What version of Linux works with UEFI out of the box?

What version of Linux works with UEFI out of the box?

Bob Keane

Member #7,342

June 2006

I'm probably just bitching. I was trying to get Fedora 24 to work with a SATA III drive. The boot sequence does not recognize the UEFI option, even bringing up the boot menu does not help. I posted a question on Fedora's website, but they suggested updating the drivers. Has anyone gotten a version of Linux to work with UEFI out of the box? If so, what version? I really do not want to search the web for drivers, change settings in the bios, make a human sacrifice and hope it works.

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Gideon Weems

Member #3,925

October 2003

If you are using GRUB, UEFI is simply a matter of following this guide (regardless of distro)... provided your mobo supports UEFI. It does, right?

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Bob Keane

Member #7,342

June 2006

It supports UEFI. I was able to install Windows 7 with no problems. I've been banging my head on this for a while. I posted on Fedora's webite, linuxquestions and the motherboard maker's website to no avail. I'd try the GRUB link but I just want to put the disk in and install it, no fuss, no muss.

bamccaig

Member #7,536

July 2006

I don't think I've ever used UEFI with Linux, at least not knowingly, and I'd probably never care to either. As far as I can tell, there are no advantages for the user, and only limitations for you. I believe I do my best to disable it in the BIOS/CMUS system whenever I encounter a new computer... Is there a particular reason you insist on having it? I would expect Windows 10 and maybe 8 to require it, but I don't think 7 does.

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MiquelFire

Member #3,110

January 2003

UEFI for >2TB boot drive.

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Gideon Weems

Member #3,925

October 2003

Bob Keane said:

I'd try the GRUB link but I just want to put the disk in and install it, no fuss, no muss.

Why did you choose Fedora? Your expectations seem more in line with Mint, Ubuntu, or PC-BSD (though the latter is not Linux).

Your mobo might have a setting to the effect of "automatic Windows UEFI detection." If so, you should disable it.

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Bob Keane

Member #7,342

June 2006

I initially went with Fedora because I used it in the past. I did not see anything about "automatic Windows UEFI detection" in the BIOS. There is a selection for os, but it is set to "other os" by default. Is Ubuntu hard to learn?

bamccaig

Member #7,536

July 2006

Ubuntu is the most friendly Linux distro there is. It includes proprietary drivers and software automatically. The main thing is, the core flavor has a desktop environment that calls to the Web with private search data that some people may not be comfortable with. They claim to have addressed that since, but I refuse to trust it. I've been running Ubuntu MATE instead (a Gnome-2 flavor). Gnome 2 is the classic desktop style of the XP era before things started getting stupid. MATE is the project continuing the Gnome 2 code.

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Bob Keane

Member #7,342

June 2006

Does Ubuntu come with virtualization software? I tried Fedora's with W7 but it could not read the file format. Also, I think I read one linux distro released a patch for the cOW bug, was it Ubuntu?

Phrasz

Member #10,091

August 2008

Bob,

It depends... It (ubuntu) has LXC/QEMU support and BSD jails, the major virtualization hypervisors (VirtualBox, VMware,etc) have a port, and many new containers are adding support (docker most notably).

As for COW the major distros have pushed patches. http://thehackernews.com/2016/10/linux-kernel-exploit.html.

-Phrasz

Bob Keane

Member #7,342

June 2006

I am trying Gideon's guide, but get stuck installing GRUB. The error is this:

grub2-install: error: unable to identify a filesystem in hd0; safety check can't be performed.

Any ideas?

bamccaig

Member #7,536

July 2006

Sounds like your primary hard drive is not formatted? I don't know. grub2 changed all the rules and UEFI made matters worse. I can't manually bootloader anymore.

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Bob Keane

Member #7,342

June 2006

I believe the drive is formatted, I had Windows 7 installed. Please tell me I do not have to reformat the drive, that takes between 8 and 10 hours. The error seems common, but it looks like the solution assumes Linux was previously installed.I won't be able to do more research before Thanksgiving though.

Arthur Kalliokoski

Second in Command

February 2005

Bob Keane said:

Please tell me I do not have to reformat the drive, that takes between 8 and 10 hours.

You're talking about a full format, checking to see if each sector can be written to and read from as the format proceeds? I've used nothing but "quick format" for at least the last 10 years without problems, just writing a blank inode table or FAT whatever it is, it only takes a couple of minutes.

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Gideon Weems

Member #3,925

October 2003

What does the output of lsblk look like on your system?

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Erin Maus

Member #7,537

July 2006

My UEFI expects the boot loader to be at EFI/BOOTX64.EFI on a FAT32 partition, but Grub doesn't seem place it there by default and it's a rather cumbersome process to do so by hand with any Linux installer I've ever used.

I can't even boot any Linux distro with UEFI, I have to use legacy boot.

(Funnily enough, FreeBSD worked without trouble.)

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Bob Keane

Member #7,342

June 2006

I formatted the drive using the gui, only fat16 was available and /boot/efi exists. I tried the install command and here are the results:

[root@localhost bkeane]# grub2-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/dev/sdb1/boot/edi --bootloader-id=grub
grub2-install: error: /usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi/modinfo.sh doesn't exist. Please specify --target or --directory.

