multiboot [Solved]

[ancer]

I have a multiple partitions on my SSD disk besides MX KDE I installed Windows 10 (first) , later I've tried MX Xfce also and after that I installed PCLinuxOS (on the partition where I had MX Xfce before). Now I have a boot choices with PCLinuxOS. I will most probably soon stop using it soon (format the partition). I'm not sure if I will get back boot menu from MX KDE, to be sure, I would like to have MX boot menu back before removing PCLinuxOS. How to achieve that?
I've already tried "sudo update-grub " in the terminal, no success, there is still a PCLinuxOS boot menu.

One more remark not completely related to the topic - Windows 10 has changed BIOS Settings and If I understand correctly Password protected BIOS doesn't stop Windows from changing it, because there is a backdoor password to BIOS. And I had to change BIOS settings again (disable secure boot) to be able to install new systems from USB pendrive. Why is Micro$oft allowed to do that (change BIOS settings) without my consent?

Thank You

[radonrose]

First of all, reminding you that you can use different Desktop Environments in the same installation of a Linux distribution.

I don't know what PCLinuxOS does to your Grub, but you can always try running MX Boot Repair from your MX installation, or from a Live USB in case something goes wrong and you can't boot your regular MX.

I am never surprised when Windows intervene where they shouldn't. Sometimes I hear my HDD spinning, despite it being disabled in the BIOS, but what can you do? I just make sure to keep them as isolated as I can.

[asqwerth]

I assume you are on uefi boot instead of MBR?

Right now controlling grub is still pclos on your system. If you can, go to your bios settings and change the boot order so that mx is first instead of pclos. That way the first grub/bootloader your machine will boot will be MX and not pclos.

When you updated mx's grub, that updated the contents of its grub.cfg file, but it was still not the first grub your machine accessed.

[ancer]

Thank You both for Your answers!
Well, asqwerth, I've tried what You suggest - changed the boot order in BIOS and instead of going back to MX boot menu I get the message:
Welcome to GRUB!
error: file '/....." not found
grub rescue>_
and at this point I don't know what else to do than go to BIOS again, change boot order back to PCLinuxOS first and at least i get a boot menu again and can boot normaly.
And I remember using MX Boot Repair once before and at the next boot I've got the same message - Welcome to grub etc. and couldn't boot any system.

[asqwerth]

Previously when you installed MX did you choose to install its bootloader (in the midst of installation) in the UEFI ESP or in root partition? If root partition, that may be the problem.

But you'll probably need to wait for the experts to wake up in their timezones to help with that. I'm not really that good with UEFI systems.

Perhaps @fehlix will be the best person.

[LU344928]

Windows 10 has changed BIOS Settings and If I understand correctly Password protected BIOS doesn't stop Windows from changing it, because there is a backdoor password to BIOS. And I had to change BIOS settings again (disable secure boot) to be able to install new systems from USB pendrive. Why is Micro$oft allowed to do that (change BIOS settings) without my consent?

A backdoor password to BIOS?

While Microsoft tries to make it as difficult as possible to install non-Windows operating systems, that shouldn't happen.

[fehlix]

I have a multiple partitions on my SSD disk besides MX KDE I installed Windows 10 (first) , later I've tried MX Xfce also and after that I installed PCLinuxOS (on the partition where I had MX Xfce before). Now I have a boot choices with PCLinuxOS. I will most probably soon stop using it soon (format the partition). I'm not sure if I will get back boot menu from MX KDE, to be sure, I would like to have MX boot menu back before removing PCLinuxOS. How to achieve that?

The solution was probably given in post #2 by @radonrose by running MX Boot Repair from a booted LiveUSB in UEFI mode. And reinstall (EFI-)GRUB boot loader and regenerated the GRUB configuration.
UEFI entries made on the ESP (EFI System Partition) and registered within the UEFI system shown as boot options will not automatically be removed, when installing other systems. The last UEFI entry made by MX installer pointed to the MX Xfce partition to look for the (2nd stage corresponding efi-grub loader modules) of MX Xfce might now not find the needed bits and pieces as it have been overwritten by PCLinuxOS.
A more detailed investigation, would require to provide detailed information. A good starting point when asking for help would be to post the information shown by the tool Quick System Info.
HTH

[ancer]

Thank You fehlix, I appologise, I forgot my sys. info
There it is:

Code: Select all

System:
  Host: <filter> Kernel: 5.10.0-5mx-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A 
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.10.0-5mx-amd64 
  root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash 
  Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.14.5 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM 
  Distro: MX-19.4_kde_x64 patito feo March 31  2021 
  base: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) 
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: ASUS product: N/A v: N/A serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: ASUSTeK model: PRIME A520M-K v: Rev X.0x serial: <filter> 
  UEFI: American Megatrends v: 1004 date: 08/13/2020 
CPU:
  Topology: 6-Core model: AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4650G with Radeon Graphics bits: 64 
  type: MT MCP arch: Zen family: 17 (23) model-id: 60 (96) stepping: 1 
  microcode: 8600106 L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm 
  bogomips: 88626 
  Speed: 2616 MHz min/max: 1400/3700 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2616 
  2: 2290 3: 2811 4: 2656 5: 2220 6: 2256 7: 2769 8: 2667 9: 2619 10: 3172 11: 2919 
  12: 2355 
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected 
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected 
  Type: mds status: Not affected 
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected 
  Type: spec_store_bypass 
  mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
  Type: spectre_v1 
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full AMD retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, 
  STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
  Type: srbds status: Not affected 
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Renoir vendor: ASUSTeK driver: amdgpu v: kernel bus ID: 08:00.0 
  chip ID: 1002:1636 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 driver: amdgpu,ati 
  unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa compositor: kwin_x11 resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.40.0 5.10.0-5mx-amd64 LLVM 11.0.1) 
  v: 4.6 Mesa 20.3.4 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 08:00.1 
  chip ID: 1002:1637 
  Device-2: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK PRIME B450M-A 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 08:00.6 chip ID: 1022:15e3 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.10.0-5mx-amd64 
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
  vendor: ASUSTeK PRIME B450M-A driver: r8169 v: kernel port: f000 bus ID: 03:00.0 
  chip ID: 10ec:8168 
  IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 1.14 TiB used: 11.37 GiB (1.0%) 
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Apacer model: AS2280P4 256GB size: 238.47 GiB 
  block size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 
  serial: <filter> rev: S0614B0 scheme: GPT 
  ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: Toshiba model: HDWD110 size: 931.51 GiB block size: 
  physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 7200 rpm 
  serial: <filter> rev: A8R0 scheme: MBR 
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw size: 97.66 GiB size: 95.62 GiB (97.92%) used: 11.34 GiB (11.9%) 
  fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 43.2 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 33 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
  1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates main contrib non-free
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
  1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster main contrib non-free
  2: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib non-free
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
  1: deb http://it.mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ buster main non-free
  2: deb http://it.mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ buster ahs
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/opera-stable.list 
  1: deb https://deb.opera.com/opera-stable/ stable non-free
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list 
Info:
  Processes: 271 Uptime: 8m Memory: 7.16 GiB used: 1.53 GiB (21.4%) Init: SysVinit 
  v: 2.93 runlevel: 5 default: 5 Compilers: gcc: 8.3.0 alt: 8 Shell: quick-system-in 
  running in: quick-system-in inxi: 3.0.36 

[ancer]

And when installing any system I didn't change any parameters - everything by default (apart from choosing the partition, local settings, of course). But since I installed MS Windows first, there may have been UEFI already there

[Huckleberry Finn]

Code: Select all

sudo efibootmgr

Also on live session:

Install On: ESP

Location: (Your ESP partition: vfat (fat32) )

Select /boot location: nvme0n1p3