Re: AMI Aptio EFI booting problems on ASUS G73SW-A1

[Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko]

On 02/06/2011 05:57 AM, Nate Weibley wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 12:01 PM, <address@hidden
> <mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:
>
>     Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2011 19:19:34 +0300
>     From: Vladimir '?-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko     <address@hidden
>     <mailto:address@hidden>>
>     Subject: Re: AMI Aptio EFI booting problems on ASUS G73SW-A1
>     To: address@hidden <mailto:address@hidden>
>     Message-ID: <address@hidden
>     <mailto:address@hidden>>
>     Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
>     On 02/04/2011 04:54 PM, Nate Weibley wrote:
>     > Hey GRUB devs,
>     >
>     > I've been having some trouble getting GRUB2 to load Arch x86_64
>     on my
>     > ASUS G73SW-A1. Specifically, if I do not specify noefi on the kernel
>     > command line in my grub.cfg everything stalls at initrd.
>     I don't think that it gets so far as initrd and actually panics early.
>     > I'm building GRUB2 from the bzr repo, so to my knowledge it
>     should be
>     > up-to-date.
>     >
>     "noefi" isn't handled at all by GRUB itself. It's just a parameter
>     that
>     it transfers to linux. So if it makes a difference. It's either:
>     a) (most likely) Linux doesn't handle your EFI either because of
>     EFI or
>     Linux bugs
>     b) GRUB passes incorrect EFI pointers. Considering that this operation
>     is trivial, I think this is unlikely.
>     GRUB can't do anything for (a). Well it could but not anything in
>     a sane
>     way. I suggest trying different Linuxes (kernels) E.g. Ubuntu, Debian,
>     Red Hat, git.
>
>     > I substituted noefi for add_efi_memmap and added set debug=all
>     before
>     > initrd is used.
>     >
>     add_efi_memmap should do any difference at all. It just makes
>     Linux redo
>     some of GRUB's job.
>     > The system stalled again, but I did get /some /debugging output. A
>     > link to the output is below; apologies for having to take a picture
>     > with my cell phone as the laptop does not have a usable serial port
>     > for capture.
>     > http://imgur.com/40lLO
>     > I should point out that adding set debug=all appears to stall the
>     > system at the same point even if noefi is still set for the
>     kernel...
>     > so perhaps this stall is not indicative of the initrd failure. I
>     read
>     > through the thread suggesting that there was a bug present with
>     system
>     > over 8GB, but it was my impression that the bug was patched.
>     Are you sure? It may be indicative of a failure when printing debug
>     output. Previously there was such bug when GRUB tried to use already
>     finalised EFI services to print debug output but AFAICT it's
>     already fixed.
>     > If I can provide any additional info or take any additional
>     debugging
>     > steps, please let me know.
>     >
>     > --
>     > --Nate Weibley
>     >
>     >
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>     >
>
>
>     --
>     Regards
>     Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko
>
> Vladimir,
> Per your suggestion I tried other linux distros with various kernels.
> So far none of the EFI enabled distros are working. They do work if
> booted via BIOS though, of course. Windows 7 64bit /does / boot
> appropriately via EFI, so it's hard to say where the fault is. If
> Windows is booting though, it seems more likely something is going
> wrong in the Linux kernel EFI handling, or perhaps as you say GRUB is
> passing incorrect pointers. Either way, they all exhibit the exact
> same behavior... the kernel is loaded, and at the point init should be
> called, the system stalls with no debug or error message.
On EFI Linux has no early printk other than to a serial. So you receive
no messages unless you're connected to serial. It makes diagnosis much
more difficult.
>  
>
> I will continue testing as kernel revisions are released, but I'm not
> sure how else I can bang away at trying to get EFI to boot without any
> sort of error message or debugging info.
>
> -- 
> --Nate Weibley
>
>
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>   


-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko

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