MacBook Pro, F16 and Snow Leopard → Lion migration... HELP!

[jonathonp]

It's always a good idea to to create a complete hard disk image in case you run into trouble.

[Thetargos]

I'll keep that in mind, jonathonp.

In the mean time, I finished installing, and upon reboot, obviously, there is no option to boot Fedora if I leave the option key pressed, so onto installing rEFInd, which I probably will do from a USB stick and in Linux rescue mode.

Just a couple of questions:

• rEFInd is supposed to be able to pick up any Linux 3.x kernels and boot them, does it launch GRUB to figure out the rquired command-line options?
• When installing the proprietary nVidia driver, do the same commands apply for getting back the plymouth bootsplash animation, albeit using VESA or FBDEV?

[chrismurphy]

Are you doing this with Mac OS X also on the computer? Are you able to (temporarily) commit to blowing away Mac OS X in favor of just Fedora? If so...I'll try to recruit you for final candidate testing. I'm not aware of another 7,1 machine being tested so it could be helpful.

If the BIOS installation works, I'd leave it at that. There is a pretty good chance however, that you're looking at a total reinstall for F17. I can't vouch at all for using preupgrade from F16 to F17 on a Mac because of the very significant changes that are occurring and the fact I'm not testing preupgrade (and I'm not testing it because the changes are so significant I just don't expect it to work, and don't care if it doesn't, I'm fully prepare to do a completely fresh install).

[Thetargos]

Originally Posted by chrismurphy

Are you doing this with Mac OS X also on the computer? Are you able to (temporarily) commit to blowing away Mac OS X in favor of just Fedora? If so...I'll try to recruit you for final candidate testing. I'm not aware of another 7,1 machine being tested so it could be helpful.

I'd rather avoid wiping the disk clean, but I am prepared to doing so if all goes south.

Originally Posted by chrismurphy

If the BIOS installation works, I'd leave it at that. There is a pretty good chance however, that you're looking at a total reinstall for F17. I can't vouch at all for using preupgrade from F16 to F17 on a Mac because of the very significant changes that are occurring and the fact I'm not testing preupgrade (and I'm not testing it because the changes are so significant I just don't expect it to work, and don't care if it doesn't, I'm fully prepare to do a completely fresh install).

In this setup, the installation of f16 was successful in BIOS mode, connected to the network through ethernet, and having the main fedora and updates repositories enabled. It took it's sweet time (about two hours)

Sent on the move

[chrismurphy]

Originally Posted by Thetargos

I'd rather avoid wiping the disk clean, but I am prepared to doing so if all goes south.

Wait for TC3. I'll see if dual boot is possible. Right now it isn't.

[srs5694]

Originally Posted by Thetargos

I'll keep that in mind, jonathonp.

In the mean time, I finished installing, and upon reboot, obviously, there is no option to boot Fedora if I leave the option key pressed, so onto installing rEFInd, which I probably will do from a USB stick and in Linux rescue mode.

On a Mac, it's best to install rEFInd from OS X, for reasons that are explained on the rEFInd installation page.

• rEFInd is supposed to be able to pick up any Linux 3.x kernels and boot them, does it launch GRUB to figure out the rquired command-line options?

rEFInd auto-detects and launches EFI boot loaders, which can include ELILO, GRUB, or Linux kernels with EFI stub loader support enabled.

If you use GRUB, then GRUB handles the kernel options; all rEFInd does is to launch GRUB (or another OS). With GRUB in play, what rEFInd buys you is a prettier initial boot menu and more automatic detection of other OSes' boot loaders. In this configuration, rEFInd doesn't know or care about your kernels.

If you use a Linux kernel with EFI stub loader support, rEFInd locates the initial RAM disk file automatically (if it's named in a conventional way) and then reads kernel configuration options from a secondary configuration file, refind_linux.conf. This is all described in detail on rEFInd's "Methods of Booting Linux" page. The intent is that this should work pretty transparently for end users once rEFInd is set up (including the refind_linux.conf file and giving the EFI some way to read the filesystem that holds the kernel). Note that Fedora has released suitable kernels as updates during the Fedora 16 life span (in the 3.3.x kernel series), but the kernel installed with the initial Fedora 16 setup lacks EFI stub loader support. Thus, you can switch to this more direct method of booting, but you'll need to boot at least once in some other way.

[Thetargos]

Since I installed with the repositories enabled, the installation performed with the 3.3.2 kernel... But I ignore if additional steps are required. I do not know if the EFI stub is present in that kernel. Also, did Grub install or should I install it from a rescue session.

Sent on the move

---------- Post added at 10:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:19 PM ----------

Hmmm... Installed rEFInd just fine... It does not detect my Fedora installation... and I'm officially at a lost, dunno what to do next. Reading the documentation it seems to be fairly enough easy to get it working, but since I'm unsure if Fedora's installation actually installed GRUB, I do not know what to do next... Should I add an entry for Fedora to refind.conf? Should I boot into rescue mode and re-install GRUB? What mode does rEFInd use to boot the Fedora DVD in, BIOS or EFI? DARN!

