On 17/04/2023 15:27, David Christensen wrote:
On 4/16/23 22:08, Max Nikulin wrote:
On 17/04/2023 09:18, David Christensen wrote:
On 4/16/23 03:41, Max Nikulin wrote:
On 16/04/2023 05:51, David Christensen wrote:
When I moved the 2.5" SATA SSD to a homebrew Intel DQ67SW computer
...
The SSD would not boot.
New boot entry usually should be created in such case from EFI Shell,
I have realized that you may be confused by difference of MBR vs. UEFI
behavior. For MBR it is enough to choose a disk to boot in BIOS, for
UEFI it is necessary to add boot entries through EFI variables in
firmware. Boot entry consists of disk, partition (EFI System
partition) and path of an .efi file on this partition.
Are you saying that d-i modifies the CMOS settings of UEFI computers?
I am unsure concerning precise meaning of CMOS in this context. UEFI
provides non-volatile storage. Kernel exposes it as
/sys/firmware/efi/efivars/ . For boot specific variables there is the
efibootmgr tool. To make firmware aware of a bootable .efi file it is
necessary to save it location to a variable like Boot0000. The role of
the BootOrder variable is to define in which order boot entries are tried.
To make newly installed system bootable, the installer needs to call
efibootmgr to adjust BootXXXX and BootOrder variables.
At least HP laptops have no menu entry to configure BootXXXX variables
(OK, single entry may be configured in a rather inconvenient way) and
shipped without EFI shell. That is why if installer does not modify the
variables, Debian is not bootable.
I later discovered that the first install created a directory and
put files into the Dell's ESP (!). I did not select this, nor do I
desire it. This is a defect with d-i:
Why do you think it is wrong?
Because OS installers should not modify a disk unless the user
authorizes it.
I agree if a computer is booted into MBR/BIOS/Compatibility mode or if
expert install is selected. For regular UEFI install it is a trade-off
since multiple OS loaders may coexist without conflicts. User should
be asked if new OS should be booted by default (BootOrder), adding
files to ESP is quite safe.
d-i should always ask before writing to disk.
I am not motivated enough to try debian installer in a similar
configuration, even in a VM. Could you, please, confirm that after
manual partitioning no one was configured as a ESP to be mounted at
/boot/efi?
My expectations is the following. At the partitioning stage installer
detects available ESP and if just single one is recognized it is
configured by default as /boot/efi mount point. If this configuration
option is not changed by the user, it is considered as acknowledgment to
write files to the EFI/debian folder on this partition.
I do not have strong opinion, but I consider it as acceptable that if
expert install is not enabled then installer may write files to ESP. It
simplifies procedure for regular installs.
Here are my notes from a debian-9.9.0-amd64-xfce-CD-1 install on
Install GRUB into master boot record Yes
Device /dev/sda
Am I right that it was not UEFI install? Certainly overwriting of MBR
must be acknowledged by the user.
The point is that d-i asked before writing to disk.
My point is that UEFI and MBR install may have different behavior. You
might underestimate role of implicit conventions and agreements.
