Arch Linux

Snoop05

Member

Registered: 2014-10-29

Posts: 15

32-bit BIOS installation to UEFI

I have installed 32bit Arch Linux in BIOS mode on T61 laptop. I plan to install Clover for EFI support (because its better than messing with syslinux and windows dualbooting). So i've made bootable 32-bit (ia32) clover usb. I cant boot my existing kernel from shell and arch iso have no ia32 efi loader. How to make my existing 32bit kernel EFISTUB bootable?

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 8,778

Website

Re: 32-bit BIOS installation to UEFI

The current 32-bit Arch kernel *is* EFI_STUB bootable.

Check for yourself:

zgrep EFI_STUB /proc/config.gz

i've made bootable 32-bit (ia32) clover usb

What is this?

You can just create an EFI system partition (if you do not already have one from your Windows installation) and move /boot over to it and install & configure a UEFI boot{loader,manager} instead to boot your Arch system in UEFI mode natively.

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Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

Snoop05

Member

Registered: 2014-10-29

Posts: 15

Re: 32-bit BIOS installation to UEFI

I have kernel and ramdisk on FAT32 partition but uefi shell refuse to execute vmlinuz-linux.efi

EDIT: Clover is bootloader forked from rEFIt, and DUET. It makes BIOS systems boot UEFI. T61 is bios only, thats why i use Clover.

Last edited by Snoop05 (2015-09-20 13:52:54)

ukhippo

Member

From: Non-paged pool

Registered: 2014-02-21

Posts: 366

Re: 32-bit BIOS installation to UEFI

Have you read https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/EFISTUB

Saying “refuses to execute” is a bit like saying “my car won't move”. You need to provide more information. At a minimum the command line used and the resulting error message.

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,606

Re: 32-bit BIOS installation to UEFI

Is your EFI 32bit or 64bit? If it's 64bit, you won't be able to boot a 32bit kernel using the stub. You'll need to use a bootloader, either the monster that is grub2 or syslinux.

That said, I haven't managed to boot a 32bit kernel even on a 32bit EFI machine. Not kidding with that. Using a 32bit EFI syslinux, I could only boot a 64bit kernel. Unfortunately I don't have access to that machine anymore to further play around with this.

PS. rEFIt isn't a bootloader, it's a boot manager. It simply launches efi applications. The stub makes the kernel into an efi application. Which means that when you can't use the stub, a manager won't do the trick. If Clover is a fork of rEFIt, it's probably also just a manager.

Snoop05

Member

Registered: 2014-10-29

Posts: 15

Re: 32-bit BIOS installation to UEFI

Clover is like rEFIt on top of DUET. I boots 32-bit Windows EFI just fine, so problem is definetly with kernel.

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,606

Re: 32-bit BIOS installation to UEFI

Windows uses a bootloader, Clover highly likely simply launches that. It's how rEFIt and gummiboot work, they recognize Microsoft's bootloader and automatically create a menu entry to launch it.