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#1 2012-02-12 21:51:25

badhat
Member
Registered: 2011-01-30
Posts: 112

[SOLVED] Burg EFI/GPT installation

I'm trying to set up a GPT installation using my system's UEFI firmware. I have no issues setting this up using gdisk (created a 400MB boot partition formatted as FAT) and proceeding through the rest of the Arch installation, but at the end I need to skip Grub installation so I can install Grub2 or Burg instead. I like the appearance of Burg, so I am trying to use that:

I chroot from a live USB by following the wiki and doing

#mkdir /mnt/arch
#mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/arch
#cd /mnt/arch
#mount -t proc proc proc/
#mount -t sysfs sys sys/
#mount -o bind /dev dev/
#mount /dev/sda1 boot/

I then install "burg-efi-x86_64-bzr" from the AUR. Installation succeeds, but then the problems occur. I can run

#burg-install --root-directory=/boot/efi --no-floppy --recheck

and this outputs "Installation finished. No error reported." And it shows my device map as "/boot/efi/boot/burg/device.map" with (hd0) /dev/sda which is correct!

It then asks me to run

#burg-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/efi/burg/burg.cfg

but I already know that this directory doesn't exist. All I can find is "/boot/efi/boot/burg/burg.efi"

Is there supposed to be a .cfg file somewhere? If I run the command as is, it will tell me there is no such file and I won't be able to boot!

Last edited by badhat (2012-02-14 17:20:33)

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#2 2012-02-12 23:47:34

cfr
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From: Cymru
Registered: 2011-11-27
Posts: 7,131

Re: [SOLVED] Burg EFI/GPT installation

Do you have an EFI partition? It should be mounted at /boot/efi. You seem to have one for /boot which is OK though not necessary, but not for EFI which I believe is required.

Edit: Note that I don't use burg but I'm assuming this bit is standard for any EFI boot.

Last edited by cfr (2012-02-12 23:48:12)


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#3 2012-02-13 02:56:22

badhat
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Registered: 2011-01-30
Posts: 112

Re: [SOLVED] Burg EFI/GPT installation

I have a feeling that I'm missing a lot of information about EFI. I'm going to read up from this source and post back when I figure it out. Thanks.

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#4 2012-02-14 01:03:13

cfr
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From: Cymru
Registered: 2011-11-27
Posts: 7,131

Re: [SOLVED] Burg EFI/GPT installation

Read https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UE … _Partition. It tells you what you need to do partitionwise for both MBR and GPT partitioned disk.

I'm a bit alarmed by the fact that it now says the EFI partition must be at least 400M. When I created mine a couple of months ago, it suggested about half that and so mine is only 200M!

I'm pretty sure that this is the step you're missing.

Last edited by cfr (2012-02-14 01:04:07)


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#5 2012-02-14 03:49:16

badhat
Member
Registered: 2011-01-30
Posts: 112

Re: [SOLVED] Burg EFI/GPT installation

I'm pretty sure that this is the step you're missing.

Na, I set it up using gdisk as I stated in my first post (with the correct type code and FAT32 (mine is 400MB). I wouldn't be alarmed as most people have actually suggested sizes of around 150MB that I've seen in other articles (though some were written for EFI 1.x). I still haven't figured this out, though. I have the EFI SYSTEM PARTITION mounted at /boot/efi and I need grub (read: burg) to install itself to /boot/efi/EFI/burg, but it just does not want to do this.

Also, I'm doing this through a chroot so I'm not able to run "efibootmgr" to tell EFI which .efi file to use (I'd want to use the x64 grub .efi). I think that installing the EFI version of grub/ efibootmgr installs a default .efi to /boot/efi/EFI/boot on it's own. I just have to tell it that the grub bootloader exists. The way I'm doing that (the first time... again, this is a chroot install with no MBR or bios boot partition) is by putting a startup.nsh in "/boot/efi" that contains the following:

fs0:\EFI\burg\burg.efi

but this isn't found. When I boot, the Grub prompt appears but then nothing loads and a strange symbol appears (it kind of looks like a "c" with a tail. I have no idea what is going on. Can anyone that has successfully made this work chime in? I'd like to know how they did it step-by-step.

