When can I reboot (during Install)

Message

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:34 am

StevenC21,

To be using UEFI is a VBox guest, you must have made some configuration changes to your virtual machine.
To install to use UEFI, you must be using a GPT disk lable. fdisk will show that but you cut of that part of the output.

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sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
Password: 
Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos

You need to know the Disklabel type.
If its dos, you cannot use EFI.

bobbymcgee · Post by **bobbymcgee** » Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:38 am

Steven,

as far as networking and virtualbox goes, If i remember correctly, you want to goto network options of your VM and change "attached to" to bridged instead of NAT. this will allow more direct access without doing anything else. dhcp should just work at this point.

StevenC21 · Post by **StevenC21** » Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:42 am

Yes, yes it does now. Thank you!

bobbymcgee · Post by **bobbymcgee** » Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:55 am

sorry neddy and hu, didn't see the thread split until after.

eccerr0r · Post by **eccerr0r** » Mon Jun 11, 2018 1:23 am

You could look at how mint was installed assuming you're installing Gentoo using the same VM method.

Is there a /sys/firmware/efi in mint (or any other boot disk)? If there is, then likely you will need to continue with EFI install. If not, then you should go with MBR install.

Actually if you're using the Gentoo mininstaller CD, that, last I recall, uses MBR boot and as that works, you might well continue using MBR.

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Mon Jun 11, 2018 11:36 am

eccerr0r,

Virtualbox doesn't care. It supports both. The default is BIOS but UEFI can be selected in the configuration options for the individual VM.
Its not related to the real hardware at all.

Its on the VM System menu on the Motherboard tab.
There is a check box Enable EFI (special OSes only).

-- edit --

StevenC21,
That's the clincher. How is that checkbox set in your VM setup?

StevenC21 · Post by **StevenC21** » Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:06 pm

It is set for BIOS. Should I change that to UEFI? I am fairly sure that I'm going to have to try again from square one anyways.

eccerr0r · Post by **eccerr0r** » Mon Jun 11, 2018 1:43 pm

Actually, it seems that virtualbox does care - it does need to know how the boot media is set up - unless it was somehow actually set to autodetect, then which the boot select option would not need to exist!

EFI can boot off of MBR disks just fine, I have a tablet that boots grub readily off a USB SD card, I did not have to convert it to GPT.

Anyway, at this point, you should choose whichever method you want to do. You have a half baked EFI system it seems, one way is to switch Vbox to EFI mode, then convert one of your 100M partition to FAT and use that as your ESP. Else you could go MBR, and simply ignore any EFI instructions for grub (EFI should be easier, but grub install works quite well, hiding the ugly details of MBR boot...)

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Mon Jun 11, 2018 1:44 pm

StevenC21,

It doesn't matter if its set for BIOS or EFI.
What matters is that you know what it is and set up Grub accordingly.

It doesn't change your install in any way. Well, if you leave it at BIOS, grub-install should just work.
If you set it to EFI, /boot will need to be vfat.

Its BIOS. Follow the grub Install instructions for BIOS.

There is no reason to redo you install. Its very difficult to break gentoo so badly that its the only way out.
Reinstalling won't help your learning and only allows you to make a different mistake. :)
Its a bad habit you need to unlearn.

There is one more wrinkle you need to beware of but that depends on your disk label, which you haven't posted yet.

eccerr0r · Post by **eccerr0r** » Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:16 pm

Let us know if you're in EFI mode or not: Tell us if there's anything in

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$ ls /sys/firmware/efi

This should tell if your kernel is in EFI mode or not (or you can force it in Vbox, but assuming you don't want to muck with vbox options...).

Then there's the disk label: Are you using fdisk or parted? If you're using fdisk,

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# fdisk /dev/sda # (or whichever disk you're using)

Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.30.2).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.


Command (m for help): p

If you're using parted,

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# parted /dev/sda # (or whichever disk...)
GNU Parted 3.2
Using /dev/sda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print

These will eventually say "Disklabel type: xxx" or "Partition Table: xxx" where xxx is the label type. I suppose this is just for completeness, but this will clarify whether you're using a GPT or MSDOS/MBR label.

StevenC21 · Post by **StevenC21** » Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:48 pm

Oh, hey guys! Sorry for forgetting about this post. I actually managed to get it all working with the help of a member of the forums here, so no need to spend time on me!

Thanks for all your help!

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Wed Jun 13, 2018 8:31 pm

StevenC21,

Please post what you did. It will help others who find this thread.

StevenC21 · Post by **StevenC21** » Wed Jun 13, 2018 9:41 pm

Well, its kinda complex. We ended up doing an awful lot. What I mean is, it got to a point where it worked. I honestly don't know what worked and what didn't. We also abandoned GRUB and went to LILO, so a lot of changes. Even I don't know whether that VM is using BIOS or UEFI at this point. Sorry, I would if I could.

Tony0945 · Post by **Tony0945** » Wed Jun 13, 2018 9:49 pm

StevenC21, it sounds like it's fixed but not solved since you don't understand why it was broken or even what.

That saddens us because we not only want to help but to help other gentoo users understand what the problem was. And to help YOU understand what the problem was.
As NeddySeagoon has said often "teach you to fish".

eccerr0r · Post by **eccerr0r** » Wed Jun 13, 2018 10:08 pm

Well, trying to read between the lines here for further readers ...

- looks like VBox was indeed running MBR mode (or compatibility mode, but it doesn't matter) and left there because:
- Using the very old sys-boot/lilo as your bootloader solved the problem. Since elilo was not mentioned, this was the evidence that EFI boot was not used or not enabled.

I'm sure grub could have been just as easily used in MBR mode.

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Wed Jun 13, 2018 10:13 pm

eccerr0r,

Lilo is oblivious to EFI/BIOS, its just /sbin/lilo.
grub-install has two different invocations depending on the firmware in use.

I'm with you, I suspect grub-install would have worked if it wasn't told to use EFI.