On Friday 15 September 2017 16:44, Hans-Joachim Zierke conveyed the
following to comp.os.linux.setup...

Debian Stretch Installation.

A Gigabyte EFI BIOS, which might be potentially buggy. Problems.

A thought: "This SDD is only 40 GB anyway. Why not install Grandpa's
old system on it, without any EFI-something, GPT-otherthing, plain old system. Linux will find my multi-TB harddisks afterwards without
problems, it always did. I don't want to boot from those slow disks
anyway."

Now the question: How do I convince Debian Stretch to do something as old-fashioned as that?

In order to use the MS-DOS-style partitioning layout on an EFI-based
machine, you have to set the EFI to "legacy mode", or "compatibility
mode", or whatever it's called in that particular version of the EFI.

If the machine boots in native EFI mode, then it needs the GPT layout.
There's no way around that, insofar as I can tell.

--
With respect,
= Aragorn =

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 15 Sep 2017 10:44:14 -0400, Hans-Joachim Zierke <Usenetspam018@zierke.com> wrote:

Debian Stretch Installation.
A Gigabyte EFI BIOS, which might be potentially buggy. Problems.
A thought: "This SDD is only 40 GB anyway. Why not install Grandpa's old system on it, without any EFI-something, GPT-otherthing, plain old system. Linux will find my multi-TB harddisks afterwards without problems, it
always did. I don't want to boot from those slow disks anyway."
Now the question: How do I convince Debian Stretch to do something as old-fashioned as that?

I can't answer for Debian, but the question is whether or not the efi
firmware supports booting in legacy bios firmware emulation mode. Some
uefi firmware supports it, some doesn't, and some only supports it if
you manually intervene at every boot to switch modes.

With Mageia linux, the installation iso detects which mode it's been booted with, and sets up the installed system to boot in that mode.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

--
Change dwhodgins@nomail.afraid.org to davidwhodgins@teksavvy.com for
email replies.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2017-09-15, Hans-Joachim Zierke <Usenetspam018@Zierke.com> wrote:

Debian Stretch Installation.

A Gigabyte EFI BIOS, which might be potentially buggy. Problems.

Anything is potentially buggy. Or do you have specific issues. Maybes
are not problems yet.

A thought: "This SDD is only 40 GB anyway. Why not install Grandpa's old system on it, without any EFI-something, GPT-otherthing, plain old system. Linux will find my multi-TB harddisks afterwards without problems, it
always did. I don't want to boot from those slow disks anyway."

And so why not put GPT onto it? But your motherboard bios might, or
might not, let you boot in legacy boot mode (Ie the old MBR boot).
If the BIOS writer decided not to include that option, you will have to
either use EFI/GPT or buy a new motherboard.

Now the question: How do I convince Debian Stretch to do something as old-fashioned as that?

It has nothing to do with Stretch. It depends on your
motherboard BIOS and grub.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Debian Stretch Installation.

A Gigabyte EFI BIOS, which might be potentially buggy. Problems.

A thought: "This SDD is only 40 GB anyway. Why not install Grandpa's old
system on it, without any EFI-something, GPT-otherthing, plain old system. Linux will find my multi-TB harddisks afterwards without problems, it
always did. I don't want to boot from those slow disks anyway."


Now the question: How do I convince Debian Stretch to do something as old-fashioned as that?



Ciao
Hajo

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Le 15/09/2017 à 17:00, Aragorn a écrit :

In order to use the MS-DOS-style partitioning layout on an EFI-based
machine, you have to set the EFI to "legacy mode", or "compatibility
mode", or whatever it's called in that particular version of the EFI.

There is no relationship between the firmware boot mode (BIOS/EFI) and
the partitioning scheme (DOS/GPT).

I have BIOS machines booting from a GPT disk and EFI machines booting
from a DOS/MBR disk.

If the machine boots in native EFI mode, then it needs the GPT layout. There's no way around that, insofar as I can tell.

