New EFI boot manager available: rEFInd

[mr_raider]

I read your section on gigabyte hybrid EFI. I am trying to install mint kde in efi mode on a ga-a75m-d2h. I can't even get the live CD to boot in EFI mode. Any tips.

[srs5694]

I read your section on gigabyte hybrid EFI. I am trying to install mint kde in efi mode on a ga-a75m-d2h. I can't even get the live CD to boot in EFI mode. Any tips.

I have several suggestions:

• Look for the "EFI CD/DVD Boot Option" setting in the firmware and set it to "EFI." In theory, that should get your CD booting in EFI mode.
• Install rEFInd to a USB flash drive, or even to your hard disk, and boot from it with the CD in the optical drive. With any luck, rEFInd will pick up your bootable CD.
• Prepare a USB flash drive with a single big FAT32 partition, preferably flagged as an ESP, and copy the contents of the Mint CD to it. Note I'm talking about a file-by-file copy, not a low-level backup with dd or the like. With any luck, that USB flash drive will boot into the installer. Depending on how the boot loader is configured, though, you may need to have the CD in the drive, too.
• Install in BIOS mode and then switch over to EFI-mode booting. If you don't have anything else booting in EFI mode, this is most easily done by installing a boot loader as (in Mint) /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi. FWIW, I've just uploaded a Debian package version of rEFInd that should install easily; but if you install while in BIOS mode, you'll need to rename /boot/efi/EFI/refind to /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT and then rename /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/refind_x64.efi to /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi.

Good luck!

[mr_raider]

I read your section on gigabyte hybrid EFI. I am trying to install mint kde in efi mode on a ga-a75m-d2h. I can't even get the live CD to boot in EFI mode. Any tips.

I have several suggestions:

• Look for the "EFI CD/DVD Boot Option" setting in the firmware and set it to "EFI." In theory, that should get your CD booting in EFI mode.
• Install rEFInd to a USB flash drive, or even to your hard disk, and boot from it with the CD in the optical drive. With any luck, rEFInd will pick up your bootable CD.
• Prepare a USB flash drive with a single big FAT32 partition, preferably flagged as an ESP, and copy the contents of the Mint CD to it. Note I'm talking about a file-by-file copy, not a low-level backup with dd or the like. With any luck, that USB flash drive will boot into the installer. Depending on how the boot loader is configured, though, you may need to have the CD in the drive, too.
• Install in BIOS mode and then switch over to EFI-mode booting. If you don't have anything else booting in EFI mode, this is most easily done by installing a boot loader as (in Mint) /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi. FWIW, I've just uploaded a Debian package version of rEFInd that should install easily; but if you install while in BIOS mode, you'll need to rename /boot/efi/EFI/refind to /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT and then rename /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/refind_x64.efi to /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi.

Good luck!

I've successfully converted BIOS boot to EFI boot before, using the Ubuntu boot repair tool. However, the fact that I can't even boot in EFI mode on the live CD has me seriously questioning the implementation of hybrid EFI.

It may be though that the problem lies in the mint CD. I had trouble before with efi boot with the 2011 Mint releases, and ended up using an Ubuntu CD to fix my problems. I tried making USB sticks to load mint in efi mode on my laptop. I found that Mint 14 kde, and mint 14 Cinnamon have issues booting in EFI mode from a live USB, while Ubuntu Unity and Kubuntu Quantal boot with no issues in EFI mode.

As a side not, the Mint USB image writer program is FUBAR. I ended up using the default Ubuntu imagewriter.

[YeeP]

I have several suggestions:

• Look for the "EFI CD/DVD Boot Option" setting in the firmware and set it to "EFI." In theory, that should get your CD booting in EFI mode.

Good luck!

In my search to find how this is all done properly, it seems that booting by disc or usb, with a UEFI firmware, can only be done with an EFI based bootable CD or usb. Is that correct? If so, where can some instructions (for the idiot) be found on how to set this up? I keep finding things like "use the blah_blah.efi file". Sounds good, except where does this file go on the live disc so the bootloader will find it? I know that with the "bios" (dont know what else to call it) set at UEFI, it wont even recognize any live CD (one that I have downloaded the iso and burned it to a disc). When moging it to EFI - Legacy mode, it will recognize the disc, but will not boot in to w**dows. From everything I can find, if you install linux in that manner, you have created a big problem because you have two operating systems installed in two different manners.

So, it sounds like step one is to get your live CD setup to boot from EFI. Correct?

[srs5694]

In my search to find how this is all done properly, it seems that booting by disc or usb, with a UEFI firmware, can only be done with an EFI based bootable CD or usb. Is that correct?

Correct. Any firmware (BIOS, UEFI, CoreBoot, or others) requires follow-on software designed for it. To boot a BIOS-based computer, you need a boot loader designed for BIOS, for instance. There are implementations that can re-converge (for instance, running the same Linux kernel from any of multiple firmware types), and some firmware implementations support two or more boot methods (as in most modern PCs, that support both BIOS and UEFI-style booting), but as a first approximation, each firmware type implements a track that's independent of each other firmware type.

If so, where can some instructions (for the idiot) be found on how to set this up? I keep finding things like "use the blah_blah.efi file". Sounds good, except where does this file go on the live disc so the bootloader will find it?

For CDs, it's much harder than it should be, and I don't know of any good instructions for novices about how to create EFI-bootable CDs. The problem is that in their Infinite Wisdom, the EFI designers decided that optical discs would be bootable using a standard known as El Torito, which was designed as a workaround to enable BIOS-based computers to boot from CDs. Being a workaround for the primitive BIOS, El Torito is ugly and difficult to set up. The alternative would have been to require that EFI implementations include a driver for ISO-9660 (the standard CD-R filesystem) and/or UDF (the standard DVD filesystem), which would have made it quite simple to create a bootable optical disc. For whatever reason, they didn't do this, so you've got to create a FAT filesystem image with the boot files and stuff that onto the disc using El Torito. Linux tools to do this exist, but AFAIK the process requires using a loopback filesystem, using obscure options to mkisofs, and so on.

For USB flash drives, it's much simpler:

• Create a FAT partition on the disk. You may need to use GPT and set its type to that for an EFI System Partition (ESP). In Linux, this would be by setting a type code of EF00 in gdisk or by setting the "boot flag" in parted or GParted. (Some EFI implementations are more lax about this and will boot from MBR disks, though.)
• Store your boot loader as EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi on the FAT filesystem you've just created. (Name it bootia32.efi if it's to be bootable on those rare 32-bit EFI systems, or bootia64.efi for Itanium.)
• Store any other files that the boot loader requires on the flash drive. This part varies greatly from one boot loader to another, though; you'll have to consult program-specific documentation for details.

I cover this in more detail in my EFI Boot Loaders for Linux page. It's written with the assumption that you'll be setting up on a hard disk, but for the most part it all applies to USB flash drives and the like. The big difference is that USB flash drives use the "fallback" filename of EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi rather than a custom name and NVRAM entry. My Web page describes using efibootmgr to enter NVRAM entries, so you could ignore that information when creating a bootable USB flash drive.

I know that with the "bios" (dont know what else to call it) set at UEFI, it wont even recognize any live CD (one that I have downloaded the iso and burned it to a disc).

"Firmware" is the correct generic term. Manufacturers are misapplying the word "BIOS" to UEFI firmware.

Getting firmware to boot in EFI mode can be a problem for several reasons:

• Some bootable media don't support EFI-mode booting.
• Some bootable media, although they nominally support EFI-mode booting, aren't set up quite properly, or are set up in a way that works with some firmware implementations but not with others. I suspect that this problem is exacerbated by the fact that so many Linux distributions try to create boot media that are bootable on anything -- BIOS, UEFI, or Apple's peculiar EFI variant. The result is something that's heavily contorted, which of course just opens the door to problems caused by quirky system-specific incompatibilities.
• The methods used to force a given system to boot in EFI mode vs. BIOS mode vary from one computer to another. Some make it almost impossible to control the matter. On such systems, you may need to remove the unwanted boot mode from your media.
• Users seldom understand the methods their computers use to select a boot mode.
• Manufacturers seldom document the methods their firmware uses to select a boot mode. Combine this with the last two items and you get a situation where even experts may be stymied for hours. See, for instance, this blog post by the creator of shim, Matthew Garrett.
• If/when you get the system to boot, the boot mode may not be obvious. This can lead people to install Linux in BIOS mode on a computer that's already booting Windows in EFI mode.

As you can see, many of these problems actually relate to the support for multiple boot modes in the firmware -- a feature that's designed to help out, but that can have the opposite effect!

One comment regarding Mint specifically: Although I have yet to do a Mint 14 installation, based on what I've heard, the Mint 14 installer seems to be more problematic than many with respect to its EFI boot capabilities. The first release was a total disaster in this respect, and an update a couple of weeks later, although supposed to be better, still generates a lot of problem reports on this forum.

When moging it to EFI - Legacy mode, it will recognize the disc, but will not boot in to w**dows. From everything I can find, if you install linux in that manner, you have created a big problem because you have two operating systems installed in two different manners.

Correct. If you've got one OS booting in BIOS mode and another booting in EFI mode, it's theoretically possible to switch boot modes at boot time; but most firmware implementations make this rather awkward to do in practice. At best, you typically have to press a function key (which varies from one machine to another) at boot time to get the computer's own boot manager and select either an EFI boot option (which may or may not be labelled with the OS's name) or a BIOS boot option (which is typically lablled with the model number of the hard disk on which it's installed).

Recent versions of rEFInd can help with this, because they can redirect the boot process from EFI mode to BIOS mode -- rEFInd boots in EFI mode and can present an option to boot BIOS-mode OSes. This support is limited, though, and it doesn't work correctly on all computers. I've also got some changes to the installation script in progress that will make it possible to install rEFInd from a BIOS-mode boot of Linux and give it a fighting chance of booting up in EFI mode and launching Linux in EFI mode. If you're interested, you can download the new install.sh from the git repository to try it out. (If you read this much beyond January 3, 2013, though, those changes will be incorporated in the 0.6.3 and later releases of rEFInd.)

So, it sounds like step one is to get your live CD setup to boot from EFI. Correct?

Correct.

[srs5694]

In an e-mail message to me, YeeP wrote:

My question becomes; I have just downloaded an iso from the website. I would typically "burn" it to the usb. Are you saying that I would do the same on this setup, only creating an additional FAT partition on the HD and placing the efi files in it, ahead of time?

Not quite. There are two ways it can be done, although which will work depends on the specific disk image:

• Copy the image file to the USB flash drive in the same way you'd do it for a BIOS-bootable computer, using dd, as in "sudo dd if=file.img of=/dev/sdc". This will work if the image was created to be bootable on EFI-based computers as-is. Today many Linux distributions' images are created in this way, but not all of them are. Those that are so created tend to have Frankenstein setups that enable them to be bootable from USB flash drives or from CD-R and from BIOS or from EFI. I'm suspicious of the reliability of such Frankenstein setups, though. I've heard of some that don't work from USB drives in EFI mode, although I don't recall if Mint's is one of those.
• Mount the image file using a loopback device, or burn it to disk or prepare it as just stated but mount the physical medium; then prepare a (second) USB flash drive with a FAT partition and do a file-level copy of all the files to that medium from the first one. If the resulting medium has an EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi file, you shouldn't need to modify it, although you could replace it with your own boot loader if you know what you're doing. The problem with this approach is that the boot loader may make assumptions about what it's loading, so you may end up needing two physical media -- the one you prepared in this way and one created via dd. Alternatively, if you understand the boot options, you might be able to modify them to get it to work from the disk you've just prepared, or set volume names or whatnot to get it to work.

As a practical matter, Linux distribution maintainers strive to make method #1 work; method #2 is more for experts who want to tweak the installation or who are having problems with a Frankenstein media and who want to fix it. Method #2 is better if you're starting from scratch, which is how I interpreted your earlier question about how to place an EFI boot loader on a disk to make it bootable. If you're starting with a disk image that's intended to be EFI-bootable from a USB disk, then doing a dd copy should work.

If I am still hanging in here, wouldn't linux still try to install grub? I believe I do not want that, right?

GRUB installation is a standard part of most Linux distributions' installers. It's been a while since I've installed Mint, so I don't recall what it gives in the way of options on that score, but it will probably insist on installing GRUB. If you don't want to use GRUB, you can always uninstall it later, once you've got rEFInd (or some other boot program) working in its place.

[YeeP]

GRUB installation is a standard part of most Linux distributions' installers. It's been a while since I've installed Mint, so I don't recall what it gives in the way of options on that score, but it will probably insist on installing GRUB. If you don't want to use GRUB, you can always uninstall it later, once you've got rEFInd (or some other boot program) working in its place.

Ok, I understand. I do want rEFInd, and will find a way to make it work. I will see if I can find out if mint was meant to be installed via EFI, like you said earlier. I see that Ubuntu 12.10 is, and they do give a similar way of doing the install, except they end up using their boot repair program.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

I definitely want to use Mint, and will try that first.

Using the manual windows install method described on your site (for rEFInd), will I see the "menu" created by it, so I can confirm on a reboot that the install was successful? (I guess at this point it would only recognize one OS).

[srs5694]

Using the manual windows install method described on your site (for rEFInd), will I see the "menu" created by it, so I can confirm on a reboot that the install was successful? (I guess at this point it would only recognize one OS).

Yes; if you install rEFInd in Windows, and if the installation is successful, you'll see the rEFInd menu when you next reboot, even if you don't have any other OS installed at that time.

[mr_raider]

I definitely want to use Mint, and will try that first.

i have found Mint UEFI installs hit and miss in the past. The hybrid Iso's sometimes do not boot in EFI mode, and sometimes they do. How create the USB (using dd or unetbootin) makes a difference too. Finally, sometimes they bork during GRUB installation or install grub-pc instead of grub-efi.

The best bet if EFI fails is to to do a BIOS boot, install as is. Then use an Ubuntu Secure Remix CD

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuSecureRemix


The attached Boot repair tool should be able to properly install grub2 to EFI.

[tsdadam]

I definitely want to use Mint, and will try that first.

i have found Mint UEFI installs hit and miss in the past. The hybrid Iso's sometimes do not boot in EFI mode, and sometimes they do. How create the USB (using dd or unetbootin) makes a difference too. Finally, sometimes they bork during GRUB installation or install grub-pc instead of grub-efi.

The best bet if EFI fails is to to do a BIOS boot, install as is. Then use an Ubuntu Secure Remix CD

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuSecureRemix


The attached Boot repair tool should be able to properly install grub2 to EFI.

Are you saying then, that with this method I can install Mint in bios mode, and afterwards use ubuntu secure remix to change it to an EFI install?

[viking777]

Are you saying then, that with this method I can install Mint in bios mode, and afterwards use ubuntu secure remix to change it to an EFI install?

I know I shouldn't answer for other people, but you might be misinterpreting what mr_raider is saying here. It is not the 'Ubuntu Secure Remix' that will help your boot problem, it is the 'Boot Repair' tool that it contains. Boot repair is available from sources other than 'Ubuntu Secure Remix' - see here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

Two points. In order to install in bios mode your bios must support such a choice - not all do. I haven't read this entire thread, it is too long, maybe you have already mentioned this, but I can tell you from personal experience that some bios's do not offer such a choice so make sure yours does before proceeding. Second is that this is not a magic bullet, Boot Repair is a very excellent program but it may not always work, it is just something to try to defeat the Uefi demon

[srs5694]

Are you saying then, that with this method I can install Mint in bios mode, and afterwards use ubuntu secure remix to change it to an EFI install?

Two points. In order to install in bios mode your bios must support such a choice - not all do. I haven't read this entire thread, it is too long, maybe you have already mentioned this, but I can tell you from personal experience that some bios's do not offer such a choice so make sure yours does before proceeding. Second is that this is not a magic bullet, Boot Repair is a very excellent program but it may not always work, it is just something to try to defeat the Uefi demon

I agree with viking777 on this; but I'll also add that if you're having problems, you should probably start your own thread. This one's quite old and doesn't mention a problem in the title. For troubleshooting, it's always best to start a new thread with a title that clearly summarizes the problem, as in "Want to convert BIOS-mode install to UEFI-mode boot" or "UEFI installation isn't booting."

[tsdadam]

Are you saying then, that with this method I can install Mint in bios mode, and afterwards use ubuntu secure remix to change it to an EFI install?

I know I shouldn't answer for other people, but you might be misinterpreting what mr_raider is saying here. It is not the 'Ubuntu Secure Remix' that will help your boot problem, it is the 'Boot Repair' tool that it contains. Boot repair is available from sources other than 'Ubuntu Secure Remix' - see here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

Two points. In order to install in bios mode your bios must support such a choice - not all do. I haven't read this entire thread, it is too long, maybe you have already mentioned this, but I can tell you from personal experience that some bios's do not offer such a choice so make sure yours does before proceeding. Second is that this is not a magic bullet, Boot Repair is a very excellent program but it may not always work, it is just something to try to defeat the Uefi demon

As it happens, this did actually get me on the road to doing what I wanted to do. Have a look at my other thread .

[mr_raider]

I read your section on gigabyte hybrid EFI. I am trying to install mint kde in efi mode on a ga-a75m-d2h. I can't even get the live CD to boot in EFI mode. Any tips.

I have several suggestions:

• Look for the "EFI CD/DVD Boot Option" setting in the firmware and set it to "EFI." In theory, that should get your CD booting in EFI mode.
• Install rEFInd to a USB flash drive, or even to your hard disk, and boot from it with the CD in the optical drive. With any luck, rEFInd will pick up your bootable CD.
• Prepare a USB flash drive with a single big FAT32 partition, preferably flagged as an ESP, and copy the contents of the Mint CD to it. Note I'm talking about a file-by-file copy, not a low-level backup with dd or the like. With any luck, that USB flash drive will boot into the installer. Depending on how the boot loader is configured, though, you may need to have the CD in the drive, too.
• Install in BIOS mode and then switch over to EFI-mode booting. If you don't have anything else booting in EFI mode, this is most easily done by installing a boot loader as (in Mint) /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi. FWIW, I've just uploaded a Debian package version of rEFInd that should install easily; but if you install while in BIOS mode, you'll need to rename /boot/efi/EFI/refind to /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT and then rename /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/refind_x64.efi to /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi.

Good luck!

So I spent 1 hour screwing around with hybrid EFI (Ma75m-d2h). Here is the short version, I gave up.

Here is the long version. The ma75 can not seem to boot EFI off any USB stick, be it Ubuntu, Mint or Refind USB stick. It couldn't boot any Linux live CD in EFI mode. I manage to get a rEFInd cd to boot in EFI mode. From their I could successfully boot to my HDD which has an EFI install. However if I try to boot GRUB 2 directly off the HDD, no dice. If I try install refind to the HDD EFI partition, and repair the grub2 boot loader, I get dumped to a grub prompt on boot.

My guess is gigabyte hybrid EFI will only work for booting windows off of 2+TB drives. At the end, i just destroyed my EFi partition, set the flag to biosgrub and re-installed grub in legacy mode.

[viking777]

Glad you got it going. I remember reading on one of srs's posts that he thought the gigabyte hybrid efi firmware was one of the worst he had encountered, lucky you had the bios option.

Still at least you didn't have to short out your (brand new) live motherboard with a screwdriver three times like I had to when I got my efi machine (believe me it was the only solution) Oh and then I had to flash the bios from Linux as well just to round it off. Happy days, fondly remembered

It would be funny if it wasn't so serious.

[srs5694]

My guess is gigabyte hybrid EFI will only work for booting windows off of 2+TB drives. At the end, i just destroyed my EFi partition, set the flag to biosgrub and re-installed grub in legacy mode.

Doing as you did was probably the path of least resistance. The Gigabyte Hybrid EFI is a pretty awful implementation, although I've now heard of worse:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1040557

That's a bug report of an EFI that can be bricked by an attempt to install Ubuntu (and I'm guessing other Linux distributions) to it.

That said, with enough perseverance, Hybrid EFI can be used to boot Linux on a regular basis. I'm typing this on such a system. The trouble is that you've got to be quite knowledgeable to get it working; it's just got so many quirks and bugs that the average person won't be able to get it done.

[YeeP]

that is too bad to hear. I can get the ubuntu 12.10 and fedora 17 to boot from the live CD in efi mode. Mint and others are requiring that I put the boot mode to CSM. I need to go reread Rod's documentation to see if I have a viable option to run without going to Ubuntu.It cannot recognize my internet connection (cable) or mouse. I know that can be fixed, but is annoying.

[srs5694]

that is too bad to hear. I can get the ubuntu 12.10 and fedora 17 to boot from the live CD in efi mode. Mint and others are requiring that I put the boot mode to CSM. I need to go reread Rod's documentation to see if I have a viable option to run without going to Ubuntu.It cannot recognize my internet connection (cable) or mouse. I know that can be fixed, but is annoying.

It's almost always possible to convert a BIOS-mode install to boot in EFI mode; however, it requires jumping through some hoops to get it to work right. FWIW, I've just released version 0.6.3 of rEFInd, which includes an install.sh script that's designed to do some of that hoop-jumping for you. In theory, it should work like this:

1. Install Windows in EFI mode (or start with a Windows 8 PC).
2. Ensure that Secure Boot is disabled.
3. Install Mint in BIOS mode and boot into it in BIOS mode.
4. Mount your ESP at /boot/efi.
5. Install rEFInd by installing the Debian package or by running the install.sh script from the binary zip file.

In theory, when you reboot in EFI mode, rEFInd should come up and let you boot either OS. It does this, though, by installing itself in the Windows boot loader's position, moving the Windows boot loader down one level in the hierarchy. It's possible that Windows will notice this and attempt to "fix" it. To guard against this, you can use the mvrefind.sh script that's new with rEFInd 0.6.3:

Code: Select all

sudo mvrefind.sh /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot /boot/efi/EFI/refind


That moves rEFInd to the more traditional location for it, sets up rEFInd in the firmware as the default boot loader, and restores the Windows boot loader to its normal location. If your firmware isn't broken, this should work and should be a little safer. On the downside, though, some firmware implementations are badly broken, and the result would be that the system will begin booting straight into Windows. If this happens, booting Linux in BIOS mode and using mvrefind.sh to move rEFInd back will fix it, but then you'll have to live with the risk that Windows will erase rEFInd. It's a gamble either way.

[YeeP]

I subscribed to your sourceforge group and downloaded it right when it became available.

My clone/restore did work, so I think I will just go for it... See you on the other side.

[tsdadam]

A quick question. Since managing to get Mint working in EFI, and having installed rEFInd and gotten that working, is there any way to have it boot straight from the graphical menu of rEFInd to Mint?

As it stands, the conversion of Mint from BIOS to EFI meant that it installed an EFI-capable GRUB, and that's what loads when I choose to boot Mint from rEFInd.

I could probably find a way to get GRUB to just boot the default instantly, but I don't know if there's another way. I appreciate GRUB is the boot loader in this case, and rEFInd is there to just let me choose a loader, but I thought it was worth asking.

Thanks in advance.