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Faheem Mitha

00:47

So, to quote the Debian Wiki:

> debian-installer support

> debian-installer's support for UEFI is mostly contained in two modules.

> First comes the partman-efi module, and this will be loaded automatically if d-i recognises it has been booted in UEFI mode. partman-efi will cope with both MS-DOS and GPT partitioned disks, but will offer to use GPT by preference on disks that are not already partitioned. It knows how to set up an ESP with appropriate partition type and filesystem if necessary, and will ensure it's correctly mounted on the installed system later. If the system already has an ESP, partman-efi will attemp…

This didn't work for me. But how can I tell whether d-i recognises that "it has been booted in UEFI mode"?

11 hours later…

terdon

11:53

May 30 at 0:30, by Faheem Mitha

@overexchange Ask questions on the site.

Seriously though, as you so often tell people here, do ask on the site. We need more EFI install information.

Faheem Mitha

@terdon Is it on topic?

And it's a rather broad question. I don't know what went wrong.

Plus it's probably tied to my specific motherboard. And I'm really sure what its BIOS is telling me. It doesn't have the best interface.

terdon

@FaheemMitha Of course. It's a question about installing a Linux distro in EFI mode. Why wouldn't it be?

@FaheemMitha That's why you ask :)

@FaheemMitha So? This sort of thing (EFI mode installation) is an extremely common issue and we don't have much content about it here. It really seems like a great question to have on the site.

Faheem Mitha

@terdon Fine, but I can see it getting closed as "too broad".

terdon

@FaheemMitha Why? Don't you want to ask how you can know if the debian installer was booted in EFI mode?

That's very specific.

And, come to think of it, I might know the answer. Check the contents of /sys/firmware/efi/

Faheem Mitha

12:09

@terdon Oh, I see that's what I asked. Actually, my problem is larger than that.

terdon

I think that'll be empty or non-existant unless you're in efi mode.

Faheem Mitha

Sorry, I'm a bit scattered today.

@terdon Check how. By dropping to a shell?

terdon

I guess, yes

Faheem Mitha

Ok, I'll ask that. But actually my problem is that I tried to install GRUB on the disk, but it failed. And there are like 6 things that could have gone wrong. But I guess the uefi boot thing is a reasonable place to start.

Actually someone on RA just pointed me to:

Q: How can I tell if my system was booted as EFI/UEFI or BIOS?

How do I determine whether a particular running Ubuntu system was booted using EFI/UEFI, or BIOS?

Though my question is about the installer, so it's not exactly the same.

And what's the view on duplication of questions across AU and U&L?

Since they are so similar, there's lots.

terdon

Yeah. Nothing we can do about that though.

Faheem Mitha

12:20

Actually, wiki.debian.org/UEFI has the following:

> Troubleshooting

How to tell if you've booted via UEFI
The Debian installer splash screen will say it's the UEFI installer, and will look slightly different to the equivalent screen in BIOS mode. BIOS boot is done via isolinux/syslinux, but UEFI boot is done using grub.

Later on, the thing to look for is the directory /sys/firmware/efi. If that exists, the system is running in UEFI mode.

But I don't know what it means by splash screen. Is that the graphical installer, the text installer, or both?

Why isn't my last comment being boxed?

Usually > works.

terdon

@FaheemMitha Too many >, just use one.

@FaheemMitha The first thing you see. It's basically a grub screen. Before choosing "install" or whatever.

Faheem Mitha

@terdon Oh. Ok. I don't remember seeing a GRUB screen. I'd like a screenshot.

@terdon oh

terdon

@FaheemMitha The first thing you see when booting from the installation medium. Where it asks you what you want to do.

Faheem Mitha

@terdon Ok. Like choose language, keyboard layout, that kind of thing? The graphical and non-graphical ones look different, I think.

terdon

Presumably one is graphical and the other not so yes, I'm sure they do look different :P

Faheem Mitha

12:30

A text mode installer might have difficulty with a splash screen. For one thing, I'm not sure where it would splash it.

Faheem Mitha

12:55

@terdon Well, since you insisted...

Q: How can I tell if the Debian installer has booted in UEFI mode or not?

The Debian Wiki UEFI page says Troubleshooting How to tell if you've booted via UEFI The Debian installer splash screen will say it's the UEFI installer, and will look slightly different to the equivalent screen in BIOS mode. BIOS boot is done via isolinux/syslinux, but UEFI boot is d...

uefi debian-installer

terdon

Yay! Thanks

And hey, you're the one who is always so adamant about people asking on site. Don't blame me if it comes back to bite you :P

Faheem Mitha

Though I'm betting I'll getting comments saying I don't really have a question.

@terdon I'm in favor of non-trivial, well-formed questions that have to do with Unix. Most of my questions are both trivial and general.

terdon

Those can still be useful.

Faheem Mitha

But thanks for the vote, if that was you.

I continue my slow crawl towards 20k.

And I assume this UEFI thing is better. Though I don't know anything about it.

4 hours later…

derobert

17:00

@FaheemMitha there, posted a screenshot for you.

1 hour later…

Faheem Mitha

18:08

@derobert Thank you.

@derobert Why is there a white patch in the middle? Is that artwork?

Actually, like two white patches.

And why no help option with the UEFI menu, I wonder.

derobert

@FaheemMitha Yeah. That's the background.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Hmm. Not the most appealing thing I've seen.

derobert

@FaheemMitha I think the help is all weird options for ancient machines... so probably not relevant. Or maybe it's been moved somewhere else...

Faheem Mitha

Thanks for the screenshots. That's really helpful.

@derobert I don't see why it would be in one and not the other, though.

Now i just have to figure out how to get my machine to boot in UEFI mode.

derobert

@FaheemMitha Well, if it's all weird options for ancient machines, it's not at all relevant for UEFI machines, because none of them are ancient.

Faheem Mitha

18:14

@derobert Oh, I see.

@derobert Does my interpretation of this seem right to you?

A: Debian installer mentioned that unused LVM VG and LV will be "formatted"

I realised the answer to this after posting the question, and then verified it on another installation attempt, which was also a failure, but got a bit further. The Debian installer automatically enables RAID partitions it sees. In my case, the only RAID partition on my machine is a Logical Volu...

derobert

yeah, sounds right