Arch Linux

Linux2Brain

Member

Registered: 2018-03-05

Posts: 23

EFI variables not supported on EFI system

Hi,
I'm trying to reinstall arch linux on my Dell XPS  15 (2014). Until one year ago, this was working perfectly fine, but with the current image efivars doesn't seem to exist anymore....
Let's go into details:

* BIOS/Firmware is set to EFI, not legacy
* SSD has GPT Layout and hasn't been changed since 4 years (EFI partition, etc)
* Install image is 2019.09.01-x86_64.iso

Following the installation guide of the wiki a

 ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars 

returns

 No such file or directory

and consequently a

 modprobe efivars 

returns

 module efivars not found in directory /lib/modules/5.2.11-arch1-1-ARCH

BUT: If I do a

 modprobe efivarfs

in non-chroot environment, there is no error. Going into chroot grub-install with EFI params fails with a

EFI variables are not supported on this system

I had a perfectly fine arch linux running until yesterday, EFI system was working and running fine.
I mount my EFI partition (sda1) to /efi inside chroot-env and do a

 grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=efi --bootloader-id=GRUB 

according to the wiki. This returns a

EFI variables are not supported on this system. grub-install: error: efibootmgr failed to register the boot entry: No such file or directory

How can I resolve this ?

Principally the old efi entry still exists, but I need grub to write the bootloader.
How can I achieve this ?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,096

Re: EFI variables not supported on EFI system

Double check to ensure that you are not booting BIOS mode. This is firmware level you probably aren't booting the correct image. (Simple check, did you get the fancy syslinux boot loader with the Arch logo and everything or the plain dark background systemd-boot bootloader?)

Linux2Brain

Member

Registered: 2018-03-05

Posts: 23

Re: EFI variables not supported on EFI system

Hi,

I'm sure I'm booting in UEFI mode and I get the boot screen with the fancy arch logo and it says (x86_64).

If I do a

 mount -t efivarfs efivarfs /sys/firmware/efi/efivars 

in non-chroot env I get

 mount point does not exist

If this is not the right image, how can I boot the efi image manually ?

ADD: I HAVE to boot with secure boot disabled, otherwise my system won't find the usb stick.Could this be an issue ?

Last edited by Linux2Brain (2019-09-29 10:09:52)

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 13,400

Re: EFI variables not supported on EFI system

Upon starting , access the boot menu of your firmware.

You'll see multiple options then, look for an efi executable residing on the device you have the image on.
Select that and it should boot to systemd-boot / efi environment.

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

Linux2Brain

Member

Registered: 2018-03-05

Posts: 23

Re: EFI variables not supported on EFI system

Thank you,
I didn't expect the stick to boot in legacy mode if UEFI is set in BIOS/Firmware. Grub-install finished successfully, but I still can't boot, just get a black screen...I'll report back.

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 13,400

Re: EFI variables not supported on EFI system

I didn't expect the stick to boot in legacy mode if UEFI is set in BIOS/Firmware

There are uefi implementations that appear to use some kind of autodetection to determine whether to boot efi or bios mode.

I've had similar issue with an asrock motherboard last year.
It detected archiso is an MBR partitoned disk and booted to bios mode.
Another live image for "pure EFI systems" that used gpt booted to efi.

Disabling CSM in the firmware forced the system to boot to efi with arch install disk.
It has worked fine for over a year since then.

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

thadguidry

Member

Registered: 2023-05-02

Posts: 1

Re: EFI variables not supported on EFI system

One thing that I was doing wrong was creating the USB bootable image on my USB stick incorrectly.
I eventually used Rufus program to write the ArchLinux iso image to the USB drive with the setting of

Partition scheme= GPT  and Target System= UEFI (non-CSM) and also using File system= Large FAT32 and Cluster size= 32 kilobytes

After booting the USB stick and following ArchLinux installation guide and using the efibootmgr command (or grub-install) I no longer had the error messages about EFI variables not supported on this system.