what to do about my potato ?

replica9000 · 04-11-2024, 06:23 PM

This thread mentions that for some reason, trying to install from USB flash doesn't work, but does from a USB HDD.

I've seen other websites mention to make sure the USB device is formatted with fat32.

Edit: Your BIOS might not be locked. You might need to disable additional things to unlock legacy mode.
[s]A couple other sites mention that legacy BIOS might actually be locked, and a modded BIOS would be needed to unlock it.[/s]

I have an older Lenovo Yoga that is the same Intel platform. Legacy BIOS wasn't an option on that laptop either. I did have Debian installed on it with grub2 and secure boot disabled. You might have to try "erase all secure boot settings", but that might mess with Windows.

ZapAnarchy · 04-12-2024, 01:15 AM

funny in that linked thread, he didn't posted solution.

I was able to set lubuntu, but I always need to be vary of updates of new update, due to securedb package which breaks whole installation.

I tried erasing secure boot as well, and setting to defaults, still nothing.

business_kid · 04-12-2024, 06:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by replica9000

I've never seen a computer have a legacy BIOS option, but have it greyed out. I wonder if something has to be disabled to enable legacy BIOS? Is secure boot disabled?

Funny you should ask that. I pulled a lot of hair back in 2013 trying to get linux up and running on Legacy mode on my new (at the time)Samsung NP350EC-A05UK laptop.

What worked was enabling the legacy mode and formatting the primary HD with fdisk, not gdisk. Don't ask me how I figured that out, but I did. Gdisk somehow enabled EFI, because you couldn't have EFI with the fdisk partition types. There's (last heard) a 2TB size limit imposed by the set of lies currently being told by fdisk. I thought things had moved on from that, but apparently not.

computersavvy · 04-13-2024, 01:34 PM

On my laptoop disabling TPM also disables secure boot.

I cannot tell if you can do so but have you tried the option to restore factory default settings for secure boot?

The secure boot part of that image shows the same color as the TPM section and you were able to change that line.

replica9000 · 04-13-2024, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

Funny you should ask that. I pulled a lot of hair back in 2013 trying to get linux up and running on Legacy mode on my new (at the time)Samsung NP350EC-A05UK laptop.

What worked was enabling the legacy mode and formatting the primary HD with fdisk, not gdisk. Don't ask me how I figured that out, but I did. Gdisk somehow enabled EFI, because you couldn't have EFI with the fdisk partition types. There's (last heard) a 2TB size limit imposed by the set of lies currently being told by fdisk. I thought things had moved on from that, but apparently not.

But isn't the whole point of legacy BIOS not needing to deal with EFI?

I use parted when setting up a new disk. For grub and efi, I setup a GPT table. First partition is 1mb, second partition is minimum 260mb. Any partition after that is for the OS/data.

Assuming we've booted into a live cd/usb and the target is /dev/sda on the laptop

Code:

# parted /dev/sda
(parted) unit mib
(parted) mktable gpt
(parted) mkpart bios_grub 1 2
(parted) set 1 bios_grub on
(parted) mkpart boot_grub 2 262
(parted) mkpart <name> 262 <end-size> (additional partitions)
(parted) quit
# mkfs.fat -n bios_grub -F 32 /dev/sda2
# mkdir /mnt/grub
# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/grub
# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/mnt/grub --boot-directory=/mnt/grub/boot --recheck --debug
# grub-mkconfig -o /mnt/grub/boot/grub/grub.cfg

So far, this has worked for me for any UEFI machine, but I haven't had a machine with an InsydeH20 BIOS.

business_kid · 04-14-2024, 03:40 AM

I think you miss my point. I will add that this was 11 years ago.

If you had a gdisk partition table, that BIOS demanded UEFI - some extreme version.
You couldn't select and save 'legacy' on a gdisk table. But you could on fdisk.

replica9000 · 04-14-2024, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

I think you miss my point. I will add that this was 11 years ago.

If you had a gdisk partition table, that BIOS demanded UEFI - some extreme version.
You couldn't select and save 'legacy' on a gdisk table. But you could on fdisk.

I never used gdisk. I was thinking it was a gtk frontend for fdisk. Looks like the g is for gpt, so gdisk was never designed to create legacy (mbr) partitions.

The Lenovo Yoga I have I bought about 10 years ago. It was the first machine that forced me to use UEFI. I didn't give me an option for legacy, not even grey out. Maybe later I'll pop in a spare SSD with a MBR table and see if anything changes.

Xeratul · 04-14-2024, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZapAnarchy

I have acer es1-533, and it have UEFI problems, that it can't install newer versions of Ubuntu, something to do with EFI stuff. Neither any of RHEL works.

I can only set up Arch based distros to work, because they don't do something with EFI partition these newer do.

And also, Ubuntu/RHEL based , can't even load screen anymore even in live USB ! It just finished checksum,and when trying to boot live USB, it takes forever, I've left it 30m-1 hour, nothing, just still loading..

I don't know what to do with this PC. It's from 2017. And even AntiX, is laggy on it, it's not fast at all.

And, btw, Arch (or any install), consumes me a lot of time, so it's not easy to distro hop on this one, it's frustrating. At least 1-2 hours I need just to install, and fix that UEFI nonsense, as it won't install GRUB directly from installer, but I have to manually meddle with it.

rn, it's on windows, but I don't need this PC anymore, but it can't even handle linux either, I don't want to reinstall just because it can't handle latest update..

Ubuntu works up to 18.04 , everything newer, not

it is a good PC.

Try to use ascii devuan on it. that will be magic !!

https://mirror.leaseweb.com/devuan/d...sktop-live.iso

https://mirror.leaseweb.com/devuan/d...sktop-live.iso

image = /boot/vmlinuz-4.9.0-11-amd64
initrd = /boot/initrd.img-4.9.0-11-amd64

--
The devuan potatoe