brokenman UEFI booting questions

[Ed_P]

I will be getting a new netbook/laptop in the near future, which will undoubtedly have EFI booting. All my current systems multi-boot and I want the new system to be able to do that also. And I want it to retain it's Windows 10 system and I want my additional systems to be ISOs like I have today.

Based on working with your EFI bootable USB drive (viewtopic.php?f=81&t=4632&p=33638#p33604)
I'm hoping I can add rEFInd to the new machine and use it to be my multi-boot system menu, booting Windows and booting Grub2, the latter providing the ISO booting functions.

My 1st question is where did you get the bootx64.efi file that you use.

[Ed_P]

My 1st question is where did you get the bootx64.efi file that you use.

I think I found the answer to that question.

viewtopic.php?f=81&t=2700#p29085

[brokenman]

Yes I got it from rods website directly. I used his script to install the bootloader to a USB for testing, then just copied the files over from the USB. A lot of this will depend on the system that you buy and you won't know until you try. Some systems (like mine) only boot from the default EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi file. In this case you need to overwrite this file on your computer (make a backup somewhere first). I have had windows update this file before which broke my bootloader so always make backups.

On some systems you can leave the refind efi file in its folder and tweak your firmware to boot from whichever efi file you want. Most of the procedure will depend on questions you can answer adter you test the new machine. I can safely say that refind is the best bootloader for my situation. It auto detects just about every other OS on the machine.

[Ed_P]

A bit of a digression from my new machine goal. I'm tweaking my Porteus UEFI flash drive to boot ISO files. I've got the non-UEFI side figured out and working but running into a problem on the UEFI side.

I downloaded a Grub2 EFI file that contained a grub2x64.efi and shimx64.efi which I put in a EFI/grub2/Boot/ folder plus a hand made grub2.cfg file made from parts of a grub2win app and Google finds. I added a menu entry to the /EFI/BOOT/refind.conf file to invoke grub2, which it does.

Code: Select all

menuentry Grub2 {
	loader /EFI/grub2/Boot/grubx64.efi
	icon /EFI/BOOT/icons/os_linux.png
}

And EFI grub2 does start with this setup. But grub2 is not reading the grub2.cfg file. I even put a copy of the grub2.cfg file in the root of the USB drive but still a no go. What am I missing??

[brokenman]

I haven't used grub2. You didn't say exactly where you put the grub.cfg file, nor if you compiled the .efi file yourself or are using a pre-made one. I expect the following places should work.

/boot/grub, /grub, /boot/grub2 or /grub2, or right next to the EFI binary.

[Ed_P]

You didn't say exactly where you put the grub.cfg file,

One is in the root of the flash drive and one is next to the grub2x64.efi file in the /EFI/grub2/Boot/ folder.

nor if you compiled the .efi file yourself or are using a pre-made one.

I'm using a premade one. Which I noticed has Ubuntu in the title.

I expect the following places should work.

/boot/grub, /grub, /boot/grub2 or /grub2, or right next to the EFI binary.

An interesting assortment, I'll give them a try. Thanks. I appreciate your taking the time.

[francois]

I might know some guy that has developped a grub2 installer for arch linux. This could be use as a module on nemesis and would add extra value to the distribution (former and closed forum of evolution linux:
http://www.evolutionlinux.com/

Eventually, I could make the contact if desirable.

[brokenman]

How do you envision that this would fit into Porteus?

[francois]

@brokenman:
Just brainstorming. In fact, I am not even sure it would fit on nemesis given the structure of the compressed modules which are different from the full install. Though I suspect that it could be not that hard to adapt. As It seems to me that it is simpler to copy paste modules on a partition than to completely unfold a compressed iso onto the same partition.

Then if this is good for nemesis, it could be good for porteus. I was for some time on the evolution linux forum enough to understand that they aimed a distribution that could be more friendly use than arch, designed for naive to intermediate. They went on for a year or two, but the few maintainers seemed to burn out or to get discouraged because of the lack of membership and of technical skills of their community. I imagine you realize how hardworking, courageous and skillfull fanthom, hamza, ahau and you have been during these last years. 8)

Maybe the developper of the installer could be interested in nemesis first and then to porteus.

This installer was some kind of perfected debian installer. The older one, if it has changed recently. This would be a great spreading tool or module.

[Ed_P]

brokenman, an update.

It is possible to boot ISOs with your UEFI Porteus USB system. But it depends on what version of grub2 you are using and the one I had, which was looking for the cfg file in a /EFI/ubuntu/ folder, didn't support the loopback command. But the version in an app named Grub2Win does.

So, an entry in rEFInd.conf:

Code: Select all

menuentry Grub2 {
	loader /EFI/grub2win/grub2win.boot.efi
	icon /EFI/BOOT/icons/os_linux.png
}

and an entry in the /grub2/grub2.cfg file something like this:

Code: Select all

#
#  Menu Item 1       Porteus
#
menuentry "Porteus ISO" --class slackware   --class icon-linux  {
     echo Grub is now booting   Porteus ISO
     echo Boot disk address is  $root
     echo Prefix is             $prefix
     echo The boot mode is      $grub2win_bootmode
     set iso=/ISOs/Porteus-RazorQT-v3.0.1-x86_64-nu.iso
     search -f $iso --set=root 
     echo ISO root              $root
     if [ -f (hd1,1)/USB_INSTALLATION.txt ]; then
         set linux_drv=/mnt/sdb1
     else
         set linux_drv=/mnt/sda5
     fi
     echo Porteus extramods     $linux_drv
     echo
     loopback loop $iso
     sleep -v -i 7 
     echo "Loading Linux" 
     linux (loop)/boot/syslinux/vmlinuz extramod="$linux_drv/Modules;$linux_drv/modsavedat" volume=33 reboot=cold
     echo "Loading initrd"
     initrd (loop)/boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
}

And your Porteus UEFI USB system can boot just about anything.

I'll have to try it with a Nemesis iso.