New system planned EFI BIOS involved - first questions

EasterParade · l33t Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 938

Hi all,
want to build a new box socket 1150 soon.
My current box is socket 775 based. I have two hdd: sata1 is Gentoo,
sata2 is Windows 7 64bit. Bootloader is grub2.
The new BIOS is a EFI BIOS; the necessary changes to the system
are still Greek to me.

More important for now are the questions whether or not I can
- keep that kind of dual-boot on two hdd
and
- will have to reinstall my Gentoo system to make way for EFI partition
or
- must separate the two operating systems alltogether

That´ll be all for now; as I said I still struggle with the basics needed to make booting
on a EFI system doable.

It might not be possible to just unplug the Gentoo hdd, reinstall Windows and plug in
my Gentoo hdd again afterwards I suppose? LOL

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

ct85711 · Veteran Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 1791

Well, one thing you are going need to check, is on the Windows 7, is if it's installed in bios or uefi mode. Windows 7 (at least my copy did for sure) defaulted to bios mode on installing, so did not use UEFI at all. I actually had to make a usb windows boot drive, to get the windows installer to boot in uefi to use UEFI. Otherwise it wouldn't use UEFI. The key on UEFI and Bios is that UEFI mode changes from the base partition type in addition to needing additional partitions on windows (windows installer will set up a EFI partition if it doesn't find one on any drive, doesn't matter which drive it's on. The installer will setup the normal data drive and a protected drive, that I don't know what use is for that). Otherwise, Windows and linux is perfectly happy to coexist with each other in UEFI. I know in bios mode the windows installer refused to do anything if it saw linux on anything.

As far as installing Gentoo, you don't need to do much different. The big thing is that you need to use a GPT aware tool (i.e. gparted) to setup your partitions for linux. Also, setting up the boot partition is a little tricky in that grub2 needs the system boot up through UEFI ahead of time, to set it up properly. Do note, the regular gentoo install cd does NOT boot in UEFI. So you need to boot with the systemrescure cd or download a copy of like Fedora or Ubuntu and boot up with that and setup linux through that boot cd.

The Doctor · Moderator Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 2678

Windows is practically guaranteed to panic under these conditions. If you have a license you should be able to reinstall it. If it is a factory install then your license is tied to the hardware and you simply can't, but you might be able to put it in a virtual machine. I'm about a week away from trying to visualize my windows install, so I don't have any more details.

You will need EFI compatible live media, I recommend the system rescue CD. I don't think the minimal install CDs are compatible, but I haven't checked in a while.

As for Gentoo on EFI, it is actually quite painless (this is pure Gentoo with no windows). I would recommend new partitions without any question. If you are planning to buy new disks than this is trivial.

First, use GPT partitions. They are more flexible than the older MBR and required for EFI.
Second, you need a data partition formatted in FAT32. This is basically the equivalent of /boot for the entire computer. About 500 mb should do it.

You should be able to resync (or otherwise transfer) your Gentoo install over. You will need to rebuild your kernel and install a few utilities. There are several approaches that you can use next.

1) no bootloader. EFI includes a boot loader in the bios. In most cases this is the best option.
2) Use rEFInd. It autodetects OSes to boot and is more like a conventional bootloader.
3) use grub. I think this is a rather hacky approach, but apparently it works. The reason I say it is hacky is because there are better tools for the job and it seems to require bending over backwards with configuration to get it to work and it works by mimicking the behavior of an older system. Using grub also requires special partitioning as described in the handbook.

Personally number 1 is my preferred choice. It does not slow down the boot process at all, but the menu can be accessed in the same way that the bios menu would. Namely, this would be by pressing a specific key during boot. For me it is F12. There is a wiki on this with more detailed instructions.

It is important to note that both options 1 require you to build your kernel command line into the kernel. It is possible to pass the options using rEFInd, but that is a bit more complicated so it is easier just to build them into the kernel.

Okay, now for the slightly more complex case of dual booting with windows. If you install windows in EFI mode it should create the FAT32 partition. In this cause you would basically just want to use options 1 or 2 from above using the same FAT32 partition for both windows and Linux. There is a wiki on this too, but I don't think it is particularly helpful.
_________________
First things first, but not necessarily in that order.

