how to boot Slackware on the second disk if on the first is windows10

a4z · 10-16-2017, 12:12 PM

interestingly Windows has put its own boot stuff into the EFI partition on disk2, and disk1 has no EFI partition.
this was done automagically by the Windows setup.
now the question is, how can I add Windows to the elilo entry and boot to the elilo menu per default, or better, get grub working since this can remember the last booted OS what is a nice feature ?

I have a booting windows, on disk0 , EFI on disk1/1 and Slackware on disk1/2, Windows10 and a Slackware install USB to boot from

bormant · 10-16-2017, 03:33 PM

elilo cannot boot Windows, elilo is not boot manager.

laprjns · 10-16-2017, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by a4z

I can not disconnect disk2, its m2...

Quote:

Originally Posted by a4z

there is a Slackware in the boot menu list but when I boot it it says there is no sdbX

The problem is that the boot menu entry is pointing to sdb, but your second disk is a NVMe SSD which is identified by nvme0. So you going to need to edit the boot menu entry to change the path from sdb to nvme0. Assuming that you can boot Slackware or a Slackware live you can do this with efibootmgr using the following command:

Code:

efibootmgr -c -d /dev/nvme0nX -p Z -L Slackware -l \\EFI\\Slackware\\elilo.efi

Where the X needs to be changed to the the appropriate disk number which is your case is most likely 1 and the Z need to be changed to the appropriate partition, which again is most likely 1. You can get this information by reviewing the output of lsblk.

Quote:

Originally Posted by a4z

the problem with some of the tips here is, they assume I already in Linux, but I am not :-) :-(
need to see how this thing looks from MS,

Changing and editing boot menu entries in Windows can be done by using easyUEFI (https://www.easyuefi.com/index-us.html), the free version.

a4z · 10-17-2017, 01:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by laprjns

The problem is that the boot menu entry is pointing to sdb, but your second disk is a NVMe SSD which is identified by nvme0. So you going to need to edit the boot menu entry to change the path from sdb to nvme0. Assuming that you can boot Slackware or a Slackware live you can do this with efibootmgr using the following command:

Code:

efibootmgr -c -d /dev/nvme0nX -p Z -L Slackware -l \\EFI\\Slackware\\elilo.efi

Where the X needs to be changed to the the appropriate disk number which is your case is most likely 1 and the Z need to be changed to the appropriate partition, which again is most likely 1. You can get this information by reviewing the output of lsblk.

it worked with sdb before, not sure if this is the problem, or that the computer changes the hardisks order now when I select Slackware boot entry

Quote:

Originally Posted by laprjns

Changing and editing boot menu entries in Windows can be done by using easyUEFI (https://www.easyuefi.com/index-us.html), the free version.

this looks nice, thanks for the link, will give it a trial in the evening.

I also learned that there is a grub2 for windows

https://sourceforge.net/projects/grub2win/

but I did not try it until now, I do not plan to invest more than 1 h per day into this problem since I have not more time currently

and I think this evening I will give easyUEFI a trial and look if it can fix things for me

laprjns · 10-17-2017, 04:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by a4z

it worked with sdb before,

Are you sure that you were using the UEFI's boot men entry to boot you Slackware install or was it using grub? grub nor rEFInd use the boot menu entry to boot, they both can detect boot loaders and boot without using the boot menu entries.

Quote:

Originally Posted by a4z

or that the computer changes the hardisks order now when I select Slackware boot entry

This is a possibility, in fact it just happened to me last night as a result of creating a partition in the middle of my disk in Windows. When I tried to reboot none of my two installations (Slint, Salix) would boot. Found out out as a result of adding the new partition my disk partitions got reordered. Ended up needing to edit the appropriate fstabs and elilo.conf files using a Salix Live disk.

a4z · 10-17-2017, 04:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by laprjns

Are you sure that you were using the UEFI's boot men entry to boot you Slackware install or was it using grub? grub nor rEFInd use the boot menu entry to boot, they both can detect boot loaders and boot without using the boot menu entries.

well, it booted .... this t430s has quite some history, I have forgotten what all I had installed in which combinations, quite a lot, I think this NB has every year or so an new config, but the Slackware installation lives now on it a bit longer (since 14.2 came out) and I want to keep it if possible.

before I installed windows 10 it was grub2 from Ubuntu what booted what was written into elilo, this is how far my goldfish memory goes back for this

aragorn2101 · 10-17-2017, 07:15 AM

From what I understand, your disks layouts are like this:

/dev/sda
/dev/sdaX : Windows

/dev/sdb
/dev/sdb1 : EFI
/dev/sdb2 : Slackware root filesystem

What bloody Windows did is put its bootloader on /dev/sdb1 and bump out your good old GRUB. Now, what you have to do is simple, well I hope so: reinstall GRUB on EFI partition /dev/sdb1.

Firstly, you need a bootable live USB/CD/DVD. A Slackware DVD/USB will be great. Boot into it, chroot into Slackware root filesystem on /dev/sdb and grub-install. After you boot into the live media:

Code:

# Mount Slackware root filesystem
mount -t ext4 /dev/sdb2 /mnt

# Mount EFI partition
mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /mnt/boot/efi

# Mount some useful temp filesystems
mount -t proc /proc /mnt/proc
mount --rbind /sys /mnt/sys
mount --rbind /dev /mnt/dev
mount --rbind /run /mnt/run

# Chroot into your Slackware
chroot /mnt env -i HOME=/root PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin bash --login +h

# Proceed to install grub-efi
modprobe efivars
modprobe dm-mod
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=GRUB --recheck --debug

# Just make sure grub has all the necessary files before running mkconfig
mkdir -p /boot/grub/locale
cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo

# Finally generate the grub config file with all the necessary entries
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Two important things here:

(1.) the grub-install command gives a lot of output. If you read the last 10 lines or so carefully, you will see it calls efibootmgr. Any error will be reported. If there are errors, post them here and we will advise further.

(2.) If grub-mkconfig complains that it cannot add an entry for Windows 10, you will have to add the entry manually in /boot/grub/grub.cfg. You can do that after your Slackware is successfully booted, of course.

Code:

menuentry 'Windows 10' {
  set root='hd1,gpt1'
  chainloader /EFI/Windows/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
}

You can modify the line for chainloading Windows bootloader if the path is different for your system.

All the best.

a4z · 10-17-2017, 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aragorn2101

From what I understand, your disks layouts are like this:

/dev/sda
/dev/sdaX : Windows

/dev/sdb
/dev/sdb1 : EFI
/dev/sdb2 : Slackware root filesystem

What bloody Windows did is put its bootloader on /dev/sdb1 and bump out your good old GRUB.

exactly !

Quote:

Originally Posted by aragorn2101

Now, what you have to do is simple, ...
....

thanks! this sounds doable to me.

a4z · 10-17-2017, 11:25 AM

back on Slackware on my t430s

no, this worked with the EFI boot menu, what I did was going back to the huge kernel
I am not sure why this is/was required,

my elilo.cof in looks now so, with the now out commented parts it worked before

Code:

chooser=simple
delay=2
timeout=2

#image = vmlinuz-generic-4.4.88
#  initrd = initrd-4.4.88.gz 
#  label = Slackware
#  read-only
#  append="root=/dev/sdb2 vga=normal ro"
#

image=vmlinuz-huge-4.4.88
        label=vmlinuz-huge
        read-only
        append="root=/dev/sdb2 vga=normal ro"

I have no idea why the entry with the generic kernel and the initrd stopped working, it worked before the windows installation, at least, this was my elilo conf
or, something else was going on I don't understand, however, important is that I have my Slackware back!