[SOLVED] Installing GRUB2 on EFI system -- HELP!

shaurz · 2012-01-17 00:40:15

I'm really struggling to install Arch with GRUB2 on an EFI system. I've followed all the steps on the GRUB2 wiki page, and have got so far, but now I'm stuck.

I've created the 200MB EFI system partition and root partition with gdisk as instructed, installed the system and then followed the instructions under "During Arch Linux installation"

I've got to the part where you run grub_efi_x86_64-install and efibootmgr commands, but they seem to not work. I think the problem is that the USB stick I'm booting off is booting in legacy mode, not EFI mode. How do I make it boot in EFI mode?

Last edited by shaurz (2012-01-17 22:21:29)

cfr · 2012-01-17 01:54:51

You need a live system which is configured to boot in EFI mode. The two I know of are archboot and ubuntu, but there may be others. You can't use the standard arch linux live usb stick to boot in EFI mode. At least, not unless it has changed since November.

When I did this, I used an ubuntu stick to boot in EFI mode. I forget why this seemed simpler at the time but I remember it was more straightforward for me. I think it was a function of the means I had available for creating the media, though, so a different option may suit you better.

To make sure, I set my laptop's bios option to only boot EFI just to rule out booting in legacy mode.

shaurz · 2012-01-17 02:54:46

OK, so I managed to make a EFI booting USB driver from these instructions: https://gitorious.org/tianocore_uefi_du … I_boot_USB

At first I though it hadn't worked because when you boot by the EFI method, it sits at a blank screen for about 5 minutes... then it starts booting.

Managed to install GRUB into EFI boot manager, but now I just get a GRUB prompt when I boot up. Probably forgot to re-generate the config file.

Edit: Hmm... re-ran grub-mkconfig... still getting GRUB prompt.

Edit 2: I think I just have grub.cfg in the wrong place.

Last edited by shaurz (2012-01-17 11:53:15)

cfr · 2012-01-17 16:09:00

You should end up with grub.cfg at:

/boot/efi/efi/grub/grub.cfg

but I'm pretty sure you have to specify that or else it just puts it under /boot/grub/ which won't work for EFI.

At least you're getting a GRUB prompt - I was just getting "no operating system found" at this point .

shaurz · 2012-01-17 19:21:11

Aha! I had grub.cfg in /boot/efi/efi/arch instead of /boot/efi/efi/grub

I finally have the system booting. Now just to fix the "no suitable mode found" error.

shaurz · 2012-01-17 22:20:37

Well it's all working great now :-) Hopefully that will be implemented in the installer the next time I have to do that...

I fixed the other issue by changing these lines in grub.cfg:

function load_video {
  insmod efi_gop
  insmod efi_uga
  insmod video_bochs
  insmod video_cirrus
}

the.ridikulus.rat · 2012-01-18 05:27:53

For loading the proper video modules (i.e. no suitable mode found error) use GRUB_PREFIX= variable. Regenerate grub.cfg using

# GRUB_PREFIX="/boot/efi/efi/grub" grub-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/efi/grub/grub.cfg

Note: GRUB_PREFIX variable is present only in the recently updated extra/grub2-common 1:1.99-6 package, not before that.

Last edited by the.ridikulus.rat (2012-01-18 05:29:03)

Arch Linux

#1 2012-01-17 00:40:15

[SOLVED] Installing GRUB2 on EFI system -- HELP!

#2 2012-01-17 01:54:51

Re: [SOLVED] Installing GRUB2 on EFI system -- HELP!

#3 2012-01-17 02:54:46

Re: [SOLVED] Installing GRUB2 on EFI system -- HELP!

#4 2012-01-17 16:09:00

Re: [SOLVED] Installing GRUB2 on EFI system -- HELP!

#5 2012-01-17 19:21:11

Re: [SOLVED] Installing GRUB2 on EFI system -- HELP!

#6 2012-01-17 22:20:37

Re: [SOLVED] Installing GRUB2 on EFI system -- HELP!

#7 2012-01-18 05:27:53

Re: [SOLVED] Installing GRUB2 on EFI system -- HELP!

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