On 28.01.2020 10:13, J. D. Leach wrote: > To Whom it May Concern, > > Have a Dell Inspiron 3668 desktop with the latest Dell firmware > (1.12.2). This update, and numerous of the preceding ones, do not > allow ANY type of loading of Debian (or any othe Linux flavor) onto > the PC. In the BIOS configuration menu, no option is available to boot > from the DVD drive, or USB, unless a Windows recovery media is > detected. Linux loader programs likewise fail, and Windows loads > instead. PC is about two years old. > > Looked all across the 'Net and have found zero fixes outside of wiping > the hard drive. The latest Dell support pages regarding the set up of > the boot sequence does not cover the firmware installed on my PC. > > I suspect Microsoft is back to trying to squelch the use of software > other than what it approves of. > > Thought you might wish to be aware. > > Dave Leach > Thanks for the heads up, and I thought Dell OEM is GNU\Linux friendly.
I think, BIOS of your PC supports native EFI mode only, on top of restricting ability to manually select bootable media. (I've never seen a PC with restrictions like this, yet.) Is there an option to at least disable Secure Boot, or is it forced too? I'd try to switch hard disk with pre-installed OS to a blank one (temporarily disconnect all hard disks for a test, if you don't have a blank one) and make sure you've prepared UEFI-compatible bootable USB media. If bootable USB media was made correctly, and there is no other bootable disk found, it should start EFI bootloader from USB. And if not, it is possible that Secure Boot prevents it from loading by checking signature of bootloader against pre-installed in BIOS certificates issued by Microsoft. Usually there is an options in BIOS to disable Secure Boot or install alternative certificates. I've seen successful attempts to trick UEFI to load "grubx64.efi" EFI bootloader by placing and renaming it to "/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi" I think it is also possible to edit BCD boot loader settings to add one more bootloader entry to the list and chainload "grubx64.efi". Just like grub chainloads other bootloaders, but the other way around. I've not tried this, but it looks doable. -- With kindest regards, Alexander. ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀
