UEFI install, Intel Atom E6xx, F17

[aurabindo]

Geetings from Aurabindo

In short,
I was trying to install F17 in this intel atom kit, I am able to load vmlinux and ramdisk image. But nothing happens after that.

Now lemme explain.

This kit is flashed with The Intel Bootloader Development Kit. Most interesting thing is that there is no option to tweak the firware setting like by hitting <del> or so. I see just an Intel logo. Therefore the only option is to hook up a serial cable to its port. Thats fine. I`m getting the shell.

The USB media (contains F17 electronics lab) has EFI folder which is having pretty much the correct configuration files required to load F17 using grub i suppose. when executing

\EFI\BOOT\BOOT.efi

or

\EFI\BOOT\BOOTIA32.efi

at the shell, it prints two lines somewhat like Linux-EFI <a hex value>, size= <again a hex value> and Initrd <same stuff with some hex values> and thats it. Notihng happens after that. No messages at console, nothing in the VGA ouput.


So i though maybe grub doent like atom. I decided to give elilo a try. This time, I`m able to load the uncompressed kernel image vmlinux and ramdisk. Again nothing happens after that. Traditional vmlinuz is not working with elilo, as it says cannot find a loader.

Why do we have two .efi executables ? Should i try with some other Bootloader ? Can anybody please suggest some methods to load some kinda linux into it? EFI experts! please help!

Thanks in advance!

[george_toolan]

Do you really have to install in UEFI mode? The compatibility list lists windows xp, so I'm pretty sure this thing has a BIOS compatibility mode.

[aurabindo]

After reading this document about installing windows xp on my board, I cannot figure how to boot into the BIOS compatibility mode. It just says only BIOS will work and BLDK wont. Nowhere i can find any info regarding switching to bios compatibility.

But what about this possibility :

I connect the SATA hard disk (presently connected to atom kit) to another intel machine, and install fed into it and then skipping bootloader installation. And then i configure EFI partition accordingto post by srs5694

But will this work beause the atom architecture and pentuim arch is slightly different so that it installs the kernel for the host machine (intel) on the hard disk that is supposed to be connected to the atom ?

And the procedures for installing windows XP as mentioned in the official doc is the most wierd ones I can ever think of - it require both a USB CD and a USB floppy. Where in the world will i get at usb floppy? Well, i dont wanna install wondoz anyway

[srs5694]

If you've got a machine that uses a boot file called EFI/BOOT/BOOTIA32.EFI, then that suggests you're dealing with a 32-bit EFI implementation, and possibly a 32-bit x86 CPU. This is a rare combination, but it's not unheard-of. (I've got a 32-bit Intel-based Mac with a 32-bit EFI, for instance.) You might be able to verify this by typing "ver -s" at an EFI shell prompt. The result should look something like this:

fs0:\> ver -s
EFI Shell Version 1.0
EFI Shell Machine Type: X64
EFI Shell Signature: D2C18636-40E5-4EB5-A31B-36695FD42C87

The "EFI Shell Machine Type" line should identify your EFI's build type -- X64 for x86-64 or IA32 for x86. This is important because whatever boot loader you use, you've got to match it to your EFI's type. If you try to use an x86-64 boot loader on an x86 EFI implementation (or vice-versa), it won't work.

Beyond this, trying different boot loaders may well be worth doing. I can't say which will work best for you, but check my Web page on the topic to learn about the options. Briefly, in my experience the kernel's EFI stub loader works best, followed by ELILO, followed closely by Fedora's patched GRUB Legacy, followed distantly by GRUB 2. These all have system-specific quirks, though, so you could find a completely different pattern on your computer. Also, although Fedora uses 3.3.0 or later kernels (which are the ones that provide the EFI stub loader), I don't know offhand if the 32-bit builds of those kernels include this feature. (Since EFI is rarely used on 32-bit x86 CPUs, it's conceivable that Fedora didn't bother to enable this feature for its 32-bit kernel builds.)

The procedure I posted in the thread to which you linked might work for you, but I can't make any promises of that. It relies on the presence of the EFI stub loader in the kernel you copy over to the ESP.

[aurabindo]

Sorry I was quite late for the reply. Stuck with some academic suff.

I think i was trying with the wrong EFI executalble, but the one i used was for 32 bit systems though. I got another EFI from a working installation. But I`m still stuck with a kernel panic. But the most serious problem is solved.


Thank you very much srs5694 for all the information you provided.