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Debian installation on EFI system

Hello,

I installed Debian 11.3 on an HP 250 G6 notebook (erase disk -> default partition table) using the graphical installer (not Calamares) from a bootable debian "netinst" USB drive created using dd, but the installer failed to install GRUB.

Code:

root@debian-hp:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 465.76 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors

Disk model: WDC WD5000LPCX-6

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: 1AF41D5B-2B0F-409E-A9B5-136B84A26955



Device        Start      End  Sectors  Size Type

/dev/sda1      2048  1050623  1048576  512M EFI System

/dev/sda2    1050624 974772223 973721600 464.3G Linux filesystem

/dev/sda3  974772224 976771071  1998848  976M Linux swap

The installer was complaining about EFI variables so I "chrooted" into the installed system using "recovery mode" and I installed efivars:

Code:

# apt install efivar

Then I reinstalled GRUB and it worked without errors. However, now I can only boot the system using the "Boot from EFI file" option in BIOS because of the EFI boot order:

Code:

root@debian-hp:~# efibootmgr

Timeout: 0 seconds

BootOrder: 0002,0003,2001,2002,0001,2004

Boot0001* Notebook Hard Drive - WDC WD5000LPCX-60VHAT0

Boot0002* ubuntu

Boot0003* debian

Boot2001* EFI USB Device

Boot2002* EFI DVD/CDROM

I tried to change the order using the following command but nothing changes:

Code:

root@debian-hp:~# efibootmgr -o 0003,0002,2001,2002,0001,2004

Invalid BootOrder order entry value0003,0002,2001,2002,0001,2004

                                                              ^

efibootmgr: entry 2004 does not exist

root@debian-hp:~# efibootmgr -o 0003,0002,2001,2002,0001

Could not set BootOrder: Interrupted system call

root@debian-hp:~# efibootmgr -o 0003,2001,2002,0001

Skipping unreadable variable "Boot0001": Interrupted system call

Skipping unreadable variable "Boot0002": Interrupted system call

Skipping unreadable variable "Boot0003": Interrupted system call

Skipping unreadable variable "Boot2001": Interrupted system call

Skipping unreadable variable "Boot2002": Interrupted system call

Invalid BootOrder order entry value0003

                                    ^

efibootmgr: entry 0003 does not exist

Could you please help me change the EFI priority or remove "ubuntu" option from the list so that my notebook will automatically load Debian GRUB bootloader on startup?

Boot into the system with the "boot from file" option, make sure sda1 is mounted to /boot/efi
Run as root

Code:

grub-install

update-grub

If this doesn't work you may have to change the boot order in the firmware/bios settings

The /dev/sda1 partition is already mounted to /boot/efi :

Code:

root@debian-hp:~# cat /etc/mtab

sysfs /sys sysfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0

proc /proc proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0

udev /dev devtmpfs rw,nosuid,relatime,size=1895660k,nr_inodes=473915,mode=755 0 0

devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000 0 0

tmpfs /run tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=386216k,mode=755 0 0

/dev/sda2 / ext4 rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 0

securityfs /sys/kernel/security securityfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0

tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev 0 0

tmpfs /run/lock tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=5120k 0 0

cgroup2 /sys/fs/cgroup cgroup2 rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,nsdelegate,memory_recursiveprot 0 0

pstore /sys/fs/pstore pstore rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0

efivarfs /sys/firmware/efi/efivars efivarfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0

none /sys/fs/bpf bpf rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,mode=700 0 0

systemd-1 /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc autofs rw,relatime,fd=29,pgrp=1,timeout=0,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct,pipe_ino=13188 0 0

hugetlbfs /dev/hugepages hugetlbfs rw,relatime,pagesize=2M 0 0

mqueue /dev/mqueue mqueue rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0

debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0

tracefs /sys/kernel/tracing tracefs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0

fusectl /sys/fs/fuse/connections fusectl rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0

configfs /sys/kernel/config configfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0

/dev/sda1 /boot/efi vfat rw,relatime,fmask=0077,dmask=0077,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0

tmpfs /run/user/1000 tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=386212k,nr_inodes=96553,mode=700,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0

gvfsd-fuse /run/user/1000/gvfs fuse.gvfsd-fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000 0 0

When I try to install GRUB:

Code:

root@debian-hp:~# grub-install

Installing for x86_64-efi platform.

grub-install: warning: Cannot set EFI variable BootOrder.

grub-install: warning: efivarfs_set_variable: writing to fd 7 failed: Interrupted system call.

grub-install: warning: _efi_set_variable_mode: ops->set_variable() failed: Interrupted system call.

grub-install: error: failed to register the EFI boot entry: Interrupted system call.

I changed the UEFI boot order in BIOS and now it works, thank you very much!

Code:

root@debian-hp:~# efibootmgr

BootCurrent: 0003

Timeout: 0 seconds

BootOrder: 0003,3003,0002,2001,2002,0001,2004

Boot0001* Notebook Hard Drive - WDC WD5000LPCX-60VHAT0

Boot0002* ubuntu

Boot0003* debian

Boot2001* EFI USB Device

Boot2002* EFI DVD/CDROM

Boot3003* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk

Do you know how I can remove the "ubuntu" entry from the list?

man efibootmgr
efibootmgr -b 2 -B