Wrong. Only MS-Windows needs that. A compliant EFI firmware does not and
can boot from either a DOS/MBR or GPT disk. Othewise why would an EFI
partition type have been defined for DOS/MBR ?
Conversely, a non buggy BIOS does not care about the partition scheme as
long as it finds a compliant boot sector, which exists in both schemes.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Le 15/09/2017 à 16:44, Hans-Joachim Zierke a écrit :

Debian Stretch Installation.

A Gigabyte EFI BIOS, which might be potentially buggy. Problems.

"Might" ? In my experience, all UEFI firmware implementations are buggy.

A thought: "This SDD is only 40 GB anyway. Why not install Grandpa's old system on it, without any EFI-something, GPT-otherthing, plain old system. Linux will find my multi-TB harddisks afterwards without problems, it
always did. I don't want to boot from those slow disks anyway."

There are plenty of valid reason to not want to use EFI. But why not
want to use GPT ? It as some nice useful features even on small disks :
- up to 128 partition without the extended/logical partition kludge
- partition UUID and labels independent from the contents ; i.e. even if
you reformat a partition these do not change.

Now the question: How do I convince Debian Stretch to do something as old-fashioned as that?

You must set up the firmware to boot the Debian installer in the desired
mode. Then select the expert install, so that you can choose the type
when creating a new partition table.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Pascal Hambourg schrieb:

"Might" ? In my experience, all UEFI firmware implementations are buggy.

Perhaps, but the Gigabyte "Hybrid" BIOS, with UEFI sitting on top of the
old BIOS, is an especially awkward setup. https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-870A-UD3-rev-31#ov

On the other hand, it's among the most reliable mainboards I've ever had.

There are plenty of valid reason to not want to use EFI. But why not
want to use GPT ? It as some nice useful features even on small disks :
- up to 128 partition without the extended/logical partition kludge

I've never used more than 3 or 4.

- partition UUID and labels independent from the contents ; i.e. even if
you reformat a partition these do not change.

That's an argument.

You must set up the firmware to boot the Debian installer in the desired mode. Then select the expert install, so that you can choose the type
when creating a new partition table.

Thanks.

I did a little more reading, and found the core of the problem: As soon
as there is _any_ ESP somewhere on any disk, the mainboard automatically
goes into its buggy EFI mode. No manual setting available.

Documenting that behaviour for the user would have been too easy and
boring. Thanks for some interesting time, Gigabyte!


BTW: Is it still possible to write Grub on a floppy? I assume that even Gigabyte won't try an EFI boot from a floppy, and this computer still has
a drive for it.



Ciao
Hajo

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Le 16/09/2017 à 05:09, Hans-Joachim Zierke a écrit :

Pascal Hambourg schrieb:

There are plenty of valid reason to not want to use EFI. But why not
want to use GPT ? It as some nice useful features even on small disks :
- up to 128 partition without the extended/logical partition kludge

I've never used more than 3 or 4.

I use 20 on my current machine (BIOS, 3 systems installed), and
constantly create and remove partitions for testing purpose. I
appreciate that it does not renumber other partitions, as it can happen
with logical partitions.

- partition UUID and labels independent from the contents ; i.e. even if
you reformat a partition these do not change.

That's an argument.

Note that with GPT the Debian installer allows to define partition
labels but it does not take advantage of them nor the partition UUID in /etc/fstab or elsewhere. So if you want to use them you must do it by hand.

I forgot to mention that GPT stores a backup copy of the partition table
at the end of the disk.

I did a little more reading, and found the core of the problem: As soon
as there is _any_ ESP somewhere on any disk, the mainboard automatically
goes into its buggy EFI mode. No manual setting available.

This is really bad. If you are using the Debian installer on a USB
drive, you can remove the EFI system partition.

Documenting that behaviour for the user would have been too easy and
boring. Thanks for some interesting time, Gigabyte!

