Installation Debian 9 on UEFI/Legacy Desktop for dual boot
Dear people,
Current op-sys on my house desktop is Debian 8.6 (Jessie) which boots from a dual personality UEFI/Legacy BIOS set to Legacy mode. I want to install Debian 9.3 on a separate 'primary' hardisk. The Debian 8.6 will be relegated to s separate secondary harddisk. I still want to optionally boot Debian 8.6 via grub. My question concerns the installation of Debian 9 and the setup of the grub boot loader. 1. I understand that Debian 9 can be installed under UEFI and will seek out the presence of a UEFI BIOS; but can I force the installation in Legacy mode anyway? If so, how? (Dinosaurs are too old for unwelcome surprises) 2. My version of Debian 8.6 probably won't boot up via a UEFI BIOS. If one is forced to use UEFI how should I arrange grub for a dual boot? Or is it a lost cause? Thanks in advance to anyone who can help. Dynosaw |
Generally one is forced to use uefi on systems that won't allow legacy/csm. Or on systems that don't provide hardware in legacy.
If your system allows legacy then you can easily install Debian 9 that way. I can't remember if older versions support uefi but I think they did in 8. See Debian web site. I suspect you'd have to create uefi boot/install media. Never a quick way to boot from one to the other. Always have to go to bios and switch back and forth. Some bio's require two switches to get video and legacy back from ueif. |
If you have Debian 8.6 installed on a separate hard drive with it's Grub boot code in the MBR of that drive, you can select that drive on boot regardless of what is on the second drive. On my system with several UEFI Linux installs on the internal drive, I can boot another Linux system on an external drive of an MBR install on that drive from the Grub menu of one of the internal installs with Grub. If you are unable to install in Legacy mode, run grub-mkconfig (or update-grub if Debian uses it?) from the new install once finished and re-booted.
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Took to long yancek seems to have beat me to some of it as I see in a preview. |
Dear People,
Thank you for your help, which is much appreciated. My delay in replying is due to intervening social obligations which kept me away from home. I can now say that I have sucessfully installed Debian 9 (Stretch) on sda under the "Legacy" feature of the dual personality BIOS and update-grub found the previous op-sys Debian 8 (Jessie) which had been relegated to sdb. It all went smoothly except for one minor point, and I will set this down here, in case others may find it useful. The mother board of my stand-alone desk-top PC is an Asus AX88M-A (2016 vintage). On boot up form a Debian live DVD with the BIOS in legacy mode the monitor showed a warning message: "System found unauthorised changes on the firmaware, operating system, or UEFI drivers. Press [N] to run next boot." This message seemed to be superfluous in this case; I pressed the N-key and the basic installation went ahead without any further problems. I can consider this action closed. Again thanks to all who replied for your help and advice. Dynosaw. |
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