Page 1 of 1
UEFI vs BIOS I give up ( A Rant)
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2020 6:44 pm
by rs55
I have wanted to have a fully installed Linus OS on a thumb drive - not a "live-usb" , but a fully installed OS - like on the hard drive. I have a high end Corsair GTX which has an SSD controller - so looks like a hard drive and is blazing fast.
My own machines are all on Legacy Bios. And I have quite a few.
I wanted to have this usb drive work on a friend's machine - on the off chance I was ever in a position with no laptop of my own. No luck.
The more I dig into UEFI - the more I dislike it. After 30 years of personal computer sales - all these mega companies have not found an elegant solution to simply handoff the bootup to the OS. Nope. Its ugly, its inconsistent, its cat's vomit.
I have also taken to getting rid of pulse-audio and network-manager. I much prefer the simplicity of alsa and wicd.
"New improved " does not mean improved. Well at least they get one point for "new" I guess.
Dont I feel the need to make sure my system is really up to date ? No- I - dont. I use my systems - a lot . i depend on them. I want them to be clean, fast and functiional - and most importantly ..... Predictable. Like my washing machine , or home heating system.
Moreover - by the time some genius figures out how to make a simple boot-handoff piece of code - probably takes 100KB of code to do this - we'll be well beyond laptops and on to the next hardware platform anyway. So , no - i dont bother myself with having to stay up-to-date . And that old BIOS works fine - as it was 40 years ago.
Re: UEFI vs BIOS I give up ( A Rant)
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2020 7:05 pm
by rs55
I have stockpiles a bunch of thinkpads circa 2011. because I think the PC has gone backwars since then, just look at that ridiculous spectacle clled Windows 10 . just saw an article warning that the latest update makes the file manger fail to ... well... manage files !!
The hardware has been dumbed down, politically-correctified - gutting the power for some miniscule power savings. The machines are not easy to repair or upgrade.
The soft ware is worse. With the exception of Debian , and MX Linux .
Much worse.
The spying, the ads, the intrusions, the fear-mongering about "viruses" by viruses(like Windows10) is sort of hilarious in an Orwellian sense.
Dumbed down hardware, dumbed down and dysfunctional software. Becasue after all , what are the peasants going to do? Revolt?
Re: UEFI vs BIOS I give up ( A Rant)
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2020 7:15 pm
by Stevo
Is this the right forum section for rants that have nothing to do with MX?
Re: UEFI vs BIOS I give up ( A Rant)
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:01 pm
by fehlix
rs55 wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 6:44 pm
I have wanted to have a fully installed Linus OS on a thumb drive - not a "live-usb" , but a fully installed OS - like on the hard drive. I have a high end Corsair GTX which has an SSD controller - so looks like a hard drive and is blazing fast.
My own machines are all on Legacy Bios. And I have quite a few.
I wanted to have this usb drive work on a friend's machine - on the off chance I was ever in a position with no laptop of my own. No luck.
Hmm.. actually you should have posted this into the help forum under "Setting up a full installed Linux OS onto a thumbdrive capable to boot both UEFI and BIOS mode" ...
As by some coincidence I just setup such a USBstick at the last weekend with having multiple MX Linux (MX -19, MC-18.3 and antiX-19) installed and this stick boot in UEFI mode and BIOS mode.
So as you tried already, please simply tell us where you got stuck... perhaps we might help you to get this running...
Re: UEFI vs BIOS I give up ( A Rant)
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:22 pm
by JayM
The traditional BIOS still has serious limitations. It can only boot from drives of 2.1 TB or less. 3 TB drives are now common, and a computer with a BIOS can’t boot from them. That limitation is due to the way the BIOS’s Master Boot Record system works.
The BIOS must run in 16-bit processor mode, and only has 1 MB of space to execute in. It has trouble initializing multiple hardware devices at once, which leads to a slower boot process when initializing all the hardware interfaces and devices on a modern PC.
https://www.howtogeek.com/56958/HTG-EXP ... -THE-BIOS/
Like it or not, UEFI is here to stay. It's called "progress".
