Need help installing to a uefi pc

[ClientAlive]

I really need some help getting fedora installed to my new computer. I've had it for around two months now and not able to use it. Around 6 weeks ago I tried every method I was able to find to get the fedora installer to efi boot and had one problem or another that caused it to be unsuccessful. At that time I had made a thread here but I was too unfamilar with some of the ins and outs to really settle down a minute and recieve the help (I applogize). I'm so stupid, I didn't record any details on each of the methods I tried before and what their result was. If anyone is wiling please help me find a solution to this problem and get a working system.

If it's ok I'd like to just share what I need to end up with, what I've observed about how my motherboard works when it comes to efi booting, and the one thing I've revisited (installation attempt) yesterday and the day before. What I'm hoping is we can systematically pick an installation method, try it, if there is a problem to try and find a way to work around the problem and make that method work, then move on to the next method if possible. The only thing I ask is that we not jump around all over the place - it makes me confused, I get to feeling a lot of anxiety over it. I may not understand a lot of the acronyms or technical things people use to describe something; so, if that happens, I'll just say so ok?

I'm sorry if I'm not being specific or focused enough. This is how I percieve this whole thing right now and it's the best I've got. If you just let me know how to write it better I will do it. Please someone help. I don't think I'll be able to get this done without it.

Requirements:

A minimal, command line only, (fedora) system from which to build on

Raid and lvm remain a part of the plan (however the end result is achieved)

Unless there is no other way - a gpt partition type

Unless there is no other way - efi

Challenges:

I have several large disks in the machine ( 3 x 3 TB) and a typical BIOS install causes me to lose roughly 1/3 my hard drive space

When I made my purchasing decisions I did so having raid and lvm in mind - I don't want to abandon that because it would defeate the whole point and everything I wanted when I bought all the hardware. Raid and lvm 'is' the idea just as much as the sytem is.

So much as it may be possible, I hope to avoid recreating raid on the disks (making changes to the partition structure causing raid to have to be recreated). If it's something that needs to be done I'm fine with that - I'm just saying I don't want to take it lightly (It takes a very very long time for that process to complete on those disks)

From my experience, communication with my motherboard manufacturer to get help is almost certainly a dead end. Please don't disqualify me base on the possibility the problem(or part of it) lies in the hardware settings - Asus will not help me, thier techs aren't even capable of it from what I've seen. I've made countless calls to thier tech support and even rma'd the board recently. I recieved the board back about 3 days ago.

Condition of the machine now:

Box fires up fine, as far as I can tell. It can run live media with no problem.

The hard drives have been manually partitioned using gdisk

mdadm was used to create raid on the disks

lvm2 was used to create lvm on the disks

(so the disks are currently partitioned with gpt partition table and have raid and lvm on them)

(can see information here: http://pastebin.com/XmDMKruY).

The firmware version is not the most recent but second to most recent (I was advised to update it)

General observations:

In the past I saw that, when a uefi bootable media is recognized by my motherboard, what it does is to display two entries in the boot menu for the peice of hardware containing the media. One entry contains the word "uefi" in it and the other does not - but it is the same hardware device being referenced in both entries.

Description of recent install attempt:

~ General:

Followed the instructions in the fedora install manual, section 3.3.1, "to produce a bootable USB flash drive for UEFI-based systems."

~ Detailed:

Downloaded the torrent of the full install cd, which comes with a "*-CHECKSUM" file as well as the "*DVD.iso".

Follwed the information found at, "Fedora Project - Verify your download" to verify I have a good copy.

Copy pasted each command from section 3.3.1 of the fedora installation manual and changed "DVD.iso", where it shows up in the maual's commands, to "Fedora-16-x86_64-DVD.iso"

Inserted the usb stick into a usb 3.0 port on the back of my motherboard

reset the running machine and entered firmware settings

Observed that there was a boot entry listed as usb 1.0 in the list and clicked it to boot from that

Observed that, that boot entry did not contain the work "uefi" in the description (but not sure it matters for this/ for usb)

Result:

A blank screen that shows only a blinking cursor in the upper left corner

Plan to do:

I was advised to update my firmare to the most recent version. I'd like to go ahead and do that.

I notice that my drives are showing up in reverse order to what they were before I rma'd the board (took machine apart and reassembled it). I think it's because I plugged them into the motherboard in reverse order by accident. I'd like to make sure the drives are plugged into port 1, port 2, port 3 (respectively) and my two other sata devices (optical drive and card reader) in port 4, port 5 (respectively).

Try again to boot from the usb stick that was created yesterday. I can report the result here.

[srs5694]

Is there a reason you're not booting directly from the CD/DVD? Does the computer not have an optical drive? I've installed Fedora before in EFI mode directly from the optical disc, and if making a bootable USB flash drive is giving you problems, I suggest you try it from an optical disc instead.

