[SOLVED] Change from BIOS to UEFI? Is it possible?

[JerryF]

I also renumbered the partitions, again using Terminal commands.

How do you do this ?

You can use fdisk.

Example for disk sdb:

Code: Select all

sudo fdisk /dev/sdb

Here are the options:
press “x” to enter Expert Mode
press “f” to fix the drive order
press “i” to ignore the warning (if it shows)
press “w” to write changes to the disk
press “r” to leave expert mode
press “q” to quit fdisk

So you would press "f", "w", and "q"

Do this from a live USB.

As always, make a backup first, just in case something goes wrong.

[NathanShirley]

Hi,

Simple question: when you boot from a Mint ISO in USB in BIOS mode, does it show the problems you detected on your BIOS installed Linux Mint, or does it work perfectly?

Regards,

MN

Ah, so this idea had just entered my mind, and when I saw your message I went ahead and tried it. Turns out it does work perfectly in BIOS mode too. Thanks.

Now I'm thinking the problem I'm having might be connected to my kernel. In order to get my internet working on my desktop (my newest computer), I had to move to a newer kernel; 5.15. This fixed the internet issue on my desktop, and still worked fine with my older computer, but I'm guessing it must be the reason why there's some audio conflict with this HP laptop (8th gen Intel CPU, which is older than my desktop, newer than my older computer).

Does that seem possible, that a newer kernel could cause audio issues in a less than brand-new computer? Maybe I should seek out a kernel that works with my Desktop's internet and also my laptop's audio?

[MikeNovember]

Hi,

When you are in live USB, what is the kernel? If it is the same as when installed on disk, then audio problems don't come from the kernel.

Try to compare your system info (inxi outputs) in live / installed configuration, and see if there are difference in audio configurations.

Regards,

MN

[NathanShirley]

Oh...looks like Mint 21 actually uses kernel 5.15 by default...I originally installed Mint 20 (updated to 21 currently), which used kernel 5.4, and updated that to 5.15 in order to get it working with my desktop. The live ISO I used I just downloaded the other day (Cinnamon 21).

I'll get the live and installed inxi info for the HP laptop tomorrow and post it.

[Menard]

Thanks

[NathanShirley]

So here is the inxi info for the Mint-Cinnamon install on the HP laptop (where it has constant xruns):