I'm utterly lost. I really just want to be able to have >4 primary partitions on a single 2TB drive with UEFI/GPT scheme, Arch x64, FreeBSD x64, Windows 7 x64, and all of the being booted by the Grub2 bootloader called "Burg" (it is a very pretty fork of Grub2).

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#6 2012-02-14 07:03:54

mikesd
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From: Australia
Registered: 2008-02-01
Posts: 788
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Burg EFI/GPT installation

I recently set up my new netbook to boot using uefi mainly using the information at http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/index.html.

Based on the information at that site I went with ELILO for the boot loader. I created a 128M ESP formatted with FAT32 and I am using about 13% of that.

Because I was also installing in BIOS mode efibootmgr wasn't an option so I installed elilo-3.14-x86_64.efi as /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI UEFI will execute that file automatically.

One issue with ELILO is that it doesn't have file system drivers so the kernel and initramfs files need to be copied to the ESP so that ELILO can find them. I'm going to use a script called from /etc/rc.local.shutdown to keep the kernel and intramfs in /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/ in sync with the kernel and initramfs in /boot/ where Arch Linux installs them. GRUB might not have that limitation though I haven't used GRUB in ages and don't know much about the current state of what it does and doesn't support.

Once you have booted you could then use efibootmgr to make a custom Arch Linux entry though I haven't bothered. My netbook only runs Arch Linux. smile

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#7 2012-02-14 13:28:28

badhat
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Registered: 2011-01-30
Posts: 112

Re: [SOLVED] Burg EFI/GPT installation

I will try to set it up with ELILO and chainload to the other bootloaders for FreeBSD and Windows.

Thanks

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#8 2012-02-14 13:37:13

the.ridikulus.rat
Member
From: Indiana, USA
Registered: 2011-10-04
Posts: 765

Re: [SOLVED] Burg EFI/GPT installation

cfr wrote:

I'm a bit alarmed by the fact that it now says the EFI partition must be at least 400M. When I created mine a couple of months ago, it suggested about half that and so mine is only 200M!

Yeah. I changed that. I was thinking between 400 MiB to 512 MiB. Of all the UEFI bootloaders (yeah grub2 is not the only one), only grub2 does not require the kernel and initramfs files withint the same partition. The other bootloaders require the kernel and initramfs files to be within the same partition (like syslinux) (in case of UEFI, it is obviously the UEFISYS part). I changed this because some user might try (for the first time) UEFI boot, while copying the kernel and initramfs file to UEFISYS part and then complain that the manual did not specify that UEFISYS have enough space for these files and I am unable to boot with <your choice> bootloader due to lack of space.

It is also my plan to implement the other UEFI bootloaders in Archboot (in that I have increased the size to 512 MiB), the most interesting being http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/g … 58370a8d27 . Also the UEFI/GPT/GRUB2 Archwiki pages are not complete (because grub2 and UEFI is WIP). Since UEFI is just coming up and maybe with Windows 8 launch we might encounter the real dual-boot issues. GRUB2 is WIP (upstream) and so that arctile will also change from time to time.

Last edited by the.ridikulus.rat (2012-02-14 13:39:41)

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#9 2012-02-14 13:43:15

the.ridikulus.rat
Member
From: Indiana, USA
Registered: 2011-10-04
Posts: 765

Re: [SOLVED] Burg EFI/GPT installation

badhat wrote:

It then asks me to run

#burg-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/efi/burg/burg.cfg

but I already know that this directory doesn't exist. All I can find is "/boot/efi/boot/burg/burg.efi"

Is there supposed to be a .cfg file somewhere? If I run the command as is, it will tell me there is no such file and I won't be able to boot!

My bad. I will change that. I maintain that package in AUR but do not use burg. I use grub2-efi-bzr. I just created it so that people do not feel <OH MY FAVOURITE EYE CANDY> (not aimed at you) bootloader does not have efi support.