Another thing you could try is creating a bootable USB flash drive that contains rEFInd, my EFI boot manager. If you can get that to boot, it may have more luck locating your installer's boot loader and getting it going. (I can't promise that, though; I've never tried using rEFInd to launch a Fedora installer, so I don't know for a fact that it will work.)

[ClientAlive]

Originally Posted by srs5694

Is there a reason you're not booting directly from the CD/DVD? Does the computer not have an optical drive? I've installed Fedora before in EFI mode directly from the optical disc, and if making a bootable USB flash drive is giving you problems, I suggest you try it from an optical disc instead.

Another thing you could try is creating a bootable USB flash drive that contains rEFInd, my EFI boot manager. If you can get that to boot, it may have more luck locating your installer's boot loader and getting it going. (I can't promise that, though; I've never tried using rEFInd to launch a Fedora installer, so I don't know for a fact that it will work.)

Hi,

Ok so this evening I upgraded my firmware to the latest version and then plugged my drives in, in the correct order (so that the disk with the system partition on it gets the sda label).

I have an install dvd here from before. I recall I had checksummed it after downloading the file from the internet and after burning it. With the machine booted into the firmware settings I placed the dvd in the drive. At this point the firmware does not pick up the disc and put a uefi entry in the boot menu (possibly this is normal, idk). I pressed the reset button on the front of the box and went back into firmware settings. This time a uefi entry does appear in the boot menu for the optical drive. I click that entry to boot from it. The dvd loads up and I'm presented with the first screen asking me to verify the disk "ok" or "skip". "Ok" is highlighted by default and I press <enter> to select it. It performs the check and the check comes back good. The window that gives this information also has a single button on it that, I believe, says "ok". I press <enter> to select it. I'm then presented with a blank screen. I waited a couple minutes to see if it was going to do anything but there was no change. I went outside and smoked a ciggarette (about 5 minutes). When I came back in there was no change.

I thought, perhaps, that if I skipped the disc check it may proceed to the installer. I pressed the reset button on the front of the machine again and entered firmware settings. Again a uefi entry for the optical drive appeared in the boot menu. I select it and again the dvd loads up and takes me to the first screen asking me to verify the disc or not. I press the right arrow on the keyboard to select "skip" and press <enter>. I'm taken to a blank screen. It's still sitting that way as I type this. I would guess that approximately 5 minutes has lapsed.

Then I recalled something I read in the installation manual (section 3.3.1)

The Fedora Project does not provide an image to produce minimal boot CDs or DVDs for UEFI-based systems. Use a USB flash drive (as described in this section) to boot the Fedora 16 installer, or use the installation DVD with the linux askmethod option to boot the installer from DVD and continue installation from a different installation source

I'm not certain whether that information is up to date or not so using the dvd directly was certainly worth a shot. I'm reminded that I require a cli only install as well and so I ponder whether this is possible with every installation method.

i can look into rEFInd as well but I'll have to do that tomorrow evening.

[srs5694]

Your system is definitely booting, and it's probably booting in EFI mode. To be sure, when you get to the prompt to verify the disc, do this:

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+F2. This should produce a Bash shell.
2. Type "ls /sys/firmware/efi". If you see a file listing with a file called systab and a directory called vars, you're booted in EFI mode. If you get a "no such file or directory" error, you're booted in BIOS mode (or you've mistyped the filename, so double- and triple-check that).

Assuming you're booted in EFI mode, my first guess at this point is that the installer is getting hung up on configuring your video card. This happens when trying to install Fedora in VirtualBox, but I've not seen it on "real" EFI-based computers. If this is the problem, then there are at least two solutions....

Solution 1

You can do a text-mode installation and then add any software that the installer omits but that you need. Since you say you don't want X, this may be a viable solution. When I've attempted it under VirtualBox, though, I've gotten a very truncated set of packages installed, and adding the things I've needed for even a basic system has been painful. You might have better luck, though. (Perhaps some other problem was rearing its head under VirtualBox.)