Apologies if I take a while to respond. I'm currently working on the dematerialization circuit for my blue box.

EasterParade · l33t Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 938

Thank you for your input. Looks like more Greek

.
The Windows 7 install is without EFI of course; the mainboard that´s
currently the heart and bones of my box ( P45 chipset + Core2Duo E 8400 ) doesn´t need any EFI partition.
The new mainboard ( Z97X chipset with i7 ) on the other hand will need it though.
I figure Windows installer creates a EFI partition when it detects hardware that requires it.
Until now all I had to do after building a new system was setting up the kernel for Gentoo
and reinstalling Windows 7 with my Windows disc and license. Piece of cake. This is about to change.

Looks like I will have to decide on the future of my box.

My Gentoo drive will need a fat32 partition for EFI in addition to the usual boot partition
which means that I have to wipe the current drive or put a new drive in and rsync the system
onto that new drive or it´s lost.
My two hdd setup with Windows on the second drive obviously does not
have a future.
With old grub this is what it looked like:

depontius · Advocate Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 3509

The Doctor · Moderator Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 2678

The Doctor · Moderator Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 2678

EasterParade · l33t Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 938

Thank you Doctor, gonna read up and start with the Wiki you´ve indicated.
Looks like I should make the Windows drive first sata then.
I haven´t bought the hardware yet.
I won´t build the new system until I have understood every step of the EFI
setup.
Concerning the backup... I have enough backup space for my home stuff but not
for the whole system. I could take advantage of the situation and install a clean
Gentoo; clear out package.keywords and package.use that have grown wayyyy to long.

Thank you very much for now

EasterParade · l33t Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 938

I realize that I have fallen behind which is dangerous. Keeping up with other people´s pace is a constant challenge
which is why I will have that new system for both Gentoo and Windows.
Found :
http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-995960-highlight-uefi.html
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-997680-highlight-uefi.html

.....

they´re all a billion miles ahead of me :cry:

Sakaki · Guru Joined: 21 May 2014 Posts: 409

Hi transsib,

although it's targeted at Windows 8 / Gentoo dual boot (rather than Win 7), you might want to have a quick look at the tutorial I recently posted on the wiki: EFI Gentoo End to End Install.
_________________
Regards,

sakaki

EasterParade · l33t Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 938

Thank you so much, Sakaki. This looks awesome.
I make it part of the homework although you have
an initramfs there.

depontius · Advocate Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 3509

DONAHUE · Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2014 8:06 pm Post subject:

http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/getting.html
lots of ways but not emerge
_________________
Defund the FCC.

EasterParade · l33t Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 938

Hey guys and friends,
I so love Gentoo...
I know better now: as long as you do not install Windows 8 you can disable UEFI BIOS in BIOS a.k.a. choose "Other OS" in "Secure Boot" ( AMI BIOS ) and everything is as you are used to.

Due to reasons.... I had to buy the components for my new system now:
Intel Z97 chipset ( Sabertooth Mark2 )
XEON Haswell E3-1240 v3
LGA 1150
16 GB Corsair Vengeance LP DDR3 1600 MHZ
my old Nvidia Geforce 460GTX not having performance issues, on the contrary

I just now built that new system and I will have to reinstall Windows 7 tomorrow, without UEFI.

While I honour the concept of protecting users from Boot Malware and dangerous Viruses in MBR I deplore the fact that
anyone using Windows 8 and having to use a boot signature is condemned to give up Gentoo; actually.
I know of two Linux distros that have signed keys for UEFI, Ubuntu and Fedora and ALL other Linux distros are
excluded from that privilege.
And what about baking your own kernel and copying that into your boot partition? A thing of the past.

So....

Could I boot Gentoo from a Linux bootable USB stick? IF ... if I´d want Windows 8 at all ?

This system is a MONSTER and I am sooooo happy, sorry...

