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#1 2008-10-06 22:54:26

alphasix
Member
Registered: 2008-10-06
Posts: 15

Installing on an EFI-system (Asus EEE-PC 1000 H)

Hello everybody,


yeah - i'm a Newbie. I bought a new Asus EEE-PC 1000 H. And I thought, it would be great having Archlinux on it. So I downloaded the img-file, put it on an USB pendrive using the windows-port of "dd". Everything worked well during the installation. After I finished it, I rebooted the netbook. But instead of loading GRUB, it showed the following Error-Message:

"Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key"

After using google I found out, that GRUB doesn't work with EFI-systems. On the EEE-PC is a partition with an EFI-FS (displayed in cfdisk). In addition to that you can update your BIOS using the Internet. So I would say the chance is "good", that it IS an EVI-system. But every hint I found was related to Apple-Systems.

I.E. why does GRUB work in combination with EFI on the USB pendrive (it does actually boot the setup)? Is there an alternative bootloader, which does work on EEE-PCs? Can I install it onto the Arch installation or do I have to change something at the configuration?

Thanks a lot for your answers (if it's not a comment like "Why are you so damn stupid! Use another OS or buy a new PC!")


Yours,
Alpha

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#2 2008-10-06 23:02:49

Misfit138
Misfit Emeritus
From: USA
Registered: 2006-11-27
Posts: 4,189

Re: Installing on an EFI-system (Asus EEE-PC 1000 H)

I don't have a EEE, but there is lots of information on the wiki.
Start here: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ins … sus_EEE_PC

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#3 2008-10-06 23:10:28

alphasix
Member
Registered: 2008-10-06
Posts: 15

Re: Installing on an EFI-system (Asus EEE-PC 1000 H)

ok. one addition: WITHOUT wiping out everything ;-). of course thats a solution: kill efi! but the sad thing is, that I have to run programs on windows. the hardware is very slow, so using a vm is not very clever.

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#4 2008-10-06 23:46:26

kjon
Member
From: Temuco, Chile
Registered: 2008-04-16
Posts: 398

Re: Installing on an EFI-system (Asus EEE-PC 1000 H)

why not? I've got a eee 900, with 2 gb ram. I run vbox and vmware flawlessly on my poor 900 Mhz celeron.
It runs flawlesly any kind of virtual machine.

(Of course, is strongly recommended to get an external hdd in order to store the vmdk's)


They say that if you play a Win cd backward you hear satanic messages. That's nothing! 'cause if you play it forwards, it installs windows.

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#5 2008-12-01 14:49:11

alphasix
Member
Registered: 2008-10-06
Posts: 15

Re: Installing on an EFI-system (Asus EEE-PC 1000 H)

It does work by the way: The MBR isn't working but you simply have to give the bootflag to the GRUB-partition (which has to be a primary one). And you have to take care that GRUB doesn't give Windows the flag when you choose Win (Menu.lst).

Thanks

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#6 2008-12-01 15:10:17

kishd
Member
Registered: 2006-06-14
Posts: 401

Re: Installing on an EFI-system (Asus EEE-PC 1000 H)

The EFI partition on the Eee PC is just there to enable the boot booster option in the bios. This saves about 5s during booting and does work with archlinux.


---for there is nothing either good or bad, but only thinking makes it so....
Hamlet, W Shakespeare

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#7 2010-05-24 22:44:46

arvati
Member
Registered: 2010-05-24
Posts: 1

Re: Installing on an EFI-system (Asus EEE-PC 1000 H)

I'm using eeepc with dualboot windows and ubuntu and  with grub4dos.

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#8 2010-05-25 03:45:49

whacath
Member
Registered: 2009-05-26
Posts: 283

Re: Installing on an EFI-system (Asus EEE-PC 1000 H)

Quoting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible … _Interface

# Linux has been able to use EFI at boot time since early 2000, using the elilo EFI boot loader or, more recently, EFI versions of GRUB.[14]

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#9 2011-01-11 03:43:56

dlin
Member
From: Taipei,Taiwan
Registered: 2005-09-21
Posts: 265

Re: Installing on an EFI-system (Asus EEE-PC 1000 H)

kishd wrote:

The EFI partition on the Eee PC is just there to enable the boot booster option in the bios. This saves about 5s during booting and does work with archlinux.

I've a EEE pc s101, but I don't know how to use EFI with archlinux to boost archlinux, could you tell me the hint?


Running 4 ArchLinux including sh4twbox,server,notebook,desktop. my AUR packages

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#10 2011-01-11 06:56:47

Daniel_F
Member
From: Brazil
Registered: 2010-12-28
Posts: 69

Re: Installing on an EFI-system (Asus EEE-PC 1000 H)

The eeePC is NOT an EFI system.  Those are basically Apple Macs and some servers.

The "EFI" partition has nothing to do with the Extensible Firmware Interface. It just reuses the EFI partition id. and is used by the "Boot Booster" functionality.

If you are having trouble installing you could try disabling Boot Booster in the bios and try installing again. But, judging by your error it seems GRUB was not installed correctly.

On the harddrive that comes with the Eeepc there are four partitions by default :

fdisk -l 
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd80c1c68

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1       10659    85618386    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2           10660       18814    65505037+   5  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3           18815       19452     5124735   1c  Hidden W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda4           19453       19457       40162+  ef  EFI (FAT-12/16/32)

The first two are respectively system and data, the third partition is a hidden partition used for system restores, and the last partition is a 50MB partition that the Eeepc BIOS uses to store some data to abreviate the POST of your netbook.

To meet the quick boot goal keep the fourth partition. Those 50 megabytes saves about ~5 seconds of boot time. Provided you're using the HDD that comes with your eeepc, all that needs to be done in order to keep the quick post working after you wipe is to leave partition 4 alone.

If you delete the EFI partition by mistake, you can restore Boot Booster by creating a 50MB primary partition at the end of your hard drive. Label it as EFI (0xef) from within fdisk. The contents of the partition are not important as it is only a caching area for the BIOS.


@alphasix: if you still have problems, please post the output of:

sudo fdisk -l

and the contents of your GRUB's  menu.lst


EDIT: if your eeepc came with Windows 7 the partition layout may be a bit different from the one above (you may have a 1st small win7 ~100MB recovery partition), but the idea still applies.

Last edited by Daniel_F (2011-01-11 07:01:26)

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#11 2011-03-27 08:37:34

dlin
Member
From: Taipei,Taiwan
Registered: 2005-09-21
Posts: 265

Re: Installing on an EFI-system (Asus EEE-PC 1000 H)

Daniel_F wrote:

The eeePC is NOT an EFI system.  Those are basically Apple Macs and some servers.

The "EFI" partition has nothing to do with the Extensible Firmware Interface. It just reuses the EFI partition id. and is used by the "Boot Booster" functionality.
...

I use SD card to install ArchLinux.  But, it can not use BIOS boost because seems BIOS skip to detect SD card.
I'm wonder how to boost archlinux on EEEPC?
My  ssd disk only put Windows XP + EFI partition.


Running 4 ArchLinux including sh4twbox,server,notebook,desktop. my AUR packages

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