Hey Guys,
I was wondering if anyone would know a way to boot the minimal installation iso or the live cd/dvd as EFI. Looking at the images, there is a bunch of .efi files which leads me to think that it couldn't be impossible.
For example, there is "gentoo.efimg" and "gentoo.efimg.mountPoint", which have a elilo.efi, a gentoo kernel and a folder efi/boot/ with bootia32.efi and elilo.msg. There is also another elilo.efi inside the isolinux folder. Could those be used to put together as a bootable UEFI USB?
I've been trying to find some information but can't really find new subjects on the topic.
Thanks a lot for any help.
Live USB UEFI
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- The Doctor
- Bodhisattva
- Posts: 2678
- Joined: Tue Jul 27, 2010 10:56 pm
No, it lacks support for that. Use the System Rescue CD instead. It has no problems with EFI and is functionally identical to the minimal CD except with a xfce (I think) and better hardware support.I was wondering if anyone would know a way to boot the minimal installation iso or the live cd/dvd as EFI.
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.
Apologies if I take a while to respond. I'm currently working on the dematerialization circuit for my blue box.
As The Doctor says, the path of least resistance is to use something else that explicitly supports EFI-mode booting.
If you're looking for a learning project, though, you can add an EFI-mode boot loader to just about any medium. (Doing it on optical discs is a big pain, though, so I recommend starting with USB flash drives.) Basically, you need a FAT partition with an "EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi" file on it. That file should be ELILO, SYSLINUX, rEFInd, or some other EFI-mode boot loader or boot managers. You'll also need to provide it with a configuration file that will point the boot loader to the kernel and (if present) initrd file, and pass suitable options to it. You may need to figure out those options by studying the BIOS-mode boot loader on the medium. Figuring out how to "translate" to whatever EFI-mode boot program you use is up to you. For more on EFI-mode boot programs generally, see my Web page on the subject.
If you're looking for a learning project, though, you can add an EFI-mode boot loader to just about any medium. (Doing it on optical discs is a big pain, though, so I recommend starting with USB flash drives.) Basically, you need a FAT partition with an "EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi" file on it. That file should be ELILO, SYSLINUX, rEFInd, or some other EFI-mode boot loader or boot managers. You'll also need to provide it with a configuration file that will point the boot loader to the kernel and (if present) initrd file, and pass suitable options to it. You may need to figure out those options by studying the BIOS-mode boot loader on the medium. Figuring out how to "translate" to whatever EFI-mode boot program you use is up to you. For more on EFI-mode boot programs generally, see my Web page on the subject.
As the minimal install CD already uses ISOLINUX, it is possible to follow the LiveUSB guide, and then make the result EFI bootable.
For that change the partition type to EF (or EF00 on gpt), emerge >=syslinux-6, copy the files syslinux.efi ldlinux.e64 libutil.c32 menu.c32 from /usr/share/syslinux/efi64/ to EFI/Boot and rename syslinux.efi to bootx64.efi.
Then create a config file which does nothing but load the existing config file that came with the install CD:
For that change the partition type to EF (or EF00 on gpt), emerge >=syslinux-6, copy the files syslinux.efi ldlinux.e64 libutil.c32 menu.c32 from /usr/share/syslinux/efi64/ to EFI/Boot and rename syslinux.efi to bootx64.efi.
Then create a config file which does nothing but load the existing config file that came with the install CD:
Code: Select all
DEFAULT existing_config
PROMPT 0
LABEL existing_config
CONFIG /syslinux.cfg /