[srs5694]

[QUOTE=Thetargos;1573766]Since I installed with the repositories enabled, the installation performed with the 3.3.2 kernel... But I ignore if additional steps are required. I do not know if the EFI stub is present in that kernel. Also, did Grub install or should I install it from a rescue session.[/quote

The 3.3.2 kernel provided by Fedora does have EFI stub loader support.

As to GRUB, chances are either the BIOS version of GRUB 2 or the EFI version of GRUB Legacy was installed, depending on the mode in which the installer booted. Look for a files to identify either:

• A file called /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.efi (or something similar; I'm not 100% positive of that final filename) indicates an EFI-mode GRUB installation, which for Fedora usually means GRUB Legacy. To work, this will also need a configuration file, grub.conf (or {basename}.conf, if the filename of the loader is {basename}.efi).
• A large number of files in /boot/grub/ or /boot/grub2 (I don't recall which), including grub.cfg. This indicates a GRUB 2 installation, which for Fedora normally means a BIOS-mode installation. Note that GRUB Legacy also uses /boot/grub, but there are just a handful of GRUB Legacy files in that directory, none of which is called grub.cfg.

Since you say you booted the installer in EFI mode, I'd expect to find the GRUB Legacy EFI loader on your system and not the GRUB 2 file; but if you're mistaken or if there are leftover files from a previous installation, you could find the GRUB 2 files.

]Hmmm... Installed rEFInd just fine... It does not detect my Fedora installation... and I'm officially at a lost, dunno what to do next. Reading the documentation it seems to be fairly enough easy to get it working, but since I'm unsure if Fedora's installation actually installed GRUB, I do not know what to do next... Should I add an entry for Fedora to refind.conf?

There are a number of ways you can proceed. Personally, I think that using the EFI stub loader with rEFInd is the best approach, but there are variants even there. To begin with, though, you should create a refind_linux.conf file, as described on the rEFInd "Methods of Booting Linux" page. For instance:

"Boot with defaults"         "root=/dev/mapper/foo-root ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7"
"Boot into single-user mode" "root=/dev/mapper/foo-root ro single"
"Boot verbosely"             "root=/dev/mapper/foo-root ro"

You'll need to tweak those settings, though, and particularly the root= specification, for your system. Try pulling the values from the kernel line of your GRUB configuration file. Note that each line defines a variant way to boot. You can make do with just one line with default options. Additional lines let you enable verbose boot mode, boot to single-user mode, or other variants.

Once you've got a refind_linux.conf file, you should do one of two things:

• Copy your kernel (/boot/vmlinuz-*), initial RAM disk (/boot/init*), and refind_linux.conf files to a subdirectory of /boot/efi/EFI, such as /boot/efi/EFI/redhat or /boot/efi/EFI/fedora. Rename the vmlinuz* file to add a ".efi" extension, but be sure to keep everything else in the name the same. A caveat: On my Mac Mini, the kernel stub loader doesn't work from a FAT partition on Macs. Thus, you may need to copy these files to a Mac HFS+ partition, in the EFI/redhat or EFI/fedora directory on that partition. OTOH, your Mac might not suffer from this problem; it could be something specific to my model that's causing problems.
• Add an EFI driver (as described on the rEFInd "Using EFI Drivers" page) for the filesystem you used on /boot. This will enable the EFI, and therefore rEFInd, to read your Linux /boot partition. You'll also need to uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" option in refind.conf, which will tell rEFInd to try to use Linux kernels that lack the ".efi" filename extension.

The first option may be a bit easier to get going initially, but you'll need to repeat that action whenever you upgrade your kernel. The second option is a bit more tedious because of the need to track down and install a driver. It may also be impossible if you used a filesystem on /boot for which no EFI driver is available. It'll be easier in the long run, though, since once it's set up, you won't need to do anything to keep it running, even after kernel upgrades; whenever Fedora installs a new kernel, rEFInd will detect it automatically and create a new menu entry for it.

Should I boot into rescue mode and re-install GRUB? What mode does rEFInd use to boot the Fedora DVD in, BIOS or EFI? DARN!

It's unclear whether GRUB is installed already, and if so which version. It also may not be necessary to (re-)install it at all, if you use rEFInd and the kernel stub loader to boot Linux.

In its default configuration, rEFInd presents only EFI boot options, so if you get to the rEFInd screen and see an option to boot Linux via a CD, that will be an EFI boot option; however, you can reconfigure rEFInd to present BIOS boot options instead of or in addition to EFI boot options. The configuration file line to do this is "scanfor", and it accepts seven different options, as described in the comments that precede it in the configuration file or on the rEFInd configuration file documentation page.

