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#1 2013-03-16 18:26:15

zmb
Member
Registered: 2013-03-16
Posts: 5

32 bit UEFI only laptop problems (HP Envy X2)

My apologies for yet another UEFI topic...but I couldn't find much information about laptops that are both 32 bit and UEFI only.  My whatever-you-call-what-you-would-call-the-BIOS does not have "legacy"/BIOS support; I'm stuck with UEFI.  All the info about UEFI on the arch wiki is focused on 64 bit machines, which, while sensible, doesn't really help me.  I've tried to adapt the instructions to 32 bit, but I'm not having much luck.

So far I have tried to use reFINd and GRUB 2, and I've tried to install Arch, Ubuntu, and Fedora.  I don't care about dualbooting at all, and I would prefer Arch - I'm typing this on my Arch desktop.  I've been able to boot succesfully into reFINd v 0.6.7 and a GRUB 2 v 1.99 compiled by myself as 32 bit with EFI support, but not actually launch any kernel successfully.  I can boot into an EFI v2 shell and copy stuff over to my actual hard drive's fs0 partition if necessary.  Currently, I have reFINd and Arch extracted onto a USB stick, whose details are as follows:

Volume name: ARCH_201303
File System info (gparted): fat32, 29.08 GiB

I mounted the offical arch iso (archlinux-2013.03.01-dual.iso) and copied it over to the USB stick, so at the top level it has arch/, efi/, isolinux/, and loader/.
I installed reFINd 0.6.7 in efi/refind/; it has drivers for ia_32 and x86_64, icons, a refind.conf, and refind_ia32.efi and refind_x64.efi

My refind.conf's archlinux section looks like this, modified from the conf at the UEFI page:

default_selection "Arch Linux Archiso UEFI USB"

menuentry "Arch Linux Archiso UEFI USB" {
  loader /arch/boot/i686/vmlinuz
  initrd /arch/boot/i686/archiso.img
  ostype Arch
  graphics off
  options "archisobasedir=arch archisolabel=ARCH_201303 add_efi_memmap"
}

Other than that, it is the sample refind configuration (I can post more details if necessary).  I've also tried with and without nomodeset as an option without any change.

My laptop allows you to select an EFI file to boot from, so I navigate to ARCH_201303/efi/refind/refind_ia32.efi and boot.  I get the nice looking reFINd boot selection screen and select the Arch entry that I defined in the conf.  I get a screen that says:

reFINd - Booting OS (in blue across the top)

Starting vmlinuz
Using load options 'archisobasedir=arch archisolabel=ARCH_201303 add_efi_memmap initrd=\arch\boot\i686\archiso.img'
_

And then nothing.  The cursor (_) at the bottom doesn't even blink.  There's no error message to give me anything to go off of.

GRUB2 is much the same way; I can boot into it, but I can't boot a kernel from it.  I've tried using GRUB 2 to boot from an .iso file directly in case I'm screwing something up copying somehow, but it's the same thing - a blank screen with no output, whether I'm booting through an entry in grub.cfg or typing it into the command line myself.  I can post my grub.cfg if necessary.  I've tried to compile 32 bit gummiboot, but I couldn't get the gnuefi headers to compile as 32 bit on my 64 bit desktop.  (Admittedly, I didn't try too terribly hard.)

I understand some people were having trouble booting 3.7 kernels on UEFI hardware (this thread), and perhaps that is my problem, but I don't know how to switch out the kernel included in the iso.  I've looked at the Archiso scripts but I'm afraid I don't understand how to change the kernel that gets built in.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I didn't think a 32 bit processor would be a problem (I bought an Atom for battery life, principally), and I didn't even know UEFI existed before this.

Edit - I should also note that I have secure boot disabled.

Edit 2 - Fixed configuration of archisolabel and added a note about nomodeset.

Last edited by zmb (2013-03-16 23:52:06)

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#2 2013-03-16 18:50:44

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: 32 bit UEFI only laptop problems (HP Envy X2)

I have actually never heard of a 32bit uefi machine that is not a MacBook. Even those were only 32bit uefi for just a few years. You may want to do some searching for MacBook specific uefi instructions. The only part that should be different is the macbook's use of the bless command.

I have a white MacBook 2,1 and it was 32bit... so maybe start there. I seem to recall there being relevant instructions in our wiki on those MacBook pages.

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#3 2013-03-16 18:52:06

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

Re: 32 bit UEFI only laptop problems (HP Envy X2)

I am surprised. I thought Microsoft itself did not support 32-bit (U)EFI. Microsoft does not support Windows 7 or Vista in 32-bit (U)EFI. Maybe they relaxed the restriction for Windows 8 for the sake of this CloverTrial Atom processors. Everything you did seems correct. Your rEFInd config is also correct and should work. Can you try adding "nomodeset" to the options line in refind.conf ?

