LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] boot setup for Slackware on HP laptop

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boot setup for Slackware on HP laptop

I just got a HP EliteBook 840 laptop, installed a 1Tbyte Seagate drive in it and loaded Slakeware64 14.2 on it. Loading the OS was entirely standard with no special cases or devices. During the install, I specified that it should use the LILO loader and put the boot info in the MBR.

However BIOS is not finding an OS on the disk and I am forced to use a boot USB to bring the system up. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong? Thanks.

try booting from usb and run pkgtool then pick choose slackware installation scripts to run again.
when you initially setup lilo you picked a root partition example sda2 etc where the system is?

pkgtool not too helpful

I tried pkgtool and basically it seems to imply I need to run lilo, which I did.
lilo -A /dev/sda ... told me no partitions were active
lilo -A /dev/sda 1 ... activated /dev/sda1
lilo -M /dev/sda mbr ...said it wrote a new record

But none of this made the BIOS see the OS, i.e., same problem. I am wondering if the problem is with a BIOS setting, maybe I am looking for the wrong thing?

How did you prepare and format the drive? Did you make it bootable?

Did you change the BIOS settings to Legacy? If not, it would have come with UEFI since Win10 came on the original drive.

Either set it to legacy, or set UEFI and disable secure boot. Your choice. Not sure what you may have to do if Slack was installed in UEFI mode, and now you switch to legacy boot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gordie (Post 5957384)

How did you prepare and format the drive? Did you make it bootable?

No, I haven't figured out how to make it bootable. I used cfdisk to create a Linux filesystem partition and a swap partition. I seem to remember fdisk used to have a boot option but I looked for it and didn't find it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by camorri (Post 5957464)

Yes, Legacy. Still no help though, still have to use the USB boot stick.

Could you post some information? As root, run fdisk -l and post the output inside code tags. Please post your lilo.conf file, again in code tags. Possibly we can either confirm what is wrong, or we will know what you have is good.

gpt partiton table = uefi booting.
msdos = MBR = Legacy booting.

in the bios is an option to have one or the other or both at the same time.

gpt cannot install anything on a MBR because gpt does not have a MBR.

I have found lately that I had to flag my partition as a boot partition to get a ssd to boot. whereas is was not always the case, why it changed I do not know, I just added the boot flag to the first partition I had/have a OS on and it worked. I do not use lilo, but grub though the same basics still apply.

as I installed Slackware with other OS's, so I skipped that part all together because I use the other OS grub to boot slack. nevertheless, I bet it is the lining up of the partition table you have on your hdd to the boot type in your BIOS and then the type of install of the OS all have to be the same to get it to work without having to use you stick to boot it.

so you might have to start over by creating your partition table as GPT for uefi or MSDOS(MBR) for Legacy booting, then go into your BIOS and make sure it is selected to do the same, uefi, or Legacy booting, then if it is UEFI you have to create a separate little 100 to 150MB boot partition for the files to go into it, and mark it as same for uefi using cfdisk and like software. Slack will see it, then install into it, though you still may have to go into that boot partition and change the name of a file still to get it to work properly, I do not use UEFI, I have only tired it just to see what that is all about, I have no real need to use UEFI due to > 2TB limitations on HDDs, I do not have any hdds with 2TB or greater installed on my laptop, So i use Legacy booting.

Just make sure everything lines up and you will have no problems installing and running Slackware on your HP EliteBook 840 gx. I am using a HP EliteBook 840 g2 and have no issues running Slack on it. I am in Slackware right now typing this to you.

ACTUALLY,

if I remember correctly, I had to put a uefi boot partition in , then add the /boot/efi directory after marking it for uefi, then still it installed into a separate EFI/ dir then I had to change that one grub file name to get it to work, then it worked without a hitch for uefi boot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by camorri (Post 5957544)

Code:

Disk /dev/ram0: 16 MiB, 16777216 bytes, 32768 sectors

Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes



...



