LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] UEFI fresh hdd GPT table and Slackware.. didnt do what it said it should

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UEFI fresh hdd GPT table and Slackware.. didnt do what it said it should

had an issue with grub and some crap arch knock off that screwed it up, so I had just flashed his BIOS and it update the UEFI to no longer experimental dated back in 2012, now it has a 2018 updated BIOS, so I decided to try my hand at installing UEFI , why I hae no idea, as every attempt so far is a fail. both manjaro, arentrogs or whatever it calls itself. so no to Slack, and my iPhone. as you can see it has a /boot/efi and slack must have added the EFI directory and that was it, as the instructions on my Iphone said skip lilo install, and the elilo will pop up, NOPE, it didn't installed again did the create a boot usb stick and even though on both occasions Slack said it added the /boot/efi to fstab it never gave me the option to install elilo. so I am sitting here writing this now. :( Not sure if I should go ahead with my post install and turn it into current in the process as well. having to use the boot USB Stick to get in.

My BIOS has a boot UEFI boot List option so I picked, for Slack I didn't select to go into BIOS boot order select, so I'll have to do that even though the directory is empty, so let me put that idea aside,

step by step anyone?

slackware.osuosl.org

that is the instruction I found on my iPhone.

Code:

Checking connectivity... done.

bash-4.3# lsblk

NAME  MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT

sda      8:0    0 232.9G  0 disk 

|-sda1  8:1    0  500M  0 part /boot/efi

|-sda2  8:2    0  25.4G  0 part /

|-sda3  8:3    0  25.4G  0 part 

|-sda4  8:4    0 151.4G  0 part /home

`-sda5  8:5    0  30.3G  0 part /media/projects

sdb      8:16  1  14.6G  0 disk 

`-sdb1  8:17  1    16M  0 part 

bash-4.3# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

bash-4.3# ls /mnt

EFI

bash-4.3# ls /mnt/EFI

the stick

Code:

/run/media/root/USBSLACK

bash-4.3# ls

EFI  f1.txt  ldlinux.sys  message.txt  syslinux.cfg  vmlinuz



------------------

/run/media/root/USBSLACK/EFI/BOOT

bash-4.3# ls

BOOTX64.EFI  elilo.conf  message.txt

would it be as easy as copying over the directory structure and items into the /dev/sda1/boot/efi directory and rebooting after figuring out the install elilo or grub ???

wtf? is it supose to be
/boot/efi/EFI/Slackware.
or
EFI/BOOT/
or
what?

as it is mounted and showing EFI as a root dir /mnt/EFI just add the directory /slackware then shove a copy of everyhint into that. as I already copied it into /mnt/EFI/BOOT

Code:

bash-4.3# ls /mnt/EFI/BOOT

BOOTX64.EFI  elilo.conf  message.txt  vmlinuz

https://docs.slackware.com/howtos:sl...uefi_and_elilo

in the leading part of that I am not really sure what this is,
Using the new EFI variable filesystem

In order to use the new EFI variable filesystem interface, you need to remove the old efibootmgr program and replace it with a new one that supports the EFI variable filesystem.

Download and install: https://github.com/vathpela/efivar
Download and install: https://github.com/vathpela/efibootmgr/tree/libefivars

and the second link is dead so that part did not get done because of it.

I rebooted, using the keys needed to get the BIOS boot options, I selected the EFI listings, it took me to the Slackware directory I added and put that stuff into, and it was showng me the message as if it was using the usb stick and showing /dev/sda1 as root, when it is /dev/sda2 and /dev/sda1 is the efi partition.

it showed the hit enter to boot efi whatever Slack is calling it file, it just took be back to the begining prompt in BIOS to select a dir to boot from. so yeah I know I got a be missing a step or two, or three here, though,

I'd like to get it like normal and just boot into a listing and have a default boot OS like grub. yes this is all new to me. I've been using MBR grub. :D :D

I probably am defiantly missing that efibootmanager program that I suppose throws up a listing on the screen.

The Slackware installer won't prompt you to install elilo if you didn't boot the installer in UEFI mode. It requires the UEFI information from the kernel to be loaded to detect whether it should prompt to set up elilo. If you booted the installer in legacy, aka BIOS, mode, it won't prompt you to setup elilo, since the system wasn't booted using UEFI.

I don't know how it is on other systems, but the two UEFI systems I've tried both provide two different ways to boot the Slackware install media (in my case, both were using a USB drive). I would press F11 (or whatever key combination to select my boot drives) and it would present me with a something like "Slackware (UEFI)" or "Slackware (legacy)". If I selected legacy, the elilo setup would never be presented.