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#4 2013-03-16 19:23:15

zmb
Member
Registered: 2013-03-16
Posts: 5

Re: 32 bit UEFI only laptop problems (HP Envy X2)

WonderWoofy: Thanks for the suggestion, I'll poke around and see what I can find.  A cursory search indicates that most installation guides assume that booting the kernel on a MacBook is easy (with rEFIt) and the hard stuff comes later, but maybe I'll dig something up.

the.ridikulus.rat: Yeah, this laptop came with Windows 8, which I don't want to use for obvious reasons.  It sounds like Microsoft decided to support Intel's 32 bit CPUs to market cheapish tablet-y computers, like what I just bought.

Unfortunately, no luck with nomodeset.  Same behavior.

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#5 2013-03-16 19:50:59

s1ln7m4s7r
Member
Registered: 2013-02-22
Posts: 262

Re: 32 bit UEFI only laptop problems (HP Envy X2)

If you read this page:

http://blog.uvm.edu/jgm/2012/12/21/win8 … hp-envy-x/

you will see under EFI/UEFI topic that it has secureboot and i think that arch kernel still doesn't support it. As i don't know if you disabled it or if it is even possible in your pc/tablet. I leave this comment , just in case it can be usefull to you.

Last edited by s1ln7m4s7r (2013-03-16 19:51:19)

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#6 2013-03-16 20:19:03

jasonwryan
Anarchist
From: .nz
Registered: 2009-05-09
Posts: 30,424
Website

Re: 32 bit UEFI only laptop problems (HP Envy X2)

zmb wrote:

Edit - I should also note that I have secure boot disabled.

zmb: does the UEFI interface have a compatibility module? I was only able to install Arch by selecting UEFI-CMS, not pure UEFI.


Arch + dwm   •   Mercurial repos  •   Surfraw

Registered Linux User #482438

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#7 2013-03-16 20:30:27

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

Re: 32 bit UEFI only laptop problems (HP Envy X2)

s1ln7m4s7r wrote:

If you read this page:

http://blog.uvm.edu/jgm/2012/12/21/win8 … hp-envy-x/

you will see under EFI/UEFI topic that it has secureboot and i think that arch kernel still doesn't support it. As i don't know if you disabled it or if it is even possible in your pc/tablet. I leave this comment , just in case it can be usefull to you.

If he has Secure boot enabled, both rEFInd and grub should not have been loaded successfully. I suspect this is more of a kernel issue rather than a boot-loader one.

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#8 2013-03-16 20:49:48

zmb
Member
Registered: 2013-03-16
Posts: 5

Re: 32 bit UEFI only laptop problems (HP Envy X2)

s1ln7m4s7r: Yeah, the.ridikulus.rat is right - I can boot into bootloaders/managers, I just can't boot the kernel.  I've turned Secure Boot off in the not-quite-BIOS.

jasonwryan: Afraid not.  reFINd tells me the firmware is INDSYDE Corp. 20127.17, and the firmware itself says it's version F.07 if that's helpful for anything.  Oddly, the UEFI Boot Order help talks about "When Legacy Support is enabled", but I can't see where to enable such a thing and believe me, I have looked.  There's really not that many options in my not-quite-BIOS.

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#9 2013-03-16 22:08:51

s1ln7m4s7r
Member
Registered: 2013-02-22
Posts: 262

Re: 32 bit UEFI only laptop problems (HP Envy X2)

the.ridikulus.rat wrote:
s1ln7m4s7r wrote:

If you read this page:

http://blog.uvm.edu/jgm/2012/12/21/win8 … hp-envy-x/

you will see under EFI/UEFI topic that it has secure boot and i think that arch kernel still doesn't support it. As i don't know if you disabled it or if it is even possible in your pc/tablet. I leave this comment , just in case it can be usefull to you.

If he has Secure boot enabled, both rEFInd and grub should not have been loaded successfully. I suspect this is more of a kernel issue rather than a boot-loader one.

Refind from version 0.5.0 has secure boot support implementation. http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/secureboot.html and there is at least one secure boot implementation for grub2 (Matthew Garrett's shim).

But for a system with secure boot enabled there must also be a secure boot implementation for the kernel!!!

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#10 2013-03-16 22:18:20

s1ln7m4s7r
Member
Registered: 2013-02-22
Posts: 262

Re: 32 bit UEFI only laptop problems (HP Envy X2)

I have one more question:

.............
options "archisobasedir=arch archisolabel=ARCH201303 add_efi_memmap"

don't you mean?

