UEFI On Linux Is Like A Pathogen

[garegin]

here's an idea. when the os loads via pxe if you are missing the driver, the software should call the firmware and change the mode on the fly. this way you dont have to slipstream ethernet drivers.

[Kano]

I can certainly select lan boot, but pxe is then booted in bios mode on my test systems. you see that when you try efibootmgr, if it does not run, then you did not boot via efi.

[locovaca]

If somebody knows how to boot pxe via uefi let me know...

Not sure what you mean by this... in my experience UEFI supports PXE just like BIOS. On my ASUS board it allows PXE boot from either the built in Realtek NIC or the Intel Gigabit Desktop PCI-E card I have in there. I'd have to look but I'm pretty sure they appear as separate entries in the boot manager.

[Kano]

Basically it is possible to install grub into mbr (for bios boot) and combine all grub modules into one efi file to put it onto a fat partition for booting via efi. There you add a little grub.cfg with

search -sf /boot/grub/grub.cfg
source /boot/grub/grub.cfg

and you can boot via bios AND efi (after setting up your efi boot entry using efibootmgr or via efi shell and running the efi binary). I did that for testing (used gpt as partition scheme, there you have to use --force for grub-install in mbr mode). It is also possible to chainload win from grub booted via efi (chainloader BOOTX64.EFI) or you can start the efi shell using chainloader as well. If you did not succeed with efibootmgr you can simply use a fat usb key with a /EFI/Boot/BOOTX64.EFI and boot that with efi mode. You can use whatever you like as efi binary, a shell or maybe grub. If somebody knows how to boot pxe via uefi let me know...

[DeepDayze]

I'll rather have Coreboot with SeaBIOS, OpenFirmware or SmartFirmware or TianoCore.

Just need more makers on the bandwagon and at least make a few models available with these firmwares well supported

[uid313]

Coreboot

I'll rather have Coreboot with SeaBIOS, OpenFirmware or SmartFirmware or TianoCore.

[DeepDayze]

Looks like I'll be hanging onto my aging Abit KN9 mobo a while longer...lucky this board still works. Until UEFI issues get smoothed out over the next generations of hardware I'll hang tight on new hardware purchases

[uid313]

2214 pages

2214 page specification?
what the fuck?

Less is more!
Stop the bloat!
Do one thing and do it well.
Firmware should be minimalistic.

[plonoma]

BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGSSSSSSSSSS!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A new plague is upon us!
(Why aren't there test suites and test walkthroughs for such important things?

[r1348]

The only linux distro I were able painlessly install on UEFI is Fedora 16. Ubuntu and Arch just plainly failed to install correct boot loader.
Win 7 64 installed flawlessly, which were pretty much surprising given that it have been out for 2 years already (at the date of installation).
Most Linux distros ignored possibility of UEFI install though.

On the opposite, the only distro that would install on my brother's iMac (don't ask me which gen) is Ubuntu, while all the others manage to install, but fail to appear as a boot option after.