/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi — your defective UEFI firmware should boot that automatically.

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#4 2018-01-25 18:17:31

c00ter
Member
From: Alaskan in Washington State
Registered: 2014-08-28
Posts: 386

Re: UEFI firmware gateway laptop won't let me install Arch from anywhere

@nomorewindows, I hesitate posting this because I can find no rhyme or reason behind this strange phenomenon, but it happens again and again on this 2014 Dell HaswellM laptop. And that is this; one USB key may boot, but a different USB key with the same ISO may not. Or the next day it does. That's all under UEFI, Secure Boot set to Off, Legacy Boot set to On, just like it is supposed to be, right? It makes no sense to me whatsoever. In the end, I keep a known-bootable ISO/USB and boot into UEFI with that, then yank that key and put in the one I intend to boot from, and it works. Different keys, different ports, it never makes sense but it works.


UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn

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#5 2018-01-25 19:51:33

nomorewindows
Member
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 3,362

Re: UEFI firmware gateway laptop won't let me install Arch from anywhere

c00ter wrote:

@nomorewindows, I hesitate posting this because I can find no rhyme or reason behind this strange phenomenon, but it happens again and again on this 2014 Dell HaswellM laptop. And that is this; one USB key may boot, but a different USB key with the same ISO may not. Or the next day it does. That's all under UEFI, Secure Boot set to Off, Legacy Boot set to On, just like it is supposed to be, right? It makes no sense to me whatsoever. In the end, I keep a known-bootable ISO/USB and boot into UEFI with that, then yank that key and put in the one I intend to boot from, and it works. Different keys, different ports, it never makes sense but it works.

I even tried using bcdedit to try to use the MBR -- oops -- partition record for booting Linux and it didn't like it because it wasn't a uefi binary.  It hasn't let me select from that opition ever again either.  This worked fine under a BIOS only Windows 7 install, but duh...can't do that with an MBR bootloader on uefi braindamaged firmware.  Lots of uefi firmware is broken I've heard, but glad to hear that I wasn't going insane or having a weird hair day or something like this.    My bios is a InsydeH20.


I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

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#6 2018-01-25 19:54:28

nomorewindows
Member
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 3,362

Re: UEFI firmware gateway laptop won't let me install Arch from anywhere

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
nomorewindows wrote:

I can PXE boot Arch from Legacy mode, but not UEFI mode. I even have a base install on the disk, but can't do anything else.

Have you tried installing a non-UEFI bootloader to the disk?

If you don't want to use Windows on that machine then you can install using systemd-boot and copy /usr/lib/systemd/boot/efi/systemd-bootx64.efi to $ESP/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi — your defective UEFI firmware should boot that automatically.

I tried rEFInd, but it's like there's a windows bootloader in ESP, but in legacy mode it can't find the UEFI structures.  But good idea...I also have grubx64.efi on esp, but it only wants to choose ... Windows Boot loader...hmm...that might be the safe way to do knowing I can undo it....the other method was to use bcdedit and make something else the default bootloader, but how do I fix if something goes wrong...that is an idea...that I can handle...

Last edited by nomorewindows (2018-01-25 19:55:48)


I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

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#7 2018-01-25 20:37:38

nomorewindows
Member
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 3,362

Re: UEFI firmware gateway laptop won't let me install Arch from anywhere

Wasn't the cleanest way to install Arch, but I need to fix up some partitions to make things usable.
With rEFInd installing itself (and grub) on the ESP and PXE booting into UEFI shell using

bcfg

commands from the UEFI Arch wiki, I was able to get to my Arch installation that got there via Legacy mode.  So I at least know that I can play now. 
Good thing this box didn't have permanent SecureBoot (a Windows 10 headache) or it wouldn't have been able to install Arch.
First time I've had to figure out how to get around UEFI so looks like I did fairly good even though it varies from one firmware to another what mayhem may come from just trying to get something installed there.

You can also dump files into the ESP under Windows with

mountvol S: /S

For some reason, it didn't take my EFIstub entries in bcfg, but grub is good enough.

Last edited by nomorewindows (2018-01-25 20:39:55)


I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

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#8 2018-01-28 05:52:40

nomorewindows
Member
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 3,362

Re: UEFI firmware gateway laptop won't let me install Arch from anywhere

After installing grub, which seems to be the biggest step, and getting an entry for rEFInd to put an Arch Linux entry in grub, I put the laptop back into SecureBoot mode and it doesn't even fuss about it.  Strange.  I don't think anything I've done has any keys to go with it, unless the grub.efi binary is signed somehow.

Windows Boot Loader and Grub seem to be the only thing I can get in the boot entries with either bcfg or efibootmgr/rEFInd...


I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

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