[SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

freshscaped · 2015-09-06 10:39:00

Standard PC with mobo ASRock FM2 A55M-DGS - FM2 - A55 FCH - 2DDR3 2400 -7000 series graphics (so it says on the receipt, dated 23/04/2013, since when it has been running ScientificLinux-6.*). Pressing F11 before the OS kicks in on startup gives a menu "AS Rock UEFI Setup Utility" and the first item in what appears to be a list of boot options is "UEFI: Built-in UEFI Shell".

However, when I boot into the Arch live-USB, August 2015 edition (yes, I've been trying for a couple of weeks or more) and run efivar -l it tells me
efivar: error listing variables: function not implemented

zgrep CONFIG_EFI returns:
CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION=y
CONFIG_EFI=y
CONFIG_EFI_STUB=y
CONFIG_EFI_MIXED=y
# CONFIG_EFI_VARS is not set
CONFIG_EFI_RUNTIME_MAPI=y
CONFIG_EFI_RUNTIME_WRAPPERS=y
CONFIG_EFI_FS=y

I did get a bit further using the wiki beginner and installation guides, plus various links from those pages, using "parted" to find out that sda1 has most of the HDD and sda2 has about 360MiB.

The question is what steps to take next? I really want to get Arch up and running and am fully capable of maintaining it once done. Getting that far is looking to be another matter altogether at this point in time in spite of much reading of the wiki and other relevant material. I can't even work out if any changes I make should be carried out on the boot medium, i.e. the dual ISO prior to loading it onto the USB stick, in the machine's BIOS.

Last edited by freshscaped (2015-09-08 16:55:23)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-09-06 11:35:14

Make sure that UEFI is enabled and that "CSM" or "Legacy" mode is disabled to ensure that the live ISO boots in UEFI mode.

Check that it is booted in UEFI by using:

[ -d /sys/firmware/efi ] && echo UEFI || echo not UEFI

freshscaped wrote:

using "parted" to find out that sda1 has most of the HDD and sda2 has about 360MiB

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57855

Please post the full output of:

# parted -l

You can use a pastebin client to generate a URL that can be posted here.

freshscaped · 2015-09-06 12:05:51

[Make sure that UEFI is enabled and that "CSM" or "Legacy" mode is disabled to ensure that the live ISO boots in UEFI mode.]

I've seen similar instructions around the wiki. Nowhere does it tell us **how** to ensure either. On reboot the iso/USB gives a prompt. The only way forward from there is the wiki and that only if it can be read on another machine. Fortunately I have Arch alive and well on a 32-bit laptop.

Further searches have elicited that the ASRock series 7 mobo offers options other than F11, which I shall try when rebooting to copy the contents of parted -l. It includes "Press F2 or DEL to run UEFI Setup" but I have no idea what I am likely to find in there nor what to do with it.

It also confirms F11 does indeed list boot options.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-09-06 12:15:11

freshscaped wrote:

Nowhere does it tell us **how** to ensure either.

Yeah, that's because the method is different for each motherboard/laptop.

Consult the relevant manual for your hardware -- there will be a key that has to be held down during the boot process to access the firmware options (not just the boot menu); some use F2, some use F9, some use F7, some use a dedicated key, ad nauseum.

Most machines will display a message during startup telling the user which key to press.

freshscaped · 2015-09-06 15:05:49

Still trying to get a handle on UEFI, all the references mention Intel, never AMD. The processor on this machine is an AMD AS X4 5600K 3.6GHZ - 4MB cache - HD 7560D. Does this make a difference or should I carry on?

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-09-06 16:32:18

freshscaped wrote:

The processor on this machine is an AMD AS X4 5600K 3.6GHZ - 4MB cache - HD 7560D. Does this make a difference

No.

Read this: https://www.happyassassin.net/2014/01/2 … work-then/

freshscaped · 2015-09-06 18:02:15

Thanks for the reading matter. Very enlightening.

[ -d /sys/firmware/efi ] && echo UEFI || echo not UEFI elicits echo not UEFI

parted -l gives out:
Model: ATA WDC WD3200AVJ3-6 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda 320GB
Sector size (logical/physical: 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Type Filesystem Flags
1 1049kB 524MB Primary ext4 boot
2 525MB 3320GB Primary lvm

Model: ADATA USB Flash Drive (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 7775MB
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

(same headings as above except added size)
2 129kB 32.6MB size:32.5MB Primary fat16 esp

So it looks like the old BIOS emulation by UEFI. Can I therefore partition sda for MBR and install Arch now or is there more to do?

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-09-06 18:13:53

Well, you can install in non-EFI mode if you wish but you should be able to boot & install in EFI mode if you can find the option to disable "CSM"/"Legacy" mode in your firmware menus.

freshscaped · 2015-09-06 18:21:24

Thanks Head_on_a_Stick but (a) will it make any difference with a single OS? and (b) I couldn't find any actual configuration options when sniffing around the UEFI firmware stuff a short while ago. I could try again though.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-09-06 18:23:07

freshscaped wrote:

will it make any difference with a single OS?

