[SOLVED] Slackware64 and EFI

azinulbizar · 01-25-2014, 02:39 PM

I've been running an EFI installation of Slackware64 since 13.37 and I'm having some serious trouble now. I've been running reiserfs for a while, but I recently decided to put linux on my Samsung 840 Pro SSD. This has led me to move my esp as well. I've moved it from /dev/sde1 to /dev/sda1. My system is 14.1, and it is the same as it was, but I'm running ext4 now instead of reiser's system.

The EFI suddenly now does not want to work. I used to use rEFInd and it was a breeze to set up previously. Now, all I get is a blinking cursor on a black screen. Why would a change in filesystem be a problem? Must be something else so:

/dev/sda1 is ef00 and is formatted to fat32.
The esp is mounted at /boot/efi.
It's been formatted and deleted a handful of times this weekend already.
The directory structure is thus:

Code:

/EFI/
/EFI/refind/
/EFI/slackware/
/EFI/boot/

I've tried the renaming strategy for refind, to force the firmware to find bootx64.efi and it doesn't work. Also, placing Shellx64.efi into /boot/efi/EFI/ does not work any more, and it's the same shell I used previously. I've tried v2, from multiple places(my board has accepted both v1 and 2 in the past).

This is weird and I'm getting to the hair-pulling stage. Any help would really be appreciated. Here's a murphy's stout to ya

Oh, I forgot; I'm using a Sabertooth 990fx motherboard, Revision 01.

aaditya · 01-25-2014, 02:51 PM

Maybe your /dev/sde was higher up in the firmware boot order than /dev/sda, so now its not able to find it?

metaschima · 01-25-2014, 02:51 PM

Can you post the output of 'gdisk -l /dev/sda' and '/dev/sde' as well.

azinulbizar · 01-25-2014, 03:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by metaschima

Can you post the output of 'gdisk -l /dev/sda' and '/dev/sde' as well.

Code:

root@xibalba:~# gdisk -l /dev/sda 
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.7

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sda: 250069680 sectors, 119.2 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): C766A951-3415-45B9-B62C-51D673C04315
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 250069646
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2669 sectors (1.3 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048          526335   256.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System
   2          526336        63440895   30.0 GiB    8300  slackware
   3        63440896        78120959   7.0 GiB     8300  var
   4        78120960       250068991   82.0 GiB    8300  home

And here's /dev/sde(which is now just a copy of the old /home)

Code:

root@xibalba:~# gdisk -l /dev/sde
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.7

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sde: 1953525168 sectors, 931.5 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): FE28B5D1-7C86-491A-AA03-45297CD2FB48
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1953525134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2099166 sectors (1.0 GiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   2         2099200      1953525134   930.5 GiB   8300  home

They're listed in the BIOS, I can view them using ASUS' ez update utility(for flashing).

Edit:

Someone may ask, here's efibootmgr output and the commands I've tried:

Code:

root@xibalba:~# efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0004
Timeout: 2 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0002,0003,0004
Boot0000* rEFInd	HD(1,800,80000,8ae67830-d143-4686-b6be-a22166a915d8)File(\EFI\refind\refind_x64.efi)
Boot0002* Hard Drive	BIOS(2,0,00)P0: Samsung SSD 840 PRO Series.
Boot0003* CD/DVD Drive	BIOS(3,0,00)P5: TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-224BB  .
Boot0004* UEFI: TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-224BB	ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000500ffff0000CD-ROM(1,10256,1b80)

I've tried using

Code:

efibootmgr -c -l \\EFI\\refind\\refind_x64.efi -L "rEFInd"

As well as using single quotes (') to avoid using double backslashes, also have used single forward slashes which has gotten me from a simple boot into the UEFI firmware to the blinking cursor on the black background. Progress of a sort, I guess.

azinulbizar · 01-26-2014, 05:28 PM

Well, seems I've solved this myself. For some odd reason, the esp must be created via a Windows installation. I would first lay blame with efibootmgr, however the first time I set this system up under Slackware 13.37 I used an Arch install disk and efibootmgr to compile my kernel and set up refind, however I already had the EFI partition created under Windows 8 and there is the solution. Why does the ASUS firmware need the partition to be created by Windows and what is MS doing that GParted or gdisk isn't?

Mark Pettit · 01-27-2014, 08:15 AM

Scratch ASUS from my list of future motherboard purchase.

granth · 01-27-2014, 11:50 AM

I have an ASUS board and created my efi partition using the Slackware installer. I think the problem was with your bootloader.

azinulbizar · 01-27-2014, 06:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by granth

I have an ASUS board and created my efi partition using the Slackware installer. I think the problem was with your bootloader.

I'm not using a bootloader. I'm using EFI stub kernels. A bad bootloader wouldn't explain why it worked, then didn't simply by moving the partitions around.