Re: Unable to boot UEFI from 2.04

[David Huffman]

I’m not using the configuration file (for now) to remove variables. I am doing 
everything from the command shell and I am not trying to boot the system. Just 
trying to execute the kernel. Babysteps.

insmod efi_gop
linux /boot/vmlinux
boot

I just compiled 2.02 and it works fine, so there is something about the updates 
in 2.04 that seemed to have broken.

 - David

> On Dec 3, 2020, at 9:48 AM, Hanson Char <hanson.char@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I suppose you have done something like:
> 
>       sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
> 
> ?  Can you see the grub menu entries during UEFI boot?
> 
>> On Dec 3, 2020, at 9:13 AM, David Huffman <dhuffmansd@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I’ve changed the partition ID, but made no difference. I found that a 
>> different kernel level was able to execute.
>> 
>> I am able to execute kernel 4.19.0-12-amd64 (debian 10.5), but am unable to 
>> execute kernel 2.6.32-358.el6.x86_64 (RHEL 6.0). Is there a minimum Linux 
>> kernel level supported with grub 2.04? 
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> David
>> 
>>> On Dec 2, 2020, at 2:38 PM, Hanson Char <hanson.char@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Seems you are missing an EFI System partition which is necessary for UEFI 
>>> boot (EF00).
>>> 
>>> FWIW, I’ve had success creating an EFI system partition using gdisk, 
>>> building+installing grub 2.04 from source, and UEFI boot on both Debian and 
>>> Centos.
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>> Hanson
>>> 
>>>> On Dec 2, 2020, at 12:55 PM, David Huffman <dhuffmansd@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> I have built 2.04 from source (no errors). I have a script to create a 
>>>> BIOS/UEFI bootable hard drive. The grub-install command I am running 
>>>> succeeds without errors, but the kernel does not seem to execute when 
>>>> booting from UEFI (BIOS is fine).
>>>> 
>>>> Adding debug=all to the configuration file shows the execution stops at:
>>>> (...last three lines)
>>>> 
>>>> diskefiefidisk.c:595: reading 0x40 sectors at sector 0x48dc0 from hd1
>>>> diskefiefidisk.c:595: reading 0x40 sectors at sector 0x48e00 from hd1
>>>> diskefiefidisk.c:595: reading 0x40 sectors at sector 0x48e40 from hd1
>>>> 
>>>> If I use the grub /usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi files (*.mod, kernel.img, etc) 
>>>> poached from Debian 10.5, the system executes the kernel properly. If I 
>>>> just swap out the x86_64-efi directory with the files I compiled, the 
>>>> kernel does not execute. I am using the grub-install program I compiled 
>>>> from source in both cases.The only difference are the files in 
>>>> lib/grub/x86_64-efi/.
>>>> 
>>>> I have found references that linuxefi.mod was removed from grub and is a 
>>>> “distro patch”. This module appears to be missing from by source build but 
>>>> removing it from the debian grub files didn’t seem to make a difference.
>>>> 
>>>> Here are the commands used to build:
>>>> 
>>>> configure --with-platform=efi --target=x86_64 --disable-device-mapper 
>>>> —prefix=$GRUBDIR
>>>> make
>>>> make install
>>>> 
>>>> Inside $GRUBDIR I have all of the files I would expect from the build.
>>>> 
>>>> The disk has three partitions with an msdos partition table:
>>>> 
>>>> # sfdisk -l /dev/sdb
>>>> 
>>>> Disk /dev/sdb: 1305 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
>>>> Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0
>>>> 
>>>> Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
>>>> /dev/sdb1   *      0+     12-     13-    102400   83  Linux        
>>>> /dev/sdb2         12+     25-     13-    102400   83  Linux
>>>> /dev/sdb3         25+   1305-   1280-  10279936   83  Linux
>>>> /dev/sdb4          0       -       0          0    0  Empty
>>>> 
>>>> /dev/sdb2 on /mnt type ext2 (rw)
>>>> /dev/sdb1 on /mnt/boot/EFI type vfat (rw)
>>>> 
>>>> Here is the grub-install commands used:
>>>> 
>>>> FOR BIOS:
>>>> grub-install —force --boot-directory=$TMPMNT/boot --target=i386-pc 
>>>> —directory=$GRUBDIR/i386-pc  /dev/sdb
>>>> 
>>>> FOR UEFI       
>>>> grub-install --removable --efi-directory=$TMPMNT/boot/EFI 
>>>> --boot-directory=$TMPMNT/boot --target=x86_64-efi 
>>>> --directory=$GRUBDIR/x86_64-efi /dev/sdb
>>>> 
>>>> At this point I am not sure what else to look at to find out what is 
>>>> different between the modules and kernel.img file I compile and what is 
>>>> supplied with debian. Any assistance in tracking down the problem would be 
>>>> appreciated.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> - David
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>