DONAHUE · Posted: Fri Sep 26, 2014 10:45 pm Post subject:

Secure Boot and UEFI are not the same thing. Confusion results because UEFI is required for Secure Boot to be implemented. M$ has influenced UEFI board makers to include Secure Boot as default on UEFI boards. M$ has also required that Secure Boot be capable of being turned off. (for win 8 certification.) You can be uefi without secure boot.

How to have linux and secure boot is described here http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/secureboot.html .

EasterParade · l33t Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 938

I stand corrected DONAHUE

DONAHUE · Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2014 5:37 am Post subject:

You're doing fine.
Please try the link again. Sorry, I managed to put a . for the end of sentence too close so that it became part of the url.

http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/secureboot.html

Rod is the fount of all knowledge for UEFI, boot managers, and boot loaders. He shows up here from time to time as srs5694 .
_________________
Defund the FCC.

EasterParade · l33t Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 938

I have set UEFI BIOS to "OtherOS". I still get a "boot device not ready message"; that mobo has
nifty LEDs on board for hdd, ram, cpu, and pcie video so that you can see the error indicated by a red
LED too

To sum it up again:
SATA 1 Gentoo
SATA2 Windows 7 ( will format this drive to prepare for reinstallation )

Present config:
grub 2 on MBR SATA 1 loading Gentoo or Win
no GPT partitioning => normal MBR

Let´s assume for a sec that I want to change that what are the steps to take?

Kernel needs EFI, EFI stubs and command line
change label to gpt => rewrite MBR
need kernel image on /boot/efi folder ( ??? )
and kernel command line to point EFI boot loader to that image

I must say this turns out to become a large experiment. There is also the fact that most make.conf
options for this CPU need to get optimized: cat proc/cpuinfo shows 7 procs yet makeopts are currently set to j5
which might be safer for compiling though (?)
My working gcc version is 4.7.3-r1 so that I could use values for i7 according to this guide
http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Safe_CFLAGS#Core_i3.2Fi5.2Fi7_with_AVX2_instructions_.28Haswell.29
CPU is XEON E3-1240 v3 @ 3.40GHz Haswell.

So many question...

EasterParade · l33t Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 938

OK, Legacy OPROM it is for the time being...

DONAHUE · Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 5:42 pm Post subject:

depontius · Advocate Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 3509

I'm involved in the same process right now, having about the same luck. (I'm attempting to use rEFInd.)

I used SystemRescue on a USB to install Gentoo, but was unable to get it to boot from the hard drive - the UEFI didn't seem to recognize that anything was there.

Eventually I discovered that SystemRescue had been booting in BIOS mode, because CSM was enabled and I guess it chooses BIOS mode first. I would have expected it to try UEFI first, but no. So I turned off CSM and rebooted from USB, and lo and behold, not only were the SystemRescue options there, but so was my hard drive installation.

First oddity booting from my hard drive installation was that it asked me for my keymap. I'm used to that on SystemRescue, but never saw that on any kernel I ever built, and I'd started this kernel config from one of my existing ones. Next I got to root, and decided to try "startx" just to watch it fizz. No go. It appears to have KMS problems. I modprobed "radeon", which included kms_helper, which I would think would have fixed things, but still no-go. This is a Kaveri system, and I get the impression that I should really be using radeonsi, but the radeon messages say it supports Kaveri.

Next I booted from SystemRescue in UEFI, which went as it always has. Except now I can't run startx there either, same symptoms, same "modprobe radeon" fails to fix it.

One mile strangeness here that came from some Gentoo instructions...
/dev/sda1 is VFAT with the efi boot marking
/dev/sda2 is ext4 and I think I'm using it as a classical /boot, so :
/dev/sda1 /boot/efi vfat (etc)
/dev/sda2 /boot ext4 (etc)
/dev/sda3 / ext4 (etc)
Maybe this is in fact the root of my problems, maybe I should just abandon /dev/sda2 and make /dev/sda1 /boot. There are so many different UEFI instructions, all slightly different.

