MIcrosoft Update pooches grub on dual boot...

[CharlesV]

Not really sure that this is the place to post this, but it works :-)

Last tuesday's Windows update has created an issue for many users of Linux, with a wonky mess on the dual boot grub system.

If your seeing / wanting to know about it.. have a look at this article.

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/0 ... nux-users/

[Eadwine Rose]

"With Microsoft maintaining radio silence, those affected by the glitch have been forced to find their own remedies. One option is to access their EFI panel and turn off secure boot."

We tell folks to turn secure boot off, so.. shouldn't be a big issue?



On each update I check whether secure boot is still set to OFF in windows.

[CharlesV]

Agreed, but I think it is good to inform people. Windows is becoming more and more of a problem :-/ even in dual boot.

[j2mcgreg]

This is why I maintain a separate Windows 11 desktop. While I like the convenience and economy of dual booting, too many similar events in the past have made it more aggravation than it's worth.

[DukeComposed]

While I like the convenience and economy of dual booting, too many similar events in the past have made it more aggravation than it's worth.

Strongly agree. Around 2017 after nearly 20 years of Linux and BSD use, personally and professionally, on servers and in VMs, I decided the time was right to try using a Linux laptop as a daily driver. I put a 50 GB Windows 10 partition on it and the rest was used for an Arch-based distro. I figured I'd need to jump back and forth under the mistaken belief I would be highly discriminating and demand Total Application Compatibility For Everything.

The Arch install lasted 5 weeks before I gave up on it and switched to Linux Mint. After several months, I realized I was only ever logging into the Windows partition once a month, and that was just to patch it before rebooting and going back to Mint. At the very next opportunity, I rebuilt the disk with a single LUKS partition and that was that.

Multi-booting other OSes might be useful under certain bespoke use cases, but I find that maintaining a VM is much easier and far less error prone. I just don't need that "os-prober has hit an error" kind of stress in my life anymore.

[FullScale4Me]

The key to it happening is the version of the UEFI shim, which Debian 12 seems to be using the newer version. This leaves Debian 12 and it's derivates unaffected.

There are a lot of Linux Mint 20.3/21.x/22 users, however, reporting the problem which uses the older Ubuntu UEFI shim.

[fehlix]

The key to it happening is the version of the UEFI shim, which Debian 12 seems to be using the newer version. This leaves Debian 12 and it's derivates unaffected.

On MX-23.3 64bit ISOs we have Debian's signed efi grub boot loader:

Code: Select all

grubx64.efi:     file format pei-x86-64

Contents of section .sbat:
sbat,1,SBAT Version,sbat,1,https ://github.com/rh boot/shim/blob/main/SBAT.md
grub,3,Free Software Foundation,grub,2.06,https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/
grub.debian,4,Debian,grub2,2.06-13,https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/grub2

On installed with enabled secureboot we have current Debian 12 signed efi

Code: Select all

grubx64.efi:     file format pei-x86-64

Contents of section .sbat: 
sbat,1,SBAT Version,sbat,1,https ://github.com/rh boot/shim/blob/m ain/SBAT.md
grub,4,Free Software Foundation,grub,2.06,https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/
grub.debian,4,Debian,grub2,2.06-13+deb12u1,https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/grub2

So both do have "sbat" version "4", which seems not to be effected by Microsofts update.
At least a test boot with MX-23.3 Iso on a secureboot enabled win11, with yesterday latest update,
does work just fine.

[Stevo]

Obligatory gif:

[CharlesV]

+1 for Duke ... I only run windows in VM's or standalone.

[AVLinux]

Hi,

I have Win 10 essentially only for Topaz Labs software which requires bare metal GPU, especially in the summer I might only boot into my Win partition once a month or less and I have to count on my session being completely unproductive while the programs and Windows itself updates... Big time waste but to be fair any OS that only gets booted once a month will do the same thing, developers are restless by nature I suppose... I'll have to cross my fingers at the next update...