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#10 2012-02-14 13:47:45

the.ridikulus.rat
Member
From: Indiana, USA
Registered: 2011-10-04
Posts: 765

Re: [SOLVED] Burg EFI/GPT installation

badhat wrote:

I'm utterly lost. I really just want to be able to have >4 primary partitions on a single 2TB drive with UEFI/GPT scheme, Arch x64, FreeBSD x64, Windows 7 x64, and all of the being booted by the Grub2 bootloader called "Burg" (it is a very pretty fork of Grub2).

burg-install seems to have been hardcoded to use <root-directory>/boot/burg and not <root-directory>/EFI/burg . And burg may be a "pretty" fork of grub2, but grub2 is technically and feature-wise far superior to burg (especially grub2 1.99 and later releases). Personally I don't care about eye candy for the 5 seconds I (hardly) spend at the boot menu. For UEFI I recommend choosing technicality over prettiness.

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#11 2012-02-14 13:50:19

the.ridikulus.rat
Member
From: Indiana, USA
Registered: 2011-10-04
Posts: 765

Re: [SOLVED] Burg EFI/GPT installation

mikesd wrote:

One issue with ELILO is that it doesn't have file system drivers so the kernel and initramfs files need to be copied to the ESP so that ELILO can find them. I'm going to use a script called from /etc/rc.local.shutdown to keep the kernel and intramfs in /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/ in sync with the kernel and initramfs in /boot/ where Arch Linux installs them.

Exactly the reason why I increased the UEFISYS part size in the wiki arcticle.

GRUB might not have that limitation though I haven't used GRUB in ages and don't know much about the current state of what it does and doesn't support.

No, it doesn't have this limitation. Currently it is the most featured UEFI bootloaders (but certainly not simplistic, if you are looking for one)

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#12 2012-02-14 13:58:17

mikesd
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-02-01
Posts: 788
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Burg EFI/GPT installation

badhat wrote:

I will try to set it up with ELILO and chainload to the other bootloaders for FreeBSD and Windows.

Thanks

I don't think ELILO supports chainloading. I like it because it is simple but as the.ridikulus.rat pointed out GRUB2 seems to be more feature complete. For example I haven't got ELILO's menu working yet. If you need chainloading you may be stuck with GRUB2.

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#13 2012-02-14 17:20:07

badhat
Member
Registered: 2011-01-30
Posts: 112

Re: [SOLVED] Burg EFI/GPT installation

And burg may be a "pretty" fork of grub2, but grub2 is technically and feature-wise far superior to burg (especially grub2 1.99 and later releases). Personally I don't care about eye candy for the 5 seconds I (hardly) spend at the boot menu. For UEFI I recommend choosing technicality over prettiness.

Too bad for me, I guess. I'll take a look into Grub2 in that case-- the most important part for me is that I can use a single bootloader (and chainload to the Windows bootloader) for my 3+ OS's. I'll definitely miss the pretty factor, but you're right in that it should come second. It's not like I'm using a bootsplash either ha.

Thanks for the help. I am going to mark this thread as "SOLVED" with the new information:

burg-install seems to have been hardcoded to use <root-directory>/boot/burg and not <root-directory>/EFI/burg

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#14 2012-02-15 00:09:46

cfr
Member
From: Cymru
Registered: 2011-11-27
Posts: 7,131

Re: [SOLVED] Burg EFI/GPT installation

badhat wrote:

Na, I set it up using gdisk as I stated in my first post (with the correct type code and FAT32 (mine is 400MB).

Oops. Sorry, missed that. (Was concentrating on the listing beneath it...)


CLI Paste | How To Ask Questions

Arch Linux | x86_64 | GPT | EFI boot | refind | stub loader | systemd | LVM2 on LUKS
Lenovo x270 | Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7200U CPU @ 2.50GHz | Intel Wireless 8265/8275 | US keyboard w/ Euro | 512G NVMe INTEL SSDPEKKF512G7L

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