MX Linux Forum

bpr323 wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 8:07 am

dolphin_oracle wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 6:48 am We will take a look at the lum-gui options and see what's going on with gpt switch not being respected.

Just curious - did you have a chance to have a look at my screenshots?
https://photos.app.goo.gl/DirQd11Fs5J54ESq6
Plenty of bug-porn there :)

yes. also the log files indicates some interesting omissions of data, so we might ask you to run some commands on a running live system to try to track down the problem. We have been busier than usual with day jobs this week, so hang tight.

FWIW, your photos indicate that you selected your p1 partition as /boot. this is not for ESPs, but for the /boot partition (not the same as an ESP, more like the /home folder). So I don't know if that's a factor in this case. I don't think that would affect the actual formatting errors but its an avenue to check.

**edit**

what mode is of disk controller is the nvme drive attached to? I'm looking for SATA mode options, usually somethng like AHCI or RAID or maybe even some INTEL controller.

dolphin_oracle wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 8:09 am
yes. also the log files indicates some interesting omissions of data, so we might ask you to run some commands on a running live system to try to track down the problem. We have been busier than usual with day jobs this week, so hang tight.

I'm happy to do some more testing on my son's X1 g4 causing all the grief to everyone.
Atm I've installed 18.3-sept on it, so I will take a golden snapshot to restore it before he comes over on Tuesday.
The good thing is (assuming you're in the US) I'm on the opposite side of the globe, so I can test while you're sleeping :)

bpr323 wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 8:42 am

dolphin_oracle wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 8:09 am
yes. also the log files indicates some interesting omissions of data, so we might ask you to run some commands on a running live system to try to track down the problem. We have been busier than usual with day jobs this week, so hang tight.

I'm happy to do some more testing on my son's X1 g4 causing all the grief to everyone.
Atm I've installed 18.3-sept on it, so I will take a golden snapshot to restore it before he comes over on Tuesday.
The good thing is (assuming you're in the US) I'm on the opposite side of the globe, so I can test while you're sleeping :)

Thanks.


see my edit above. looking for some more info from the system bios.

dolphin_oracle wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 8:09 am **edit**

what mode is of disk controller is the nvme drive attached to? I'm looking for SATA mode options, usually somethng like AHCI or RAID or maybe even some INTEL controller.

Just had a close look at the X1 g4 BIOS settings - bad news from our Lenovo friends.
The disk controller option is masked in my BIOS (not a mention of the size/type of hdd in the 1st page) only options in the boot order section.
Interestingly, the boot order includes "18.3" and NVMe as separate options. And I've never seen UFFI on any MX ISO USB's as well as Legacy mode options for the same USB for boot (I've seen that on NUC though)
There's no space for 2nd nvme on the board for raid and no space for SATA, so I assume it assigns AHCI behind the scenes.

bpr323 wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 8:07 am

dolphin_oracle wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 6:48 am We will take a look at the lum-gui options and see what's going on with gpt switch not being respected.

Just curious - did you have a chance to have a look at my screenshots?
https://photos.app.goo.gl/DirQd11Fs5J54ESq6

Some comments on the shown pictures.
That's not about the failing auto-install

That's about the 2nd part where you have tried a custom-installation on existing partitions with EFI-mode.
On custom-installation you need to make sure to have prepared the partitions for EFI-installs:
On a whole disk install prepare drive this way:
1. Create a new partiton table (Gparted menu -> Device ) and do choose "gpt"

2. Create an ESP-partition
The shown /dev/nvme0n1p1 is a 256MB vfat partition - but it is not a ESP (EFI SystemPartion, yet)
Within Gparted you need to "mark" the /dev/nvme0n1p1 as "esp" + "boot" , otherwise this partition is not recognised as ESP.

3. If not install encrypted, I do recommend to not choose a extra boot-partition - just leave boot as it is, so it will be part of the "/"-root partition. There is no advantage to have extra boot-partiton for non-encrypted installs, but the opposite, it make recovery, e.g. chroot into more complex. Also MX-boot repair might not work with extra boot, due to difficulties with chroot into extra-boot installs.

4. You might now wonder why the installer proceeded with the installation which had no ESP (EFI-partition prepared) on the nvme0n1 drive. The answer is: Within the system is an ESP-partition, which is on the LiveUSB.
For the UEFI-system it doesn't matter which ESP you boot from. So you could in theory place the EFI-grub loader (which is part of the grub-install ) onto the USBstick to boot into an installed system on the internal drive.
So choosing MBR during an EFI install makes not really much sense. Again in theory you can install the legacy GRUB-loader into MBR and later boot in legacy mode from the drive. But on GPT drives you need a extra "bios-grub" partition to hold the legace MBR-Grub-bootloader. Yes in this way I sometimes prepare my system to be bootable in both either UEFI or legacy boot mode

So please run again a manual custom-installation, but do prepare nvme0n1 as such:

:->: ESP 256MB vfat maked as esp+boot
:->: "/"-root ext4 partition
:->: no boot partition.


+++EDIT: +++
And if you really want to install and boot only in legacy (BIOS) mode, do create a MSDOS-partition table,
which can hold the embedded legacy GRUB-loader.
Otherwise with GPT-partion table -as mentioned - you "must" (or better do so) to create a 1MB sized unformated partition marked as bios-grub/grub-bios, preferable as first partion on the drive.

Out of curiosity I burnt a Mint live ISO with Etcher and booted the X1 to live Mint desktop to see how it handles installation to disk:

Hi Fehlix, I did NOT "choose" to install Grub to MBR.
First, the auto-install using whole disk bombed out citing incorrect enrtries in minstall.conf
After that I had only one option - create partitions with Gparted and do the "custom" install
I couldn't find any info on exactly what partition settings MX minstall-gui expects, so I partitioned my NVMe to the best of my gut feel :)
So, you're saying that if I do partitioning correctly next time, the custom install will NOT disable ESP and will install smoothly in UEFI mode?

You know, this mucking around with gparted as the entry condition to installing the distro really pissed me off with Antix - why can every other distro can do the "entire disk" install, but MX just can't?
Have a look at the Mint screenshot above.

That one you need to host elsewhere.. it is too small to see what it says.

Eadwine Rose wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 10:34 am That one you need to host elsewhere.. it is too small to see what it says.

The jpg is too large to upload here, so here's what is says:
This machine's firmware has started the installer in UEFI mode but it looks like there may be existing operating systems already installed using "BIOS compatibility mode". If you continue to install Debian in UEFI mode, it might be difficult to reboot the machine into any BIOS-mode operating system later. If you wish to install in UEFI mode and don't care about keeping the ability to boot one of the existing systems, you have the option to force that here. If you wish to keep the option to boot an existing operating system, you should choose NOT to force the UEFI installation here.

The interesting bit is I've just installed MX 18.3 on that machine, using "entire disk" auto mode and I remember seeing the Grub being installed to ESP

bpr323 wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 10:33 am So, you're saying that if I do partitioning correctly next time, the custom install will NOT disable ESP and will install smoothly in UEFI mode?

Yes, if you choose custom install : You have to prepare all partitions properly. (as described already)/ create an ESP partition marked as esp+boot (!) (for UEFI ). You have seen a disabled ESP because you had no "EFI System Partition" prepared. I admit, it might be confusing, getting presented within an UEFI-installation to install onto MBR as only choice, as this might be regarded rather for experts who wants to boot in either of UEFI or legacy/MBR mode. ...
It has to be simple else it simply won't work