setup doesn't run elilo

I have a new computer with Windows 10 pre-installed.

My intent is to install Slackware 14.2 (64-bit) in a partition on the same drive that contains Windows 10.

I shrunk the Windows 10 partition to make room for Slackware. Used the newly freed space to create a Linux partition. I've verified the drive contains an EFI partition with plenty of empty space.

I booted Slackware from a USB drive, and used an external (USB) drive as the install source.

Running Setup goes as expected. At the point where it tells me it detected an EFI setup and will run elilo instead of lilo, everything looks good. But, when I select the option to run elilo, it goes straight to the network setup step and, there is no modification to the EFI partition on the boot disk.

Am I doing something wrong, or is there a problem with the setup program I don't know about? Is there a way for me to do the EFI setup that is missing?

I've spent two days learning about UEFI (this is my first time with a UEFI machine), and I still haven't found the right instructions to get both Windows 10 and Slackware working in a dual-boot configuration.

FWIW, if there is a guaranteed way to make this work by starting entirely from scratch, I'm open to it. I am only keeping Windows 10 so I have a working OS on the system. Once I understand how all this works, I plan on removing all vestiges of Windows from the system and starting over. But I'm hesitant to do that if I can't figure out how to boot Slackware.

The Windows 10 may "lock" the EFI, at least that says my experience.

I guess that "feature" is to "secure" the system, from Redmond's merry guys POV...

Originally Posted by Darth Vader The Windows 10 may "lock" the EFI, at least that says my experience. I guess that "feature" is to "secure" the system, from Redmond's merry guys POV...

Is the implication that I could go ahead and wipe out all the current Windows partitions, start from scratch, and Slackware's installer will get me to a working state?

Depends on the type of your EFI implementation and the state of it, after Windows applied its Voodoo magic. That sucks with EFI, as the Redmond pals can mess with it.

I suggest you, first to physically remove the hard disk which host Windows, then to use an another spare one (even some cheap second-hand bought from solds, if you do not already have one), to test your Linux installation.

When everything is OK, you can do a re-installation on the main hard drive...

At least, this way I will do myself.

PS. Ensure that you disabled also the Secure Boot.

Elio did not work for me either so what I did is after I installed Slackware use a usb bootdisk to boot into Slackware i just installed and get the newest Grub2 Slackbuild and make a package and installed that. The grub that ships with 14.2 does not work with EFI and eilo is a dead end, And the Slackware DVD did not want to boot in EFI mode only bios.

Filling in details: secure boot has been disabled through all of my attempts.

Originally Posted by bgbarcus I have a new computer with Windows 10 pre-installed.

Can you tell us about your hardware? What kind of drive are you trying to install to.

There should be no reason that you need to remove Windows to install Slackware. Based on what you have told us, your system is running in UEFI mode (therefore by default Secure Boot is not enabled) and the Slackware has detected and offered to run eliloconfig. When you run eliloconfig, it appears to silently stop executing and the installer moves onto setting up the network. Seems to me that eliloconfig should be first on the list of suspects causing the problem.

eliloconfig does two things, first it creates a directory call Slackware in the ESP partition (EFI/Slackware) and populates it with the necessary files ( elilo.efi, elilo.conf, kernel, and optionally an initrd) to boot Slackware. The second thing it does is to register the boot loader (elilo.efi)with the UEFI firmware using efibootmgr. Prior to doing this, eliloconfig must determine where the ESP partition is and mount it. Since you said that there are "no modification to the EFI partitions" then it appears that either eliloconfig could not locate the ESP partition or couldn't write to it. It is already known that the eliloconfg that comes on the 14.2 installer cannot detect NVMe devices. Is the device that you are installing to a NVMe drive? If so then maybe this can help you. http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ng-4175597516/

Originally Posted by laprjns Can you tell us about your hardware? What kind of drive are you trying to install to. There should be no reason that you need to remove Windows to install Slackware. Based on what you have told us, your system is running in UEFI mode (therefore by default Secure Boot is not enabled) and the Slackware has detected and offered to run eliloconfig. When you run eliloconfig, it appears to silently stop executing and the installer moves onto setting up the network. Seems to me that eliloconfig should be first on the list of suspects causing the problem. eliloconfig does two things, first it creates a directory call Slackware in the ESP partition (EFI/Slackware) and populates it with the necessary files ( elilo.efi, elilo.conf, kernel, and optionally an initrd) to boot Slackware. The second thing it does is to register the boot loader (elilo.efi)with the UEFI firmware using efibootmgr. Prior to doing this, eliloconfig must determine where the ESP partition is and mount it. Since you said that there are "no modification to the EFI partitions" then it appears that either eliloconfig could not locate the ESP partition or couldn't write to it. It is already known that the eliloconfg that comes on the 14.2 installer cannot detect NVMe devices. Is the device that you are installing to a NVMe drive? If so then maybe this can help you. http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ng-4175597516/

Guess I buried the lead, the boot drive is indeed an NVMe drive. In a flurry of reading, I completely missed the information that Slackware's installer doesn't work with them. This information brings some clarity to my situation and a quick read of discussion you linked looks very promising. It will be a few days before I have time to dedicate to using that information. With any luck, I'll be able to report back with success.

I had similar issue with Slackware, i could not get elilo installed at all.
The solution magically sorted itself out when i created a USB key with the usbimg2disk.sh script.
It create a USB key that booted using UEFI, install went fine and elilo got installed properly.

Now i can select between Windows 10 and Slackware using the Boot selection screen of the motherboard. It is not like the convenience of grub or lilo, but i found it to be acceptable given the number of times i've booted windows in the last 6 months

I have noticed that on some machines elilo does not manage to install itself on the EFI partition. I guess it is hardware dependent. Some machines do not implement UEFI correctly it seems, while on other machines ELILO works very well.

Anyway, if you have problems with ELILO, why not try grub? First ensure that the bootable media you are using boots in UEFI mode. Check to see if /sys/firmware/efi is there. Then, you can mount the partition where you installed Slackware and chroot into it to install GRUB:

Let's say you mounted the system at /mnt,

# chroot /mnt env -i HOME=/root TERM=$TERM PS1='\u@\h:\w# ' PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin bash --login +h

# modprobe efivars
# modprobe dm-mod

# mkdir -p /boot/grub/locale
# cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=GRUB --recheck --debug

The grub-install command gives a lot of informative output. Be sure to spot the line where it runs efibootmgr to see if the GRUB efi binary was properly registered into the UEFI firmware settings so that you can boot your system.

All the best.

Well I did promise to give an update after I had time to try out some of these suggestions. End result, the machine beat me. While trying to get it to a point of booting off the NVMe drive (I knew it was a long shot but decided to try), I found myself changing settings related to legacy mode in the UEFI configuration and ended up with machine that seemed to boot but was incapable of sending any video signals to my monitor via any of the ports. I gave up and RMA'd the machine.