CPU/RAM/MB upgrade question.
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Linux bigboxy 4.4.75 #2 SMP Fri Jun 30 02:57:58 CDT 2017 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux LILO is sitting in the MBR and of course no UEFI. There is nothing at all under /boot apart from the normal boot files and an empty grub subdirectory. In the past none of my CPU/MB upgrades meant switching from BIOS to UEFI, I could just plug the old drives into the New MB in the same order and the system would boot up. I'm not entirely sure how UEFI works so I was wondering will 4.4.75 huge kernel automatically find the kaby lake chip and understand the motherboard given it's working on a different principle? I'm guessing not, because LILO won't know what to do either to even get to that stage. Is there a way to get all the UEFI stuff under /boot before actually having an UEFI system, or do I select a 'legacy' mode or something in the new motherboards BIOS? Basically I'm after precautions to take so the finger crossing can be kept to a minimum and not end up with a nonbootable system. |
Kaby Lake support comes in 4.9.x, so you might need to switch to -current or compile your own kernel
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Oops, I think I misunderstood your post with my former post. I don't think you'll have any problems. I think it'll be a while before PC OSes totally cut off BIOS and only boot from UEFI.
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Oh wait...I guess my original post is still relevant... you are looking into buying a UEFI machine, right?
I have a Mac with EFI, not the later UEFI, so take what I say with a grain of salt. But, yes, even on the Mac (which never had BIOS before), there is a BIOS emulator in firmware written in EFI. So Macs can now boot any OS that expects BIOS, including Windows. I run Solaris on my older Mac Pro and Solaris is supposed to be EFI compatible (or UEFI I guess), but it doesn't seem to boot in EFI on my Mac so I have to boot it in BIOS. But once the OS loads and takes over, there's really no difference. I'm not that really interested in learning it, so I don't have a boot loader installed that does this, but you can go to an EFI shell and actually write a program in EFI. This is usually used for drivers so the devices are available and working at boot time so you can boot from them, etc. It is compiled into a cross-platform byte code (kind of like Java is) so that it is not machine dependent. All in all, EFI/UEFI is a great leap forwards from BIOS. However, on the Mac, we used to have OpenBoot with the PowerPC Macs and that was just as good if not better I think. So anyway, I wouldn't be afraid of getting a UEFI machine, I'm sure it will be able to emulate BIOS if/when you need it to. |
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UEFI is nothing to worry about. Slackware version 14.2 installer's handle it.
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Edit to add: oops - I see you wrote 'installers' not 'installer'. So something in init will realise it's UEFI? if so that's great, then all I need to do is compile a 4.9 kernel. Anyway I was more worried about LILO shitting itself not knowing where to look since everyone is using ELILO for UEFI. |
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Personally I always build a new system to ensure everything is included - and for a BIOS/EFI change I'd make sure it was also gpt. Save your data (which is what really matters), and start from scratch. [/soapbox] |
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I'll take your advice on board, but I'm still determined to give it a crack first to see what happens heh. Needless to say I've got a separate /home so my data isn't the problem it's the week I've spent getting this system exactly how I want it - took ages to get all the little things like multilib, steam, skype, upgrades, setting up my firewall rules, setting up hosts bla bla bla. You know the worst thing, a few months back my (current) primary drive was using gpt because I wanted to see how FreeBSD was coming along since around 2010. I changed everything back though. |
Oh and my motherboard is now a year old, and all the chipsets were supported even then - so I'm not concerned about compatibility on that front.
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You have two options, which you detailed in your first post. Enable legacy mode which would allow you to continue using your current setup without any changes, or switch to UEFI.
To enable UEFI, at a minimum, you'll need to repartition your drive to provide a FAT32 formatted EFI partition. However, beyond this, I haven't ventured, so the rest is just a guess and I'd wait to see if others have other suggestions. elilo is preinstalled on a 14.2 install, so once you have the EFI partition set up, you should be able to run the setup script for elilo, however, you'll need to be in the root filesystem, and you will have needed to boot the installer in EFI mode. Code:
cd / Overall, I'd say stick with running "legacy" at least until you decide to reinstall Slackware (maybe when the next stable comes out). As for the Kaby Lake support, rather than compiling your own kernel, you could just install the one from -current. Or, if you do want to compile it yourself, you could use the config from -current. |
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Having said that, if you still want to consider wiping your OS drive and start again from scratch, I'm not discouraging you from that. However, you said that you've spent a week customizing your system just the way you like it; speaking for myself only, if I'd spent that amount of time tweaking settings, I would not be keen on blowing all that away. So I'd spend some time in the motherboard manual to find out how to enable the legacy mode, so that you'll be able to continue computing the way you've been doing it for some time. Just my :twocents: Happy Slacking!! |
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I upgraded to an MSI 970 Gaming motherboard over a year ago. I switched out the motherboard, went into the UEFI/BIOS thing and enabled "legacy" mode, then after quitting that my slackware install just booted as normal. If you have a standard LILO setup without UEFI, all you need to do is enable the legacy boot feature in the new mobo's settings and your system should boot normally.
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PC motherboards are really cheap aren't they? If you spend a lot on a brand new newly-released processor you might want a different motherboard. Just sayin'...
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But unless this was directed at someone other than OP, OP specifically stated they were looking at getting a new processor, motherboard, and memory. |
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"Still, the report from Linux-distro Debian does recommend disabling HyperThreading until a relevant microcode update is applied as a precaution." It effects both Skylake and Kabylake on all OS's as of 26th June this year. Anyway I'm now up and running on i5 7600. Thanks everyone. |
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Could I have just downloaded the latest current kernel with it's config and dumped that in /boot? I didn't even look into that - went straight to source. Oh well Live and learn I guess. |
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Addendum in case anyone cares.
I booted into the old (4.4.75) kernel this morning and everything seems to be working fine so far (as coralfang hinted at above). Given I'm using a dedicated graphics card, I'm wondering if it's only people trying to use the onboard intel graphics that are having troubles with 4.4.x to 4.8.x. I've spent a bit of time searching and it seems to be a bit 'hit and miss' but given kabylake is essentially skylake with most changes being the onboard graphics it makes sense. Just my two cents. |
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