Boot on UEFI MB
 

I am wondering if there is a reasonably easy way I can boot get Slackware 13.37 (32bit) running on a UEFI motherboard?

I appears there are two problems, and the first is the lack of UEFI support on the install DVD (which I have put on a USB flash drive).

I don't know too much about it other than what I have read, but is there an option in the BIOS to turn UEFI off ?

UEFI is a BIOS replacement so switching it off in the BIOS sounds a little weird! :P However, it is my understanding that many motherboards with UEFI have a BIOS compatibility mode that will allow you to use lilo. Perhaps this is what you meant?

I did a quick forum search. Here is answer was provided by rwebber. If this method works for you, remember to thank him (not me). ;)

Yes it is what I meant. I wouldn't want someone to drag me into a symantic discussion on the meaning of the words "BIOS Replacement" when I am in the middle of an HD installation, but we can pick it up later if you like.

I am glad I asked the question and for your response. It helped me consolidate my thoughts a bit.

Regards :)

Ok, hope I didn't come across rudely. It was not my intention! I as attempting to be jovial.

Edit: From the OPs other post, it sounds like the BIOS compatibility mode is on because he sees the lilo boot screen.

@linuxbird: It looks like this is a duplicate thread. Did you mean to start two? Aren't they both about the same issue?

P.S. This is you too, right? ;)

Apparently there are two problems...one is UEFI compatibility, which impacts booting, and is causing kernel panics and probably responsible for not seeing devices.

The second problem appears to be that with UEFI (don't understand all of this yet) there is a different frame buffer architecture, and this means that once there is a successful boot of the install DVD, the screen goes blank. There is no way of displaying it.

rwebber process appears to have promise, with the slight complication that I don't have a DVD reader. I boot off of a USB stick.

I guess this whole UEFI thing just snuck up on me. Gasp. What a pain transitioning. I can think of all kinds of legacy software which will effectively be unusable.

I've been wrestling with this all day. I now have Slackware64-13.37 (multi-lib) on a sata2 hdd booting with lilo, and the one that gave me a problem Slackware64-current on a sata3 ssd booting with lilo.

As you can see I had to append acpi=off for current to boot.
My new setup:
Asrock Z77 pro3 mobo
Intel i5 3550
Corsair 16GB DDR3 1600Mhz
OCZ Agility 3 60GB
1 x SATA2 HDD
1 x SATA3 HDD
Nvidia GeForce GT240
Xonar DX sound card
Dlink DFE-530TX

Don't know if this will help you, but you can boot UEFI motherboards with Slackware.

samac

@samac: Keep in mind that to use lilo like this your UEFI motherboard needs BIOS compatibility. Lilo does not work directly with EFI. For that you'll need something like grub2 or elilo.

Samac, I can get slack to boot using a compatibility mode of the MB (F12), but the screen goes blank after the boot starts. It's not booting up OK, because there is no network connection (tried to go in via ssh or rlogin).

I can get the latest image of clonezilla working, which does support EFI.

I think the problem is that the framebuffer is EFI not the old BIOS framebuffer, and that there might be some other stuff preventing the network and other stuff from coming up.

Current effort is downloading the exton live iso to see if they have EFI FB support in that.

I'm somewhat impaired in that I don't have a DVD/CD drive for this system. (actually all mine are IDE)

Thanks ruario for your help.

I tried the 120514 version of the exton live slack and it fails looking for a drive...so I guess the EFI stuff isn't in it and working.

I've been messing with this thing for about 16 straight hours. Time to do something different.

Slackware and other distros that aren't fully UEFI compatible will pose a problem in the immediate future. Unless I am missing something, that includes several distros.

Some tips here. http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...t-disk-917864/


Here may be some help. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFIBooting

And we are all going to have to know this stuff now or in a few years. https://www.linuxfoundation.org/site..._platforms.pdf

A wild guess, but could the blank screen be related to KMS?
Have you tried booting with "nomodeset"?

I guess my UEFI must be different, because there is no mention of BIOS compatibility mode anywhere in the UEFI, it just works with lilo. How are you able to tell if UEFI has BIOS compatibility?

samac

Well if you can use BIOS bootloaders like LILO or Syslinux then you definitely have BIOS compatibility.

Mine doesn't have any mention of "BIOS compatibility" either, it is just used by default and there is an option to enable "UEFI boot".

The UEFI boot requires the device to have a FAT or ISO9660 filesystem that contains a file /EFI/boot/bootx64.efi (which can be a Linux kernel with EFI stub support or any other EFI bootloader). I guess I can load a file with a different name if I use that efibootmgr tool, but I haven't played with it yet.