But at this point I figured that my initial failure to get the efi boot working was because I'd installed and done everything in BIOS mode. So I booted in UEFI mode, made sure I ran "modprobe efivars", wiped my efi partition, and reran the refind installer, this time with the "--root /mnt/gentoo" option. It worked significantly harder, and gave me a little hate-mail about bootx64.efi - so I wiped again and found boot/bootx64.efi and copied that to both /mnt/gentoo/boot/efi and /mnt/gentoo/boot/efi/EFI. (It seems that refind creates an EFI directory in /boot/efi.)

Still no-go. Running "efibootmgr -v" prints a bunch of information, and my hard drive is there embedded in one line, but it doesn't have a separate entry. Trying to boot in UEFI is no-go, back to the UEFI screens. Trying to boot with CSM enabled tells me that there's nothing to boot.

There appear to be no terribly clear or properly verbose diagnostics or instructions. Reading principle UEFI docs looks like recursive TLA and FLA time generally, with little practical information. I get many versions of rote or I get theory with nothing practical. It looks quite over-engineered.

If someone's got the link I've been missing, I'd appreciate. I'm very close to starting over, this time in MBR mode, since I now know what that CSM item really does on the setup screen. I'd like to give one or two more shots at UEFI, assuming I can get some decent information.
_________________
.sigs waste space and bandwidth

EasterParade · l33t Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 938

@DONAHUE
On first boot-up the UEFI BIOS seems to look for a efi partition although I have set all options to boot legacy mbr
in BIOS. But it just takes a little longer. As soon as the BIOS is done searching I get my grub2 screen and I can boot up
either OS as usual.
The message just makes me nervous. I believe that because I have a such a nifty mobo now sooner or later I just
have to get UEFI boot working both for Gentoo and Windows.
But I don´t want to sit in front of the screen one day and read that my precious kernel might be a root-kit and it won´t get booted.

I also don´t love to have to reinstall Gentoo because I gotta repartition for gpt. Reinstalling Windows is no big deal with that fast system I now have;
it´s done in a blink of an eye and Gentoo shouldn´t take too long either but my Gentoo is so nicely set-up...
I could convert the Windows system partition 0 over to gpt; I have found a small howto on Microsofts TechNet. It is risky yet doable.
But Gentoo is something entirely different.

And what depontious said is so right... I would never have been able to express it just like that. I am feeling like that donkey standing between two stacks
of hay but starves because he just cannot make up his mind.

If I make the wrong decision all I will have left are two broken systems.

depontius · Advocate Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 3509

Next question, this time a specific one... Framebuffer in the kernel

At some point there seemed to be a common wisdom that the simpler the better of framebuffer, noting complex or chip-specific. For one of my regular (BIOS boot) systems I have:

DONAHUE · Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 10:06 pm Post subject:

your firmware will differ.
fglrx:

depontius · Advocate Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 3509

Actually I'm not quite up to debugging X yet, since I still can't boot from the hard drive. I have however captured the failing Xorg.0.log and will be popping that up here at some point.

This evening I booted SystemRescue in BIOS mode, so X would work, and quit using that extra ext2 partition, basically using /dev/sda3 as root and my VFAT and properly tagged /dev/sda1 partition as boot. I rebuilt the kernel checking options, but I don't think I changed anything. Then I got back to BIOS, turned CSM off, and rebooted SystemRescue, this time in UEFI mode. Again, startx doesn't work even for SystemRescue, but I mounted root and boot and ran the refind install script, properly pointing "-root /dev/sda3". It still complained and said I might need to do some manual renaming. I did as it suggested, and it still doesn't find my hard drive.

There is someone, maybe more than one, with this same motherboard on the Arch forums who has never gotten his hard drive recognized properly.

I'd still like to get this working correctly - I'm sure it's some stupid little nit that I'm missing.

When booting in UEFI mode, rEFInd sees the kernel I just built and is willing to boot it. It is of course not the default, and I'm not sure that it could be made so, since it's being dynamically detected. I suppose I could get going that way. Now that I mantion it, here is Xorg.0.log from when trying to run startx with SystemRescue booted in UEFI mode. Please keep in mind that this is their configuration, not mine, and it runs in BIOS mode.