Solution 2

You can install in BIOS mode and switch to EFI-mode booting once the installation is complete. In broad outline, you'd do this:

1. Find the firmware options to boot in BIOS mode (from the DVD or from a USB flash drive) and set them to do so.
2. Boot the installer in BIOS mode and verify that it's so booted.
3. When you come to the partitioning stage, be sure to create a 200-500 MiB EFI System Partition (ESP) as the first partition, a ~1 MiB BIOS Boot Partition, and your regular Linux partitions (including RAID and LVM partitions).
4. Install normally.
5. Boot in BIOS mode and ensure that everything's working correctly.
6. Perform software upgrades, including a kernel update to a 3.3.0 or later kernel.
7. If you performed a kernel upgrade, reboot.
8. Install one or more EFI boot loaders or boot managers. I describe several of them here. My recommendation is the kernel EFI stub loader in conjunction with rEFInd; but Fedora's default of GRUB Legacy usually works pretty well, so it's a decent choice, too. (The kernel update to 3.3.0 or later is required to use the EFI stub loader, which is why I included that step above.)
9. Reconfigure your firmware to boot in EFI mode and do so. You should see the new boot menu appear and you should be able to boot in EFI mode. You should now be able to configure and use the system normally.

Note that in step #8, you'll need to either install your primary boot manager (rEFInd or GRUB Legacy) as /boot/efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi or use an intermediate boot in EFI mode and run the efibootmgr program to add the boot program to the EFI's NVRAM list of boot loaders. The EFI Boot Loader Installation page on my site describes both options in detail.

[ClientAlive]

Originally Posted by srs5694

Your system is definitely booting, and it's probably booting in EFI mode. To be sure, when you get to the prompt to verify the disc, do this:

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+F2. This should produce a Bash shell.
2. Type "ls /sys/firmware/efi". If you see a file listing with a file called systab and a directory called vars, you're booted in EFI mode. If you get a "no such file or directory" error, you're booted in BIOS mode (or you've mistyped the filename, so double- and triple-check that).

Assuming you're booted in EFI mode, my first guess at this point is that the installer is getting hung up on configuring your video card. This happens when trying to install Fedora in VirtualBox, but I've not seen it on "real" EFI-based computers. If this is the problem, then there are at least two solutions....

Solution 1

You can do a text-mode installation and then add any software that the installer omits but that you need. Since you say you don't want X, this may be a viable solution. When I've attempted it under VirtualBox, though, I've gotten a very truncated set of packages installed, and adding the things I've needed for even a basic system has been painful. You might have better luck, though. (Perhaps some other problem was rearing its head under VirtualBox.)

Solution 2

You can install in BIOS mode and switch to EFI-mode booting once the installation is complete. In broad outline, you'd do this:

1. Find the firmware options to boot in BIOS mode (from the DVD or from a USB flash drive) and set them to do so.
2. Boot the installer in BIOS mode and verify that it's so booted.
3. When you come to the partitioning stage, be sure to create a 200-500 MiB EFI System Partition (ESP) as the first partition, a ~1 MiB BIOS Boot Partition, and your regular Linux partitions (including RAID and LVM partitions).
4. Install normally.
5. Boot in BIOS mode and ensure that everything's working correctly.
6. Perform software upgrades, including a kernel update to a 3.3.0 or later kernel.
7. If you performed a kernel upgrade, reboot.
8. Install one or more EFI boot loaders or boot managers. I describe several of them here. My recommendation is the kernel EFI stub loader in conjunction with rEFInd; but Fedora's default of GRUB Legacy usually works pretty well, so it's a decent choice, too. (The kernel update to 3.3.0 or later is required to use the EFI stub loader, which is why I included that step above.)
9. Reconfigure your firmware to boot in EFI mode and do so. You should see the new boot menu appear and you should be able to boot in EFI mode. You should now be able to configure and use the system normally.

Note that in step #8, you'll need to either install your primary boot manager (rEFInd or GRUB Legacy) as /boot/efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi or use an intermediate boot in EFI mode and run the efibootmgr program to add the boot program to the EFI's NVRAM list of boot loaders. The EFI Boot Loader Installation page on my site describes both options in detail.

Hi,

Sorry for the delay. I was under a deadline until just earlier this evening. I did as you suggested - hit ctrl+alt+F2 to get a terminal and typed ls /sys/firmware/efi. There is a file called systab and a directory called vars that shows up. Is there any way to investigate this further and determine for sure what the reason for my problem is? Can you help me understand what the best option for me is? I know I would rather have less than more (it's much more difficult to remove things to get to a minimal system than it is to build up from a minimal system). I'd hate to get stuck in dependency hell though. I've had that before and it was excruciating.

Thanks
-----------------------

Edit:

When you install in text mode do you get a functional command line system? Something you can add quemu/kvm to without problems?

Also, you know what? I just remembered that when I had installed Ubuntu on that machine it came up with a driver I needed to install. I think it downloaded something called Jockey or something like that. But it was an additional driver that didn't come in durring installation. I had to get it after it was installed and I booted the first time. If the issue were my graphics card is there some way to get the driver and hack it into the installer or something? Then be able to proceed with the installation like there was never any problem?

[srs5694]

I don't really have anything more to add at this point. Try either of my solutions, or something else you find on the Web, and post back with more information if you need more help.