Installing LMDE with EFI support

[Gnomikian]

Hi, I tried installing LMDE with EFI boot but didn't succeed. Only latest Debian (Beta4) installer seems to provide that functionality. Now I'm running Arch without problems but I like LMDE more. So my question is: Is there a way to make LMDE work with EFI (GPT) or if I should wait for a new release ?

Thanks in advance.

[Gnomikian]

Well... I guess I'll stay with Arch then...

Thanks for the support.

[srs5694]

You could always install in BIOS mode (to a GPT disk) and then convert it to boot in EFI mode by installing an EFI boot loader. It's not intended as a direct tutorial on how to do this, but my EFI Boot Loaders for Linux page provides the information you'd need to do this. Pay particular attention to the boot loader installation page.

If you've already got Arch running in EFI mode, then you could do a side-by-side installation (doing the Mint install in EFI mode) and just add Mint to whatever EFI boot loader/boot manager you're already using. Once Mint is working to your satisfaction, you could then remove Arch from the picture, providing the boot loader doesn't depend on the Arch installation. (To the best of my knowledge, only GRUB 2 is likely to have such dependencies, and then only if it's configured in a way that I consider unwise. Sadly, Ubuntu (and probably Mint) sets up GRUB 2 in this unwise way.)

[lewyssmith]

Hi, I tried installing LMDE with EFI boot but didn't succeed. Only latest Debian (Beta4) installer seems to provide that functionality. Now I'm running Arch without problems but I like LMDE more. So my question is: Is there a way to make LMDE work with EFI (GPT) or if I should wait for a new release ?

Thanks in advance.

Alas, LMDE home page says No EFI, GPT or secureBoot support. This will have to be sorted in the end; but when?
See also thread

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http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=189&t=121151&hilit=+EFI+installation

Lewis Smith

[srs5694]

Alas, LMDE home page says No EFI, GPT or secureBoot support. This will have to be sorted in the end; but when?

Note that "no support" from a distribution's maintainer does not mean that it won't work; it just means that the maintainer doesn't sanction its use, and in some cases (apparently including this one), it's not set up to work automatically. Installing an EFI-mode boot loader on a Linux distribution is not that hard once you know how. The trouble is the "once you know how" part -- the EFI learning curve remains steep enough that many people are discouraged by it. It really shouldn't be that steep; but unfortunately, there are a lot of buggy EFI implementations out there.