UEFI and F9 (key)

[Username2]

Sorry, you must hear this all the time. But I can't boot Fedora 20 without hitting F9, otherwise it automatically goes to Windows on my HP Pavilion laptop.

But Fedora used to be the first on the boot list when I first installed it, so there must be an easy fix!

Google hasn't really helped me on this one.

Is there an app or a script that fixes this?

Cheers

[PabloTwo]

Once booted into Fedora, use the efibootmgr to display your current boot order. You could then use efibootmgr again to change the boot order, making Fedora first, and see if that change survives a reboot. On my HP Envy dv7, something in HP's UEFI firmware always resets Windows 8 to be the first boot item, and Fedora never was first to boot, so I'm resolved to hitting the F9 key on every boot that I want to boot Fedora.


Sent from my Nexus 7

[PabloTwo]

I should have added that efibootmgr is a command line program that needs to be run as the root user.

Sent from my Nexus 7

[Username2]

Doesn't seem to be working:

sudo efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0001,3001,0000,0002,2001,2002,2003
Boot0000* Fedora
Boot0001* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0002* Fedora
Boot2001* USB Drive (UEFI)
Boot2002* Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive (UEFI)
Boot3000* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
Boot3001* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
Boot3002* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk

$ sudo efibootmgr -o 0000,0002,3001,2001,2002
BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0002,3001,2001,2002
Boot0000* Fedora
Boot0001* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0002* Fedora
Boot2001* USB Drive (UEFI)
Boot2002* Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive (UEFI)
Boot3000* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
Boot3001* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
Boot3002* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk

sudo efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0002,3001,2001,2002
Boot0000* Fedora
Boot0001* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0002* Fedora
Boot2001* USB Drive (UEFI)
Boot2002* Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive (UEFI)
Boot3000* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
Boot3001* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
Boot3002* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk

But then I reboot, and Windows Boot Manager is the default again.

[PabloTwo]

I strongly suspect that this is HP's way of "keeping us safe" from some future possible malware that would invisibly install some nefarious bootable code into the EFI System Partition, making itself the first boot item. Maybe I'm wrong on that count, but it sure feels and smells like that's what is happening. In any event, it sure takes away some of the freedom of choice as to how I want to use my own laptop.

If there's a way to get your Pavillian booting Fedora again as the first boot choice, I don't know what it is. And if you eventually do, please share with us how you did so (short of making Fedora the only bootable OS that's installed).



Sent from my Nexus 7

[weitjong]

This is a known bug in the UEFI firmware implementation. According to https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugr...cgi?bug=708430, it hits at least Toshiba, Acer, and HP made laptops. Probably they use the UEFI implementation from a same vendor. There is a simple workaround but with a caveat, as described in the bug report. I have also read about it in another article but I am not sure from where anymore. Overwrite the bootx64.efi with grubx64.efi. The caveat is you have to do this each time there is newer version of grub-efi.


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[vhradice]

Have you considered using grub2? I have 2 laptops and use grub2 as my boot loader. Works like a charm.

[weitjong]

Er... I believe Fedora has defaulted to Grub2 for UEFI booting since version 18. OP uses F20, it is safe to assume the laptop got Grub2 installed now. BTW, in my earlier post I have also assumed OP uses 64-bit Fedora. Otherwise, you need to replace the "64" in the filename accordingly.


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[Username2]

This is a known bug in the UEFI firmware implementation. According to https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugr...cgi?bug=708430, it hits at least Toshiba, Acer, and HP made laptops. Probably they use the UEFI implementation from a same vendor. There is a simple workaround but with a caveat, as described in the bug report. I have also read about it in another article but I am not sure from where anymore. Overwrite the bootx64.efi with grubx64.efi. The caveat is you have to do this each time there is newer version of grub-efi.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I just tried doing

 sudo cp /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubx64.efi  /boot/efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi

and rebooting, but it didn't help.

[PabloTwo]

I only just now noticed that you left the Windows entry out when you changed the boot order. Maybe try adding it in as the second item in the list and see if that makes any difference. And you really probably don't need to include that second entry for Fedora.

@weitjong - the bug report you linked to is not the issue here. The issue here is changing the boot order and having it stick across boots.


Sent from my Nexus 7

[Username2]

I only just now noticed that you left the Windows entry out when you changed the boot order. Maybe try adding it in as the second item in the list and see if that makes any difference. And you really probably don't need to include that second entry for Fedora.

@weitjong - the bug report you linked to is not the issue here. The issue here is changing the boot order and having it stick across boots.


Sent from my Nexus 7

Just tried

sudo efibootmgr -o 0000,0001,3001,2001,2002

but it's the same.

[weitjong]

You can call it a bug or a feature. I believe the firmware maker has in bed together with you-knows-who and the firmware somehow conveniently disregards the UEFI standard by ignoring the user setting in the efivars. You see, your laptop could actually find the Windows boot manager in the ESP (EFI System Partition) and boot from it. It disregards the EFI boot order. I have read somewhere else that if overwriting bootx64.efi does not do the trick then the last resort is to overwrite the bootmgfw.efi itself. That is if your UEFI firmware is really that broken. In which case, it may worth your while to check if HP has come up with any firmware updates for your laptop.

[weitjong]

You may also try to see using efibootmgr with -n option to specify a next boot order. So, after F9 to boot into Fedora, call the command and try to reboot if it automatically boots into a Fedora again. If it works then you can script that call somewhere, like in rc.local, xinitrc, or what have you. I have read again somewhere else that some broken firmware disregard the boot order but yet still honor the next boot option in the efivars.

[GarethTheRed]

I had this problem on my HP Pavilion. As I don't use Windows, I simply wiped the disk before re-installing Fedora (including the UEFI partition).

I believe the original problem was that the Microsoft UEFI was still there and the Fedora installed added another.

Of course, this doesn't help if you need Windows although I believe that you can get grub2 to boot the Windows installation with a bit of work.

I'm tempted to suggest that you wipe the UEFI partition and re-install etc, but that's dangerous territory and it would be unfair if things went wrong! On the other hand, if this is a fresh laptop, you should have a Windows restore DVD and the Fedora install media, so if it goes horribly wrong, you can recover to some extent. I suppose it's your choice on how much risk you want to take in the end!

[PabloTwo]

You may also try to see using efibootmgr with -n option to specify a next boot order. So, after F9 to boot into Fedora, call the command and try to reboot if it automatically boots into a Fedora again. If it works then you can script that call somewhere, like in rc.local, xinitrc, or what have you. I have read again somewhere else that some broken firmware disregard the boot order but yet still honor the next boot option in the efivars.

Here is my efibootmgr output:

$ sudo efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0006
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 3000,3006,2001,2002,2003
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0006* Fedora
Boot2001* USB Drive (UEFI)
Boot2002* Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive (UEFI)
Boot3000* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
Boot3006* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk

I had never actually tried using the -n|--bootnext option in efibootmgr so just now gave it a try. It works. Next I'll try adding that into my rc.local file see what transpires of that. The above output was from booting into Fedora without having to use the F9 key to access the OS Boot Menu and after having used the -n option to make Fedora the "next boot" in the previous boot session.

I think to better describe the issue here, the firmware is not "disregarding" the boot order, but instead is checking to see if Windows is the default boot item or not, and if not, it changes the boot order in the early boot up process so that Windows is reset to be the first item (default) in the boot order. That's not "disregarding", that's "tampering" in my book.