I thought the architecture may have been wrong so I tried the i386 version:

[root@localhost bkeane]# grub2-install --target=i386-efi --efi-directory=/dev/sdb1/boot/edi --bootloader-id=grub
grub2-install: error: /usr/lib/grub/i386-efi/modinfo.sh doesn't exist. Please specify --target or --directory.

bamccaig

Member #7,536

July 2006

Errr, /dev/sdb1/boot/edi looks odd to me. :-/ Are you sure that's a supported syntax? /dev/sdb1 would normally be a special file (not a directory). Ordinarily you'd mount the device/partition and reference the mount point directory as the file system root.

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I mean the best with what I say. It doesn't always sound that way.

Bob Keane

Member #7,342

June 2006

Bamccaig said:

Errr, /dev/sdb1/boot/edi looks odd to me.

Probably not. I included the /dev/sdb1 to differentiate the drive from the working sata drive. I was playing with GParted to set the new drive up. I have it set to gpt, formatted to fat32 and flagged it to boot and esp. I think I need to create the /boot/efi directory and set it as a mount point. How do I do that?

{"name":"610650","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/3\/f\/3f6447a970c26eee83b91d48f4149b87.png","w":1024,"h":768,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/3\/f\/3f6447a970c26eee83b91d48f4149b87"}

Here is a screenshot of my gparted screen. I noticed a warning flag, how do I check it out?

bamccaig

Member #7,536

July 2006

I'm ill-prepared to respond without firing up an installer or reviewing the guide that Gideon posted earlier. :-/ I just wanted to help keep the thread active. Bump it again if nobody responds with a solution. >:(

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I mean the best with what I say. It doesn't always sound that way.

Gideon Weems

Member #3,925

October 2003

If I remember correctly, there was some way to get more information regarding warnings GParted shows. Have you tried hovering the cursor and seeing if something pops up?

By today's standards, FAT is lacking. Even Windows allows for NTFS. You may want to try gptfdisk or parted to get around the FAT16 restriction you mentioned. You may also be able to use either of these programs to further investigate the warning indicated by GParted.

I agree with Bams. That is a strange EFI directory location. Please share the output of lsblk. I know it seems like this is dragging on; were you a client, I would have followed the three-replies rule and asked to go in person by now.

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Bob Keane

Member #7,342

June 2006

Someone on FedoraForums believes the partition is too big for fat32. I will try resizing when I get the time. He also mentioned the partition should be formatted for fat16 or fat32 to get uefi working.

Here is lsblk:

{"name":"610652","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/e\/5e3bebb564b2c3479cc8eecdc4815de9.png","w":1024,"h":768,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/e\/5e3bebb564b2c3479cc8eecdc4815de9"}

I repartitioned the drive so nothing is on it yet.

Gideon Weems

Member #3,925

October 2003

Thank you for the lsblk output. Try --efi-directory=/boot/edi. If everything works fine and unicorns come dancing off of rainbows, disregard the remainder of my message. Otherwise, please read on.

Bob Keane said:

Someone on FedoraForums believes the partition is too big for fat32.

Either that, or it's right on the money. Regardless, I'd like to take all other drives out of the picture and just concentrate on getting the machine booted.

You wish to UEFI-boot a fresh Fedora installation from physical device /dev/sdb, a ~700 GiB drive. What are the roles of devices /dev/sda and /dev/sdc? If neither stores operating system files, I recommend physically removing them from the computer, as their presence will only cause confusion and opportunity for data loss. Otherwise, please share which operating systems lie on which drives and your plans for using them.

Next, investigate how your motherboard handles EFI by entering the hardware initialization firmware menu. You may have to, for example, manually specify the location of EFI files. Ensure that your motherboard is in EFI (or UEFI) mode. Ensure that your install media is EFI-bootable. Arrange a second computer for internet access during the installation procedure. Then, follow Fedora's installation guide again, from the beginning. If Fedora does not provide a guide for booting from GRUB/UEFI, splice the previously linked guide when it comes time to install the boot loader.

If you run into problems along the way, get on IRC! Real-time help in large channels beats message boards by far. Feedback is instantaneous, and you get more eyes. (Freenode's #fedora channel currently has over 600 people.)

... Anyway, that's what I would do.

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Bob Keane

Member #7,342

June 2006

Actually, I'm trying to install Fedora on sda. SDB has a working Fedora install and I was using it to prep the disk. Should I be using a Knoppix live disk? SDC is a flashdrive I can remove because nothing is on it.

Gideon Weems said:

Thank you for the lsblk output. Try --efi-directory=/boot/edi.

What is the exact syntax, and should the directory be /boot/efi? I don't believe the iso is uefi aware. I tried installing Fedora but the uefi option did not appear in the boot menu, although the bios was set properly.

<edit> I downloaded Fedora 25 and the UEFI boot option now appears. However, I get a grub> prompt and the install does not start. What is my next step?

<edit2> The fun never ends. I downloaded Ubuntu and used dd to write it to a flash drive, and now the usb hub is dead. With a little luck I can reinstall Windows and the usb drivers.