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 5.15.0-48-lowlatency x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.2.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 5.4.12
    tk: GTK 3.24.33 wm: Mutter dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 21 Vanessa base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: HP product: HP Laptop 15-da0xxx v: Type1ProductConfigId
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: HP model: 84A6 v: 80.50 serial: <superuser required> UEFI-[Legacy]: Insyde v: F.41
    date: 04/19/2022
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 8.9 Wh (100.0%) condition: 8.9/41.9 Wh (21.1%) volts: 12.8 min: 11.6
    model: Hewlett-Packard PABAS0241231 serial: <filter> status: Full
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Touch Keyboard K400 serial: <filter>
    charge: 100% (should be ignored) status: Discharging
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: Intel Core i5-8250U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Coffee Lake rev: A cache:
    L1: 256 KiB L2: 1024 KiB L3: 6 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 3400 high: 3401 min/max: 400/3400 cores: 1: 3401 2: 3400 3: 3400 4: 3400
    5: 3400 6: 3400 7: 3400 8: 3400 bogomips: 28800
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 620 vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: i915 v: kernel ports:
    active: HDMI-A-1,eDP-1 empty: none bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:5917
  Device-2: Chicony HP TrueVision HD Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-5:4
    chip-ID: 04f2:b65d
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.3 driver: X: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa
    gpu: i915 display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3286x1080 s-dpi: 96
  Monitor-1: HDMI-1 mapped: HDMI-A-1 pos: right model: Samsung SyncMaster res: 1920x1080 dpi: 82
    diag: 690mm (27.2")
  Monitor-2: eDP-1 pos: primary,left model: BOE Display res: 1366x768 dpi: 101
    diag: 395mm (15.5")
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 22.0.5 direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:9d71
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.0-48-lowlatency running: yes
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.20 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Hewlett-Packard
    driver: r8168 v: 8.049.02-NAPI pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 4000 bus-ID: 01:00.0
    chip-ID: 10ec:8168
  IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Hewlett-Packard
    driver: rtl8821ce v: v5.5.2.1_35598.20191029 pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 3000
    bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:c821
  IF: wlo1 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Realtek Bluetooth 4.2 Adapter type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-6:5
    chip-ID: 0bda:b00a
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: down bt-service: enabled,running rfk-block:
    hardware: no software: yes address: <filter>
RAID:
  Hardware-1: Intel 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] driver: ahci v: 3.0 bus-ID: 00:17.0
    chip-ID: 8086:282a
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 1.03 TiB used: 120.17 GiB (11.4%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Toshiba model: MQ04ABF100 size: 931.51 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s
    serial: <filter>
  ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB vendor: SanDisk model: SD8SN8U-128G-1006 size: 119.24 GiB
    serial: <filter>
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 116.81 GiB used: 60.09 GiB (51.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb1
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 file: /swapfile
USB:
  Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Hi-speed hub with single TT ports: 12 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s
    chip-ID: 1d6b:0002
  Device-1: 1-1:2 info: Logitech Unifying Receiver type: Keyboard,Mouse,HID
    driver: logitech-djreceiver,usbhid rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 046d:c52b
  Device-2: 1-3:3
    info: ASMedia ASM1051E SATA 6Gb/s bridge ASM1053E ASM1153 3Gb/s ASM1153E bridge
    type: Mass Storage driver: uas rev: 2.1 speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 174c:55aa
  Device-3: 1-5:4 info: Chicony HP TrueVision HD Camera type: Video driver: uvcvideo rev: 2.0
    speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 04f2:b65d
  Device-4: 1-6:5 info: Realtek Bluetooth 4.2 Adapter type: Bluetooth driver: btusb rev: 1.1
    speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 0bda:b00a
  Device-5: 1-7:6 info: G2Touch Multi-Touch by G2TSP type: Mouse,HID
    driver: hid-generic,hid-multitouch,usbhid rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 2a94:5009
  Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: Super-speed hub ports: 6 rev: 3.0 speed: 5 Gb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0003
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 54.0 C pch: 42.0 C mobo: 27.8 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Repos:
  Packages: 2872 apt: 2864 flatpak: 8
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/diodon-team-stable-focal.list
    1: deb http: //ppa.launchpad.net/diodon-team/stable/ubuntu jammy main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/megasync.list
    1: deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/meganz-archive-keyring.gpg] https: //mega.nz/linux/repo/xUbuntu_22.04/ ./
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/obsproject-obs-studio-focal.list
    1: deb http: //ppa.launchpad.net/obsproject/obs-studio/ubuntu jammy main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
    1: deb http: //packages.linuxmint.com vanessa main upstream import backport
    2: deb http: //mirror.brightridge.com/ubuntuarchive jammy main restricted universe multiverse
    3: deb http: //mirror.brightridge.com/ubuntuarchive jammy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
    4: deb http: //mirror.brightridge.com/ubuntuarchive jammy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
    5: deb http: //security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-security main restricted universe multiverse
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/skype-stable.list
    1: deb [arch=amd64] https: //repo.skype.com/deb stable main
Info:
  Processes: 253 Uptime: 33m Memory: 7.67 GiB used: 3.17 GiB (41.3%) Init: systemd v: 249
  runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 11.2.0 alt: 11/9 Client: Unknown python3.10 client inxi: 3.3.13

And here is the inxi info for the live USB running in BIOS mode on the same HP (without audio issues):