(Note: the above article is 2 years old. 4TB and larger drives are now common and also can't be booted in legacy-BIOS systems.)
Re: UEFI vs BIOS I give up ( A Rant)
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:33 pm
by fehlix
JayM wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:22 pm
The traditional BIOS still has serious limitations. It can only boot from drives of 2.1 TB or less. 3 TB drives are now common, and a computer with a BIOS can’t boot from them. That limitation is due to the way the BIOS’s Master Boot Record system works.
The BIOS must run in 16-bit processor mode, and only has 1 MB of space to execute in. It has trouble initializing multiple hardware devices at once, which leads to a slower boot process when initializing all the hardware interfaces and devices on a modern PC.
https://www.howtogeek.com/56958/HTG-EXP ... -THE-BIOS/
Like it or not, UEFI is here to stay. It's called "progress".
(Note: the above article is 2 years old. 4TB and larger drives are now common and also can't be booted in legacy-BIOS systems.)
That quote is not correct. (or simply wrong) Grub can boot from any GPT disk within BIOS(MBR) mode. Most people seem to get confused about UEFI /BIOS and MBR (DOS) / GPT partition table theme.
Re: UEFI vs BIOS I give up ( A Rant)
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:39 pm
by JayM
fehlix wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:33 pm
That quote is not correct. (or simply wrong) Grub can boot from any GPT disk within BIOS(MBR) mode. Most people seem to get confused about UEFI /BIOS and MBR (DOS) / GPT partition table theme.
It was probably talking about Windows bootloaders.
Re: UEFI vs BIOS I give up ( A Rant)
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:47 pm
by fehlix
JayM wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:39 pm
fehlix wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:33 pm
That quote is not correct. (or simply wrong) Grub can boot from any GPT disk within BIOS(MBR) mode. Most people seem to get confused about UEFI /BIOS and MBR (DOS) / GPT partition table theme.
It was probably talking about Windows bootloaders.
MS introduced this artifical limitation of not allowing WinOS to install in MBR mode to boot from GPT. Well I have installed WInOS10 in BIOS mode on a this GPT disk, which I have running here ;=) It's a 4TB disk with multiple Linux all in MBR (NON-UEFI).
For GRUB to boot in BIOS/MBR from a GPT disk, one needs simply add an 1MB (unformatted) partition marked as bios_grub - preferable at the beginning of the disk, so BIOS can better find it....
Re: UEFI vs BIOS I give up ( A Rant)
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2020 10:22 pm
by rs55
fehlix wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:01 pm
rs55 wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 6:44 pm
I have wanted to have a fully installed Linus OS on a thumb drive - not a "live-usb" , but a fully installed OS - like on the hard drive. I have a high end Corsair GTX which has an SSD controller - so looks like a hard drive and is blazing fast.
My own machines are all on Legacy Bios. And I have quite a few.
I wanted to have this usb drive work on a friend's machine - on the off chance I was ever in a position with no laptop of my own. No luck.
Hmm.. actually you should have posted this into the help forum under "Setting up a full installed Linux OS onto a thumbdrive capable to boot both UEFI and BIOS mode" ...
As by some coincidence I just setup such a USBstick at the last weekend with having multiple MX Linux (MX -19, MC-18.3 and antiX-19) installed and this stick boot in UEFI mode and BIOS mode.
So as you tried already, please simply tell us where you got stuck... perhaps we might help you to get this running...
Thanks so much Fehlix. Sorry for the rant. Iam doing other stuff now, will post in a couple of days with some details.
Re: UEFI vs BIOS I give up ( A Rant)
Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2020 5:35 am
by Eadwine Rose
First off.. are you talking about installing MX or something else?
If it is something else it doesn't belong in this forum and needs moving.
Re: UEFI vs BIOS I give up ( A Rant)
Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2020 6:24 am
by jackdanielsesq
fehlix wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:01 pm
MS introduced this artifical limitation of not allowing WinOS to install in MBR mode to boot from GPT. Well I have installed WInOS10 in BIOS mode on a this GPT disk, which I have running here ;=) It's a 4TB disk with multiple Linux all in MBR (NON-UEFI).