Not that I have noticed.

freshscaped · 2015-09-06 19:17:37

Well, this is fun. Went back into UEFI (hit F2 on reboot) and changed a couple of things which looked innocuous. Went on to the live USB and did efivar -l again. A very rapid stream of text raced up the screen for a couple of seconds or so. Looks like a huge number of HDD addresses - last one is d599d26f-1a11-94b8-b91f-858745cff824-StdDefaults.

So I tried zgrep CONFIG_EFI about ten minutes ago, maybe more, and the screen has been hanging with the cursor flickering at the start of a new line since.

What next? Reboot with three finger salute and see if I can reset factory defaults? Or maybe see if it will still boot into SL6?

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-09-06 19:23:19

freshscaped wrote:

did efivar -l again. A very rapid stream of text raced up the screen for a couple of seconds or so. Looks like a huge number of HDD addresses - last one is d599d26f-1a11-94b8-b91f-858745cff824-StdDefaults.

Congratulations, you are booted in UEFI mode

freshscaped wrote:

So I tried zgrep CONFIG_EFI about ten minutes ago, maybe more, and the screen has been hanging with the cursor flickering at the start of a new line since.

Yeah, my system does that too -- <Ctrl>+c returns the prompt.

I think you want:

zcat /proc/config.gz|grep CONFIG_EFI

EDIT: Sorry, I mean:

zgrep CONFIG_EFI /proc/config.gz

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2015-09-06 19:24:52)

freshscaped · 2015-09-06 19:34:16

Ha - rebooted and tried to get back to factory defaults - couldn't find anything and wasn't aware of changing any settings but it's now back to no UEFI set mode. I'll give it one more try then will be loading whichever the loader detects! zgrep CONFIG_EFI /proc/config.gz gives the same as zgrep CONFIG_EFI did in my first post above.

freshscaped · 2015-09-06 19:43:27

Wierd! Got the stream of addresses again but the command (as before) /proc/config.gz still gives the same error line # CONFIG_EFI_VARS is not set. I's like to work with a functioning machine but am now unsure whether to configure as UEFI or BIOS.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-09-06 19:47:42

freshscaped wrote:

the command (as before) /proc/config.gz still gives the same error line # CONFIG_EFI_VARS is not set.

You seem to be a bit confused as to what that command is actually telling you.

It reports the current kernel configuration and will not change until you install an updated kernel (and probably not even then).

The current Arch kernel supports EFI booting, EFI_STUB booting and EFI booting with mixed bitness.

freshscaped · 2015-09-06 19:50:39

You are of course correct again Head_on_a_Stick. That was totally over my head until you just explained it. So now I'll go ahead and install with UEFI normal. Normal? What am I saying??!!

freshscaped · 2015-09-06 22:58:12

All to no avail. I made a mistake when first formatting the root (fat32) partition and have not managed to recover after several attempts to clean and start again. My old OS is destroyed and I can see no way of getting Arch installed. Dammit! Starting the working week without a working PC. No fun at all.

The big signal is ERROR: Failed to install packages to new root

(Constructive) ideas welcome.

<Edit> Found a very old SL6 install disc so loading that to persuade the Arch install to believe its original setup does not exist. Why oh why do the originators assume that we could not possibly make a mistake which requires us to write over what we did earlier within their "infallible" setups?</Edit>

Last edited by freshscaped (2015-09-06 23:10:05)

Scimmia · 2015-09-06 23:51:20

Your root partition should not be fat32. That will never work right.

freshscaped · 2015-09-07 11:35:53

Thanks <edit: Scimmia, sorry /> Bug Wrangler. I had mounted the root partition on the boot partition. Took me a while to work it out because it was a simple typo, typed a 1 instead of a 2 in /dev/sda2. Fortunately parted can destroy patitions as well as create them so I re-set the whole thing up and now have an Arch system which boots on the PC. No network yet so can't update or install anything but that's for another thread if I fail to work it out for myself. It's been several years since I touched any of this stuff.

Last edited by freshscaped (2015-09-07 14:01:30)

Arch Linux

#1 2015-09-06 10:39:00

[SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#2 2015-09-06 11:35:14

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#3 2015-09-06 12:05:51

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#4 2015-09-06 12:15:11

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#5 2015-09-06 15:05:49

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#6 2015-09-06 16:32:18

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#7 2015-09-06 18:02:15

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#8 2015-09-06 18:13:53

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#9 2015-09-06 18:21:24

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#10 2015-09-06 18:23:07

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#11 2015-09-06 19:17:37

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#12 2015-09-06 19:23:19

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#13 2015-09-06 19:34:16

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#14 2015-09-06 19:43:27

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#15 2015-09-06 19:47:42

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#16 2015-09-06 19:50:39

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#17 2015-09-06 22:58:12

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#18 2015-09-06 23:51:20

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

#19 2015-09-07 11:35:53

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI Problems With 64-bit Machine

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