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 5.15.0-41-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.2.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 5.4.8
    tk: GTK 3.24.33 wm: Mutter dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 21 Vanessa base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: HP product: HP Laptop 15-da0xxx v: Type1ProductConfigId
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: HP model: 84A6 v: 80.50 serial: <superuser required> UEFI-[Legacy]: Insyde v: F.41
    date: 04/19/2022
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 4.0 Wh (100.0%) condition: 4.0/41.9 Wh (9.6%) volts: 12.8 min: 11.6
    model: Hewlett-Packard PABAS0241231 serial: <filter> status: Full
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Touch Keyboard K400 serial: <filter>
    charge: 100% (should be ignored) status: Discharging
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: Intel Core i5-8250U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Coffee Lake rev: A cache:
    L1: 256 KiB L2: 1024 KiB L3: 6 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 3355 high: 3400 min/max: 400/3400 cores: 1: 3390 2: 3378 3: 3386 4: 3400
    5: 3392 6: 3123 7: 3379 8: 3397 bogomips: 28800
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 620 vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: i915 v: kernel ports:
    active: HDMI-A-1,eDP-1 empty: none bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:5917
  Device-2: Chicony HP TrueVision HD Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-5:4
    chip-ID: 04f2:b65d
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.3 driver: X: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa
    gpu: i915 display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3286x1080 s-dpi: 96
  Monitor-1: HDMI-1 mapped: HDMI-A-1 pos: right model: Samsung SyncMaster res: 1920x1080 dpi: 82
    diag: 690mm (27.2")
  Monitor-2: eDP-1 pos: primary,left model: BOE Display res: 1366x768 dpi: 101
    diag: 395mm (15.5")
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 22.0.1 direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:9d71
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.0-41-generic running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Hewlett-Packard
    driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 4000 bus-ID: 01:00.0
    chip-ID: 10ec:8168
  IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Hewlett-Packard
    driver: rtw_8821ce v: N/A pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 3000 bus-ID: 02:00.0
    chip-ID: 10ec:c821
  IF: wlo1 state: down mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Realtek Bluetooth 4.2 Adapter type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-6:5
    chip-ID: 0bda:b00a
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 2.1 lmp-v: 4.2
    sub-v: 7644
RAID:
  Hardware-1: Intel 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] driver: ahci v: 3.0 bus-ID: 00:17.0
    chip-ID: 8086:282a
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 945.83 GiB used: 5.3 MiB (0.0%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Toshiba model: MQ04ABF100 size: 931.51 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s
    serial: <filter>
  ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB vendor: SanDisk model: Ultra size: 14.32 GiB serial: <filter>
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 3.83 GiB used: 80.3 MiB (2.0%) fs: overlay source: ERR-102
  ID-2: /var/log size: 11.75 GiB used: 5.3 MiB (0.0%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb3
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found.
USB:
  Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Hi-speed hub with single TT ports: 12 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s
    chip-ID: 1d6b:0002
  Device-1: 1-1:2 info: Logitech Unifying Receiver type: Keyboard,Mouse,HID
    driver: logitech-djreceiver,usbhid rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 046d:c52b
  Device-2: 1-3:3 info: SanDisk Ultra type: Mass Storage driver: usb-storage rev: 2.1
    speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 0781:5581
  Device-3: 1-5:4 info: Chicony HP TrueVision HD Camera type: Video driver: uvcvideo rev: 2.0
    speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 04f2:b65d
  Device-4: 1-6:5 info: Realtek Bluetooth 4.2 Adapter type: Bluetooth driver: btusb rev: 1.1
    speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 0bda:b00a
  Device-5: 1-7:6 info: G2Touch Multi-Touch by G2TSP type: Mouse,HID
    driver: hid-generic,hid-multitouch,usbhid rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 2a94:5009
  Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: Super-speed hub ports: 6 rev: 3.0 speed: 5 Gb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0003
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 50.0 C pch: 35.0 C mobo: 27.8 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Repos:
  Packages: apt: 2078
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
    1: deb cdrom:[Linux Mint 21 _Vanessa_ - Release amd64 20220726]/ jammy main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
    1: deb http: //packages.linuxmint.com vanessa main upstream import backport
    2: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy main restricted universe multiverse
    3: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
    4: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
    5: deb http: //security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-security main restricted universe multiverse
Info:
  Processes: 253 Uptime: 7m Memory: 7.67 GiB used: 1.26 GiB (16.4%) Init: systemd v: 249
  runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 11.2.0 alt: 11 Client: Unknown python3.10 client inxi: 3.3.13

[MikeNovember]

Hi,

There are some noticeable differences:

- On live USB you have 5.15.0-41-generic kernel, while you have 5.15.0-48-low latency kernel (used for "real time" needs) in the installed version.
- On live USB you have 3 sound servers (Alsa, PulseAudio, Pipewire) while you have 4 sound servers (the previous 3 + Jack) in the installed version.