If your motherboard doesn't show both options, you may need to (at least temporarily) disable "legacy mode" (or whatever your firmware calls it). This would allow your firmware to only see the UEFI mode of the installer, which would allow you to setup elilo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BW-userx (Post 5897293)

as you can see it has a /boot/efi and slack must have added the EFI directory and that was it, as the instructions on my Iphone said skip lilo install, and the elilo will pop up, NOPE, it didn't installed again did the create a boot usb stick and even though on both occasions Slack said it added the /boot/efi to fstab it never gave me the option to install elilo.

What is the file system on the /boot/efi partition? If it is anything but a FAT file system, then the Slackware installer will fail to install elilo as you described.

Quote:

Originally Posted by laprjns (Post 5897397)

What is the file system on the /boot/efi partition? If it is anything but a FAT file system, then the Slackware installer will fail to install elilo as you described.

it is fat32 marked fe00

flagged boot,esp

Quote:

Originally Posted by bassmadrigal (Post 5897371)

yeah let me try that, see if that UEFI picks it up in the stick. because I did install it the old way.

OK, I boot via efi, installed, and this BIOS is not giving me a list, I do not know if I am suppose to get a list, like grub2 legacy mode install type list. I have to hit my keys needed to select boot from and select efi, it has two types of efi boot modes a list which comes up error, then where I have to navigate into the partition and select what to boot. WHich that one works, but I do not want to have to always be present and go through the steps each time I boot. that just over kill, I do not know how others EFI boot works, never seen it before. So I am going on what I think it should be like if I was to have created it.

I'm now installing Manjaro boot efi to see what that does.

back:
it fixed it, I now see a "grub" boot listings with Manjaro and Slackware and I am in Manjaor right now, am now going to boot slack and see where that takes me.

back from attempt at Slack:
Big NOPE
select Slackware off Manjaros grub list, kernel panic.

select efi listings I get a message

EFI/efilio.efi/efilo.efi file not present

select Slackware advance, then select slackware on /dev/sda2 and kernel panic

unknown block(8,2)

I do not know what the 8 represents, but if 2 is the second partition then that part is correct, I only have at the moment one hdd connected to this laptop.

looks like I got some tinkering to do. Just need to figure out how to access the efi partition and hope I don't screw something up. :D

this is the elilo.conf in rfi boot slackware directory.

Code:

[userx@manjaroefi Slackware]$ cat elilo.conf

chooser=simple

delay=1

timeout=1

#

image=vmlinuz

        label=vmlinuz

        read-only

        append="root=/dev/sda2 vga=normal ro"

isn't it suppose to use the vmlinuz in that directory and root is in /dev/sda2

don't know if this is relevant, trying to mount slack on manjaro fs, now i got check what type it is. it's suppose to be ext4?

Code:

[userx@manjaroefi /]$ sudo mount /dev/sda2 /tmp2

mount: /tmp2: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda2, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.

they both are ext4 but Slack has a triangle next to it, and this is turning into a nightmare. :banghead:

right click on gparted partition shows,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gparted information

Unable to read the contents of this file system!
Because of this some operations may be unavailable.
The cause might be a missing software package.
The following list of software packages is required for ext4 file system support: e2fsprogs v1.41+.

so something to look into. Way to go Arch Linux knock off, e2fsprogs v1.41+ is not defaulted installed? yes it is

Code:

[userx@manjaroefi /]$ sudo pacman -Ss  e2fsprogs

core/e2fsprogs 1.44.4-1 (base) [installed: 1.44.3-1]

    Ext2/3/4 filesystem utilities

multilib/lib32-e2fsprogs 1.44.4-1

    Ext2/3/4 filesystem libraries (32-bit)

so does this mean something is wrong with slack's partition? I do not know, so I'll stay tuned, same slack channel , same slack time.

BIG Question. is /boot mounted to the fat32/boot/efi as I just cd into Manjaro's /boot/EFI and am seeing everything that I have mounted to /mnt/boot/efi in my investigation on how to update grub using efi for manjaro. if yes then that you mean I have no need to mount it at a separate mount point.

went back to MBR after secondary hdd crashed due to GPT error corrupted table error for not good reason whatsoever. had to reinstall Windows 10 to fix the MBR that Antergos Linux completely screwed up with its grub install. still got to try and fix my secondary hdd using GPT and I'm having a hell of a week. :D :hattip: