[SOLVED] UEFI & priority

business_kid · 05-30-2022, 12:02 PM

I've upgraded my box and Slackware64 is currently living beside windows 10. UEFI is courtesy of a slackware install & elilo.

But it's defaulting to the m$ bootloader, which is a pain in the face. If I tap F11, I can get elilo. How do I change that priority?

colorpurple21859 · 05-30-2022, 12:29 PM

If it is an hp go into firmware/bios settings, will be under boot osmanager settings

business_kid · 05-30-2022, 05:04 PM

Thanks for the reply. Sorry for the lack of detail.

No it's not a HP, it's a custom built box, MSI MAG B550M Bazooka m/b, AMD cpu & (separate) graphics. I'll have a look in the large & complicated BIOS stuff for switching boot order. I remember this menu which offered me windows or a number of USB disks. When I press F11, I get a boot choice up. I'll see what's there tmw. I might have Slackware. It's late here, and I don't want a divorce

!

colorpurple21859 · 05-30-2022, 05:23 PM

Quote:

When I press F11, I get a boot choice up

It probably won't be there. On my Hp I press f9 to get a boot menu, f10 for all the other firmware/bios settings including the option to change the boot order.

business_kid · 05-31-2022, 04:49 AM

I have an old HP laptop and it had a smarter setup too. F1=Bios; F2=Something with UEFI (Backup?); F9 = Recovery(?); F10=Boot order. I've had it on legacy for so long I forget.

I can get the new system to legacy boot in the bios, or "CSM" as they call it. That's all.

Anyhow I read but didn't get something about changing the software boot order. So instead of the system loading the M$ bootloader first, it should load the linux one. I'll have to read whatever I read again.

What's annoying is that everyone seems to dump a bunch of random EFI binaries in a nest of EFI subdirectories and apart from bootx64.efi, you never know what's important.

colorpurple21859 · 05-31-2022, 05:33 AM

You may have to move /boot/efi/EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi to /boot/efi/EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi.bak and copy /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware/elilo.efi to /boot/efi/EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi. Not sure if the kernel and initrd needs to be copied over.

camorri · 05-31-2022, 09:38 AM

If you can not get this sorted with UEFI settings, have a look at rFind. It is well documented, although it will take some time to get through the doc with some understanding.

rFind is a boot manager, it can be a boot loader as well, however I don't use it that way. rFind loads first once configured, and presents you with a screen so you choose what system you want to boot. You can make a default, and have it go there as well. It is very flexible.

I have current on a old spinner, GPT partitioned, 14.2 on an ssd with mbr, and a NVME drive with Slackware 15.0, GPT partitioned.

NVRAM points to rFind, from there I make the choice, not UEFI firmware.

business_kid · 05-31-2022, 11:23 AM

I'm going to live with it.

Sometime I feel like it, I'll research options, with a view to assisting others.
If I hit F11, I get a windows bootloader offering slackware as an option. I'm still a UEFI newbie. Better walk before I try running.

rEFInd I haven't approached yet. Documentation invariably tells you what you already know, omitting what you don't. That's the issue. At times I think UEFI doesn't know what UEFI is doing.

Now that I have it working, and have a live usb, the best way to find out about UEFI might be to fiddle very carefully, and note what breaks it!