Do you really need low latency kernel? it might induce some instabilities. It is generally recommended to record audio, for professional use, or to make real time calculations; but I do record audio (and video) as an "amateur" with generic kernel and excellent results.

A low-latency kernel is a specialized kernel optimized for real-time computing operations. A specific use for home computing is computer-assisted music, since the low-latency core allows lower CPU consumption for the same latency when processing audio. This ultimately allows you to optimize your audio settings in order to reduce this latency time.
This optimization is generally done to the detriment of certain rules ensuring the security or the general reliability of the system.

(translated from https://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/linux-lowlatency)

In your case you seem to get audio problem, that's the opposite of what you are looking for.

And why four sound servers? Generally one is enough (Alsa), maybe two (I also use Pulse Audio, since I find it has a better mixer).

Anyway, if you want to get rid of your audio problems on your installed Mint, I would recommend you use the same configuration (kernel and audio servers) as in live USB.

Regards,

MN

[NathanShirley]

Well this actually is for professional use. I was originally using Windows for live music performance (MIDI keyboard and software such as Pianoteq for sound). Windows generally worked, but it was dangerous: difficult to completely eliminate the threat of a stray audio glitch here or there, and an update might bring some glitches back, plus other notorious Windows issues. Moving to Linux for live performance has mostly been great at eliminating audio glitches and being more reliable. Setting it up was a long process for me though, but worth it so far.

Getting latency as low as possible has always been important. Depending on the venue's audio setup, house latency varies, and can be significant, so every little improvement on my end pays off. I've played pipe organs with antiphonal pipes, so can compensate if I absolutely have to, but it's one more stress that's nice to avoid! I also have to balance latency with both audio quality and "polyphony" since I'm running some fairly CPU intensive software, so again, every little improvement helps.

Having said all that, I'm pretty certain my issue here isn't connected to the low latency kernel as I had this same issue back before I had installed that kernel. But I think you've probably hit on the issue when you noted the various sound servers. This has been one of the more confusing things to me in Mint.

Mint 20 had both Alsa and PulseAudio by default (Pipewire must have been added in 21, which I hadn't even realized was there until running inxi). I added Jack because I needed multi-client audio. I route audio in various ways and need to use sound in multiple programs at once. Jack (via Carla) made that possible. But I suspect Jack is causing some conflict with my HP's hardware, since as you noted, it's the one different audio service.

I've read Pipewire is still a work in progress, but people say it can do multi-client audio and might be a good alternative to Jack. I have no idea how to set it up, but I suppose I could look into replacing Jack with it and see if my problem clears up. I always forget what the relationship between Alsa and PulseAudio is, but I know Jack requires at least one of those to work...if not both. I have no idea if Pipewire is similar to Jack in that respect.

[NathanShirley]

I suppose this thread can be marked "solved" since the original question about changing from BIOS to UEFI has been answered, along with some tips on how to do it. In my case it doesn't seem like it would help after all, and it seems my laptop's issue has something to do with JACK. When I stop JACK the xruns stop. So I'll start a new thread about using PipeWire in Mint 21, which might be a solution for me.

Thanks for the help everyone.

[Update: I solved the audio problem by installing PipeWire to replace PulseAudio. I'm now using JACK with PipeWire instead of with PulseAudio. So the problem might have been a conflict between JACK + PulseAudio, or maybe just PulseAudio in combination with a driver for my laptop. To replace PulseAudio with PipeWire, I used this guide: viewtopic.php?t=375771 ]