LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] elilo package missing x86

- Slackware (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/)

- - elilo package missing x86_64 EFI binary? (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/elilo-package-missing-x86_64-efi-binary-4175450275/)

elilo package missing x86_64 EFI binary?

Hi

I'm really glad to see UEFI support making its way "officially" to Slackware.

Once upon a time, I set it up manually with refind, elilo and UEFI shell on my ASUS mainboard, following ArchLinux UEFI wiki page.

Now I wanted to take the fresh elilo from -current as the foundation of my UEFI setup, and it did not work.

I looked into it and it occurred to me that only IA32 and IA64 EFI binaries are presents, while x86_64 EFI is the one needed.

Upon further readings, the elilo binary must match the "UEFI BIOS" bit width, which has nothing to do with kernel bit width:

IA64 is for Itanium-based systems
IA32 is for 32bits EFI systems, which became uncommon nowadays
x86_64 is for 64bits UEFI systems, whether you run Slackware 32bits or Slackware64

Hope it helps

Cheers

Hi,

Look at: Slackware on UEFI for some very useful information.

I put my elilo.conf in /boot and rEFInd nicely picked up /boot/elilo-x86_64.efi to boot my Slackware.
Thanks Pat!

Code:

prompt

timeout=50

default=slackware64

append=" vt.default_utf8=1"



image=vmlinuz

  label=slackware64

  description="Slackware64"

  append=" initrd=initrd.gz root=/dev/rafalevg/root splash showopts load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 ro printk.time=0 vga=0x34d irqpoll"

  initrd=initrd.gz

  read-only



image=recovery64/huge.s

  label=recovery64

  description="Slackware64 recovery (install img)"

  append=" initrd=recovery64/initrd.img load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 rw printk.time=0 SLACK_KERNEL=huge.s vga=ext kbd=fr-latin1 nic=auto:eth0:dhcp"

  initrd=recovery64/initrd.img

rEFInd can read ext2 and ext4 partitions with its EFI drivers, even if it's RAID1.
Then initrd does all the work for / on RAID, LUKS and LVM.

The recovery entry comes from SlackDoc (either Setting up a Recovery Boot Option or Booting the Installation Environment from HDD), with extra for keyboard and network from AlienBob.
Beware memtest that can't be run this way.

Cheers

Was the "missing /boot/elilo-x86_64.efi" already in /boot? or did you do something extra to install it there?
Maybe the better question would be where did the Slackware package install the elilo-x86_64.efi binary?
I guess I am missing something here.
Thanks
john

Pat's rev 3 of elilo-3.14 contains the x86_64 efi and the ia32 efi. Rev 2 contained the ia64 and ia32 efi-s.

Quote:

Fri Feb 15 22:46:52 UTC 2013
a/elilo-3.14-x86_64-3.txz: Rebuilt.
Include the x64 bootloader, not the Itanium one. Thanks to cendryon.
We're also keeping the ia32 version, even though 32-bit UEFI is
practically unknown. There might be some 32-bit EFI implementations
out there, so it doesn't hurt to have it.

Thanks for the clarification.
Just did an explodepkg also to see where it gets installed. So it seems that /boot will now be an efi partition.
Not really a new question as I will shortly be installing current on a spare drive to see where things are going for (my bet) slackware 15

Thanks
john

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlleyTrotter (Post 4893017)

Thanks for the clarification.
Just did an explodepkg also to see where it gets installed. So it seems that /boot will now be an efi partition.

That's unlikely. I was just looking for an obvious place to keep the binaries.

In many cases a machine will already have an EFI partition for use by Windows, and more than likely there will be enough extra space there to create a directory \efi\slackware to keep our files in. Otherwise, the user will probably have to make one with cgdisk before running setup. It would make sense for setup to warn the user about that if it finds no existing EFI partition on a machine using UEFI, too.

I'd rather stay away from trying to modify the machine's UEFI boot menu automatically in any way, so there will be extra steps that will need to be done, especially when setting up to dual boot.

Anyway, we're not really at the point where those things can be implemented yet. The next step is getting the installer bootable from UEFI, and this could be pretty tricky. Beyond the issues with just getting it to load (will an image load from a USB stick larger than the image? Is it possible to boot a disc conforming to the ISO9660 standards?), it appears the installer will need to support KMS for text output to work. That might end up resulting in that lovely tiny text for all installs, not just the UEFI ones. Passing a video= kernel option can't really be done by default since we don't know the native screen resolution up front. And I'm sure there are plenty more hurdles ahead.