Hybrid ISO for UEFI machines

Dai_trying · 2016-09-17 09:10

I would like to see a hybrid iso image for use on UEFI machines, I recently bought a new laptop which was UEFI (with windows 10 installed) and wanted to install linux onto it but had a problem getting the boot options and after much googling around found that the problem was that I was having to boot in bios mode (Legacy boot option) to get the usb stick to boot, I tried another OS which I had been testing (Debian based with LXQT) and after burning the iso (using rufus) in GPT for UEFI booting I could then boot the other distro without having to use legacy mode and installed grub to the efi boot partition and I now get my grub displaying on bootup and the Windows boot manager is accessible via pressing F12 when the laptop starts to access the boot options.

I do realise the the other distro I used is based on debian testing and therefore would probably expect this would only be available for the scorpion version but that would probably be better for testing on new machines anyway really.

Just something for my wish-list that I thought I would share.

Dai

q4osteam · 2016-09-18 21:06

Yes, we will take a focus on that. Newer Q4OS media should be bootable on UEFI machines.

Dai_trying · 2016-09-18 21:35

That's great to hear, I'm available for testing if you need me

Dai_trying · 2016-09-18 22:42

I thought I would just post here how I created my UEFI bootable Q4OS usb stick in case it may help with this effort.

First I created my usb stick using rufus (I was in windows at the time) be sure to write in iso mode and NOT dd mode.

Next when rufus has finished open the disk using file manager and create a directory named EFI (capitalization IS important) enter that directory and create a directory named BOOT and in that directory place the efi shell file that can be downloaded from the page I got my instructions from HERE.

Next create a plain text file named startup.nsh (this is different from the instructions I found but works automatically) and put into it live\vmlinuz initrd=live\initrd.img append boot=live components and save it to the root of the usb stick.

Now reboot and select your usb drive from the boot menu, in my case I had to press F12 to get there, but other systems will be different.

As I have put in my other post on this issue after performing the installation you will not be able to get into the system until the boot manager has the .efi file available to boot Q4os (hopefully will be fixed sometime soon), but It is installed in EFI mode.

Dai_trying · 2016-09-19 21:11

I just been playing with debian-stretch-DI-alpha7-amd64-xfce-CD-1.iso dl'd from debian and was really surprised to see the efi folder and boot subfolder containing the bootx64.efi file which are the requirements for EFI booting, I used isomaster to rename the folders to use capital letters, saved the iso and now using rufus (in windows 10) I can burn the usb stick in gpt mode for efi boot only and it all worked!!! how good is that!!
I will look at the scorpion install iso next to see if I can fudge a working iso together.
Watch this space

q4osteam · 2016-09-19 21:17

Great, thanks for the very useful information. Just the question, are you able to boot the Q4OS Orion install CD, not the live CD, on your UEFI machines ?

Dai_trying · 2016-09-19 21:32

I haven't tried it yet, I'll dl it and try and post back here.

Dai_trying · 2016-09-19 22:57

GREAT NEWS!!
I renamed the directories /efi/boot/on the iso image to /EFI/BOOT/ and I could then write the usb as gpt partition ( this seems to be important to ensure you are booting in efi mode ) and it booted correctly, installed correctly and added a (debian) entry to the boot manager as item 0 (first boot option).
I could then boot into the installation with no issues at all, the only problem I had was having to install the newer kernel (using your installation script {qinst-kernel-bpo}) to allow the screen resolution to set correctly as it was 800x600 with no option to change it, but that's just down to drivers which I already expected.
But the mission to install successfully onto EFI system is definitely almost there!

EDIT:
I used q4os-1.6.2-x64.iso

Last edited by Dai_trying (2016-09-19 22:59)

q4osteam · 2016-09-19 23:22

Nice and helpful job Dai, now we can move further. Any other findings are appreciated.

Dai_trying · 2016-09-20 13:17

I have found this instruction for installing the efi bootloader and wondered if it would be as simple as putting this (or a modified version) into the installer routine of the live cd? obviously the /EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi would need to be in place on the live-cd to allow booting first.

q4osteam · 2016-09-20 21:16

The first, and easy, step is to make live CD bootable from EFI systems. The second, difficult, part of the job is to make reliable routine to properly include boot records for installed Q4OS system into the EFI boot manager. This will take a considerable effort regarding to paragraph below from https://wiki.debian.org/UEFI#efibootmgr … boot_entry

Many UEFI firmware implementations are unfortunately buggy, as mentioned earlier. Despite the specification for boot entries and boot order being quite clear about how things should work, there are lots of systems in the wild which get it wrong. Some systems simply ignore valid requests to add new boot entries. Others will accept those requests, but will refuse to use them unless they describe themselves as "Windows" or similar. There are lots of other similar bugs out there, suggesting that many system vendors have done very little testing beyond "does it work with Windows?"

Dai_trying · 2016-09-20 22:10

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it is a simple process to get this fixed, I just wondered if this or something like it could be easily incorporated into the install routine for testing.

q4osteam · 2016-09-21 07:30

Yes, we want try to prepare some basic, non official so far, method to install Q4OS on UEFI machines in the near future. Of course, your assistance and feedback is highly appreciated.

Q4OS Forum

#1 2016-09-17 09:10

Hybrid ISO for UEFI machines

#2 2016-09-18 21:06

Re: Hybrid ISO for UEFI machines

#3 2016-09-18 21:35

Re: Hybrid ISO for UEFI machines

#4 2016-09-18 22:42

Re: Hybrid ISO for UEFI machines

#5 2016-09-19 21:11

Re: Hybrid ISO for UEFI machines

#6 2016-09-19 21:17

Re: Hybrid ISO for UEFI machines

#7 2016-09-19 21:32

Re: Hybrid ISO for UEFI machines

#8 2016-09-19 22:57

Re: Hybrid ISO for UEFI machines

#9 2016-09-19 23:22

Re: Hybrid ISO for UEFI machines

#10 2016-09-20 13:17

Re: Hybrid ISO for UEFI machines

#11 2016-09-20 21:16

Re: Hybrid ISO for UEFI machines

#12 2016-09-20 22:10

Re: Hybrid ISO for UEFI machines

#13 2016-09-21 07:30

Re: Hybrid ISO for UEFI machines

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