.............
options "archisobasedir=arch archisolabel=ARCH_201303 add_efi_memmap"

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#11 2013-03-16 23:48:49

zmb
Member
Registered: 2013-03-16
Posts: 5

Re: 32 bit UEFI only laptop problems (HP Envy X2)

s1ln7m4s7r: On configuration: That was a good catch.  That was not a transcription error; I had that configured incorrectly.  Unfortunately, correcting it produced no change in output other than the correct archisolabel being shown as an option.  (I think I had it right at some point, and if I change the loader or initrd path to be something that doesn't exist I do actually get an error message.  So I think everything is being found, I'm just not sure what it's doing after that.  Appears to be nothing.)

I'll update the first post to have the correct configuration and output.

On secure boot: To test the theory that Secure Boot is the problem, I enabled Secure Boot in my not-quite-BIOS.  Now when I try to launch refind_ia32.efi It gives me an error message: "Selected boot image did not Authenticate.  Press <Enter> to Continue."  So if reFINd is capable of securely booting I must not have it configured correctly and don't really care to do so, since I can just disable it and I'm pretty sure that's not why I can't get the linux kernel to boot.

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#12 2013-03-17 17:16:00

s1ln7m4s7r
Member
Registered: 2013-02-22
Posts: 262

Re: 32 bit UEFI only laptop problems (HP Envy X2)

If you can't make it to work, you can always create a clean install of arch x86 on an usb drive (with another pc or with virtualbox), add uefi support to it with refind (has ia32 an x64 support), boot the usb drive in your hp envy x2 and make a new installation with it using chroot. (You can run your system for the first time by using your uefi option: boot from file)

(I have an usb drive with arch and refind for x86 uefi support, created with, and for virtualbox, that i use to test UEFI related situations)

Last edited by s1ln7m4s7r (2013-03-17 21:11:11)

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#13 2013-03-18 09:49:01

zmb
Member
Registered: 2013-03-16
Posts: 5

Re: 32 bit UEFI only laptop problems (HP Envy X2)

I appreciate the help, but it sounds like even if I could get the kernel to start up it wouldn't be trivial to get the rest of the Clover Trail hardware playing nice with Linux.  So after struggling with it for two weekends I'm going to take the chicken's way out and return the laptop.  I'll do a better job of doing my homework and buy a replacement that doesn't have such a weird configuration.

Thanks again for the suggestions.  Is there anything I should do for the topic title?  The problem isn't really solved, but it's going away, so to speak.

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#14 2013-11-01 11:50:27

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

Re: 32 bit UEFI only laptop problems (HP Envy X2)

zmb wrote:

I appreciate the help, but it sounds like even if I could get the kernel to start up it wouldn't be trivial to get the rest of the Clover Trail hardware playing nice with Linux.  So after struggling with it for two weekends I'm going to take the chicken's way out and return the laptop.  I'll do a better job of doing my homework and buy a replacement that doesn't have such a weird configuration.

Thanks again for the suggestions.  Is there anything I should do for the topic title?  The problem isn't really solved, but it's going away, so to speak.

I read few info about Intel Atom System-on-Chip systems (Clovertrail and Baytrail) and these systems indeed ship only with 32-bit UEFI without BIOS compatibility support. Apart from that it seems like Intel has not released the Atom SoC graphics code and power-saving related code for linux, and officially Intel has stated these systems will not support Linux. Even Baytrail systems which support x86_64 contain only 32-bit UEFI because they ship only with Windows 8/8.1 32-bit (due to Windows 64-bit not supporting "Connected Standby" features, mandated by Microsoft). With 32-bit UEFI and no BIOS compatibilty, even Windows XP/Vista/7 32-bit (no UEFI support) and 64-bit (cannot boot in 32-bit UEFI) cannot be installed in these systems. These systems are truly locked to Windows 8/8.1 32-bit UEFI mode.

However theoretically, it should be possible to boot Linux in Atom SoC using a 32-bit UEFI bootloader (with Secure Boot disabled), with 64-bit kernel (if used, in Baytrail) booting with "noefi" kernel parameter (which instructs kernel not to use EFI runtime services at all) so that the kernel does not panic due to kernel/EFI bitness mismatch. In your case I suppose the 32-bit kernel might boot if we instruct it to not use EFI runtime services. Therefore, as a last resort, can you try to boot using "noefi" kernel parameter?

EDIT: Added this info to https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HC … em-on-Chip .

Last edited by the.ridikulus.rat (2013-11-02 16:24:25)

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