Disk /dev/ram15: 16 MiB, 16777216 bytes, 32768 sectors

Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes





Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors

Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes

Disklabel type: gpt

Disk identifier: 7A2A3876-1915-4CED-9DF6-C6AABFADB417



Device          Start        End    Sectors  Size Type

/dev/sda1        2048 1929381887 1929379840  920G Linux filesystem

/dev/sda2  1929381888 1953525134  24143247 11.5G Linux swap

Code:

# LILO configuration file

# generated by 'liloconfig'

#

# Start LILO global section

lba32 # Allow booting past 1024th cylinder with a recent BIOS

# Append any additional kernel parameters:

append=" vt.default_utf8=0"

boot = /dev/sda1



#compact # faster, but won't work on all systems.



# Boot BMP Image.

# Bitmap in BMP format: 640x480x8

bitmap = /boot/slack.bmp

# Menu colors (foreground, background, shadow, highlighted

# foreground, highlighted background, highlighted shadow):

bmp-colors = 255,0,255,0,255,0

# Location of the option table: location x, location y, number of

# columns, lines per column (max 15), "spill" (this is how many

# entries must be in the first column before the next begins to

# be used. We don't specify it here, as there's just one column.

bmp-table = 60,6,1,16

# Timer location x, timer location y, foreground color,

# background color, shadow color.

bmp-timer = 65,27,0,255



# Standard menu.

# Or, you can comment out the bitmap menu above and

# use a boot message with the standard menu:

#message = /boot/boot_message.txt



# Wait until the timeout to boot (if commented out, boot the

# first entry immediately):

prompt

# Timeout before the first entry boots.

# This is given in tenths of a second, so 600 for every minute:

timeout = 1200

# Override dangerous defaults that rewrite the partition table:

change-rules

reset

# Normal VGA console

vga = normal

# Ask for video mode at boot (time out to normal in 30s)

#vga = ask

# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k

#vga=791

# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x32k

#vga=790

# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256

#vga=773

# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x64k

#vga=788

# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x32k

#vga=787

# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x256

#vga=771

# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x64k

#vga=785

# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x32k

#vga=784

# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x256

#vga=769

# End LILO global section

# Linux bootable partition config begins

image = /boot/vmlinuz

root = /dev/sda1

label = Linux

read-only

# Linux bootable partition config ends

Quote:

Originally Posted by BW-userx (Post 5957545)

I chose GPT simply b/c it was first. Last time I did an istall it was 14.2 on a Dell desktop and it used GRUB but that option did not present itself during the setup. I do installs so rarely that I forget how between. If I am going to have to start over and reinstall, I want to know it now, before I add any more apps. I have BIOS set for UEFI but that doesn't work any better than Legacy.

One bright spot here: when I shut the system down, it remembers where I was so rebooting isn't the issue it would be on a desktop. I can boot up to the initial login prompt, close the lid and when I come back, still have that screen waiting for me.

As far as I know, boot= should point at the HD, not the partition.

Try changing boot = sda1 to boot = sda , save the change, run lilo, and try to boot again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by camorri (Post 5957571)

As far as I know, boot= should point at the HD, not the partition.

Try changing boot = sda1 to boot = sda , save the change, run lilo, and try to boot again.

It didn't see to make any difference. HOWEVER: Something is different, I still need to have the USB stick plugged in, but the BIOS is booting from the HD and not running the boot stick.

When you run lilo, the mbr gets written to the device you booted from. Was the boot stick plugged in when you tried my suggestion? If yes, then the mbr went to the boot stick, not the HD.

You may have to boot from install media, and chroot into the HD install and run lilo with no boot stick plugged in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rdx (Post 5957530)

cfdisk allows you to set the "bootable" flag.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rdx (Post 5957357)

FWIW - lilo -A /dev/sda shows I have no acive partitions as well but my computer runs just fine.

I have found out the hard way that Legacy Boot + gpt didn't work for me. I had to go to the start and prepare my drive and re-install. I had nothing to loose since it was a fresh install