How many manufacturers document their bugs before they are fixed ?
Chances are they don't even know about it, or do not consider it a bug.

BTW: Is it still possible to write Grub on a floppy? I assume that even Gigabyte won't try an EFI boot from a floppy, and this computer still has
a drive for it.

The grub-rescue-pc package contains a floppy GRUB image.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 16/09/17 04:09, Hans-Joachim Zierke wrote:

I did a little more reading, and found the core of the problem: As soon
as there is_any_ ESP somewhere on any disk, the mainboard automatically
goes into its buggy EFI mode. No manual setting available.

I was unable to relly get a successfiul install* on Mint 18 using EFI
boot,on my new SSD, hwover going back to legacy mode and mint 17 got me
a 5 second boot time and amuvch faster BIOS self tests.
- more in line with that I excepted and it's working just fine.

So there would seem to be at casual inspection some serious issues with
EFI boot.

* worst problem was NFS mintes hard coded into /etc./fstab didnt work as
the mounting seemd to fail beforer wifi got going. Couyld be a mint
18/systemd thing?

secoind problem was very slow boot.



--
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will
eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such
time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic
and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally
important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for
the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the
truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

Joseph Goebbels

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Pascal Hambourg schrieb:

I use 20 on my current machine (BIOS, 3 systems installed), and
constantly create and remove partitions for testing purpose. I
appreciate that it does not renumber other partitions, as it can happen
with logical partitions.

Then I understand your preference very well, but ...

... I'm one of those lousy CONSUMERS: The computer is a tool to
communicate and create text, pictures, video. I got rid of Windows in the
late 1980s, got rid of DOS in the early 90s, and got rid of OS/2 when IBM stopped supporting it. So there's only Linux left over. It runs 24/7 and
is only booted for new kernels. (Up until now at least, I have just baked
a raspberry pie to change that.)

So, if there is a second boot partition, it is a second Linux on a
different drive as a safeguard for the case of hardware failure, and
that's it.

Unfortunately, I have to do a major update every 5 to 10 years, by which
time I have forgotten most of my computer knowledge. And now, my don't-have-to-touch-it paradise time is over once more.

Sendmail and INN with uucp to be replaced with Exim and Dovecot and INN on Raspbian, main PC to be updated to Debian Stretch and to be retired from
24/7, figuring out how to set up a network with that raspberry pie and the
PC and my Fritzbox 7570 and the fixed IP that I could have used since the
90s ... enough to do without extra time for funny Gigabyte tricks.

At least if you are just a consumer.

Note that with GPT the Debian installer allows to define partition
labels but it does not take advantage of them nor the partition UUID in /etc/fstab or elsewhere. So if you want to use them you must do it by hand.

I have put those into my /etc/fstab for quite some time now.

This is really bad. If you are using the Debian installer on a USB
drive, you can remove the EFI system partition.

Thanks.

How many manufacturers document their bugs before they are fixed ?
Chances are they don't even know about it, or do not consider it a bug.

It is an absolutely phantastic system! Read about it here: http://gigabytedaily.blogspot.de/2011/01/gigabyte-hybrid-efi-technology.html
So it can't possibly be a bug, and if it does not boot, it must be
Debian's fault.
(-;

The grub-rescue-pc package contains a floppy GRUB image.

Thanks.


Ciao
Hajo

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Le 17/09/2017 à 18:32, Hans-Joachim Zierke a écrit :

Pascal Hambourg schrieb:

This is really bad. If you are using the Debian installer on a USB
drive, you can remove the EFI system partition.

Thanks.

Oh, one last tip I forgot to mention : (g)parted chokes on the "special" partition table of Debian ISO hybrid images, so you have to use the good
old fdisk for that task.

Thinking twice, it may be safer to keep the partition, change its type
ID to something else than EFI and remove all *.efi files within.
Some buggy firmwares won't boot a media without a partition which has
the boot flag.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)