For GRUB to boot in BIOS/MBR from a GPT disk, one needs simply add an 1MB (unformatted) partition marked as bios_grub - preferable at the beginning of the disk, so BIOS can better find it....
Thank you for that ....
Regards
Jack
Re: UEFI vs BIOS I give up ( A Rant)
Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2020 1:31 pm
by Head_on_a_Stick
rs55 wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 6:44 pm
I wanted to have this usb drive work on a friend's machine - on the off chance I was ever in a position with no laptop of my own. No luck.
To get the stick to work with both UEFI and non-UEFI you will need a GUID partition table with a BIOS boot partition[0] & an EFI system partition[1] and also the grub-pc-bin, grub-efi-ia32-bin & grub-efi-amd64-bin packages.
Then use these commands from the system on the USB stick:
Code: Select all
sudo -i
mount /dev/sdXY /mnt
grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sdX
grub-install --target=i386-efi --removable --efi-directory=/mnt
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --removable --efi-directory=/mnt
umount /mnt
exit
Replace X with the letter assigned to the drive and replace Y with the number for the EFI system partition.
And remember to disable Secure Boot, MX does not support it.
[0] Type "ef02" in gdisk or "bios_grub" in gparted, *do not* format. It only needs to be ~0.5MiB so I use sectors 34-2047, they should be free in an optimally aligned disk.
[1] Needs to be FAT-formatted and of type "ef00" in gdsik or "boot,esp" in gparted.
EDIT: changed gparted's name for the BIOS boot partition, thanks fehlix.
Re: UEFI vs BIOS I give up ( A Rant)
Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2020 2:40 pm
by fehlix
Head_on_a_Stick wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 1:31 pm
rs55 wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 6:44 pm
I wanted to have this usb drive work on a friend's machine - on the off chance I was ever in a position with no laptop of my own. No luck.
To get the stick to work with both UEFI and non-UEFI you will need a GUID partition table ...
GPT is not strictly required to boot from in UEFI mode. (That's about the confusen of GPT/DOS disks vs UEFI/BIOS boot)
MX Live USB can boot in both modes UEFI and BIOS from GPT or MBR(DOS) partition table layouts.
You can decide when you create with Live USB maker to choose either GPT or MBR partition table layout.
Head_on_a_Stick wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 1:31 pm
... with a BIOS boot partition[0] & an EFI system partition[1]
... the BIOS boot partition is recommended to have Grub boot reliable from GPT disks in BIOS mode.
But note, Grub can boot also using blocklists without this bios-boot partition - - not recommended , but working.
rs55 wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 6:44 pm
[0] Type "ef02" in gdisk or "bios_boot" in gparted, *do not* format. It only needs to be ~0.5MiB so I use sectors 34-2047, they should be free in an optimally aligned disk.
To make it simpler, just use Gparted and create 1 MB partition, and do stick to a alignment of 1MB boundary within Gparted.
Also, the bios-boot partition flag is called "bios_grub" within both Gparted and in gdisk.
In addtion for multi-boot installs, it might be worth to consider to install the efi-bootloader for each install
separately into the ESP using different bootloader-id's. So incase reEFInd might come handy and one can select between these efi-loaders as most UEFI-firmware will not scan for further efi-loader but only the fallback at /EFI/boot/bootx64.efi
Re: UEFI vs BIOS I give up ( A Rant)
Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2020 3:04 pm
by Head_on_a_Stick
fehlix wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 2:40 pmthe bios-boot partition flag is called "bios_grub" within both Gparted and in gdisk.
D'oh! Thanks for the correction
I don't think gdisk uses that name though:
And yes, there's more than one way to skin this particular cat.
EDIT:
fehlix wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 2:40 pm
MX Live USB can boot in both modes UEFI and BIOS from GPT or MBR(DOS) partition table layouts.
Only if the firmware supports it. I've encountered machines that won't boot in UEFI mode from an msdos partition table.
Re: UEFI vs BIOS I give up ( A Rant)
Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2020 3:10 pm
by fehlix
Head_on_a_Stick wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 3:04 pm
I don't think gdisk uses that name though:
correct: gdisk shows only the code ef02 not the flag-name