[Thetargos]

At this point, I fear Grub did not get installed... To summarize:

• I had to install in BIOS mode as in EFI mode Anaconda would complain about a lot of packages missing. With each attempt the disk partitions were formatted.
• When mounting the installation from a rescue session, I see a lot of things in /boot pertaining with GRUB, obviously, no /boot/efi directory or ESP mounted. However I do see a lot of files for both GRUB legacy and GRUB 2.
• I kept the BIOS-boot partition from the previous attempt, but apparently Grub did not got installed to it (/dev/sda3) or the main disk (MBR) at /dev/sda.
• I attempted at reinstalling grub with the grub2-install command to the BIOS-boot partition, which yielded that rEFind now sees a generic Linux, but doesn't actually call grub, but interestingly enough brings me to a legacy BIOS screen stating that there are no bootable drives in the system, promoting for one. At this screen I cannot reboot or insert any disk, the system stays there with the cursor blinking. I have to manually shut down. This leads me to believe that indeed I need to fix grub's installation... Just haven't figured out how, yet.

Then I have to figure out how to reliably switch to EFI based boot, in such a way to not have a new entry with every new kernel. I'd rather have rEFind "know" of a fedora-grub boot loader, and leave actual per kernel options and entries to grub... Getting there...though it looks it'll be another weekend before I sort things out.

Thanks for the support thus far, all!

Sent on the move

[srs5694]

If you want to boot Linux via GRUB, and GRUB via rEFInd, I recommend you do the following:

1. Boot Fedora using Super GRUB 2 Disk.
2. Mount your ESP (probably /dev/sda1) at /boot/efi.
3. Install the grub-efi package. This should create a file called (IIRC) /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.efi, which of course will reside on the ESP.
4. Create (if it's not there already) a /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.conf file, as described on my GRUB Legacy page. This will be just like a GRUB Legacy configuration file on a BIOS system.
5. Reboot. rEFInd should show you a new option with a Red Hat logo. Selecting it should take you to GRUB Legacy, and using that should take you to Fedora.
6. If this has worked, you should be able to uninstall the GRUB 2 package, if it didn't get uninstalled when you installed grub-efi. With any luck, this will remove any ambiguity on the part of the scripts that manage kernel upgrades, and enable them to modify /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.conf whenever you upgrade your kernel; but there's one more step to make sure this happens....
7. Create an /etc/fstab entry to automatically mount your ESP at /boot/efi.

Note that I've not done any testing of Fedora's handling of GRUB Legacy's grub.conf file under EFI; I don't know whether it does this correctly. I expect it will work, but I can't make any promises of that.

[Thetargos]

From what I gather (despite I'll check the fstab file in the installed Fedora, anyways), basically what I understand you say is:

1. Boot in BIOS-mode with GRUB2 (or what do you mean by "Super GRUB 2 Disk") into rescue mode.
2. chroot into my sysimage, create and mount /boot/efi so that the ESP gets mounted here (any special options?, are defaults OK here?), and make sure its mapped to fstab.
3. Install grub-efi (and probably at the same time uninstall GRUB2). Make sure that all the necessary files are present, especially the grub.conf inside the ESP.

If that wasn't what you meant, sorry, 'cause that's what I'm trying to do now

... And reading about this Super GRUB 2 Disk you talk about...

EDIT
:rofl: @ me.

I was thinking about doing this in a more rudimentary way... I now know what this "Super GRUB2 Disk" is. Thanks for the tip! Looks like one hell of a tool!

[srs5694]

Sorry; I thought you'd mentioned booting with Super GRUB 2 Disk earlier, or I would have provided a link. (Probably I was getting confused with another thread on another forum!)

Your 3-step summary is what I'm suggesting, though. The key is to get grub.efi onto your ESP (or even an OS X partition), along with a grub.conf file that's got the correct information to boot your Fedora setup. Since rEFInd is already running, it should detect grub.efi, add it to the rEFInd menu, and let you boot. Removing the BIOS version of GRUB 2 is just to keep the scripts that set up new kernels from getting confused. (Maybe this is a needless precaution, but IMHO it's better to err on the side of caution than to end up with an unbootable system after a couple of kernel upgrades because of a GRUB Legacy setup that's not been updated.)

[Thetargos]

Darn, I don't have a system with a working sample of a Grub Legacy configuration file... What to do...? Will fool around a bit...

---------- Post added at 11:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:40 PM ----------

Just what I feared... My grub.conf seems to be falky... It looks as though I skipped one critical step: place grub.conf into /boot/grub and its link to /etc/...

---------- Post added at 11:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:05 PM ----------

Question: Does the grub.conf placed in the ESP has to match the one installed onto /boot/grub? Specifically options syntaxis and paths.

[srs5694]

When booting from EFI, grub.conf goes on the ESP. You can place it in /boot/grub, but AFAIK it's just a wasted file in that location.

As to grub.conf samples, they litter the Internet. Most describe GRUB use on BIOS-based systems, but for the most part that's an unimportant detail. There's one for EFI on the GRUB Legacy subpage of my EFI boot loaders page.

[Thetargos]

I was successful at installing grub legacy for EFI, I can even see a screen for it, however, Fedora still does not boot. My guess is due to the grub.conf, which leads me to a question: who is responsible for the 'root' file system driver, grub.efi or rEFind?

My boot partition is formatted in ext4, which had caused some problems for grub back when ext4 was first accepted into the kernel and made the default file system for many distributions. Fedora's grub was one of the first to be patched to be able to boot from ext4 volumes, does it also include the EFI version?

Sent on the move