On 07/01/2015 08:17 AM, gottl...@nyu.edu wrote: > My new laptop should arrive this month. It will presumably support > UEFI, which I have never used before. > > I have two questions. > > 1. The gentoo handbook favors using the minimal installation CD. I > downloaded the iso, verified it's integrity, and "burned" it to a USB > stick with dd.
I don't think the minimal CD has UEFI support. At least it didn't when I installed gentoo on my UEFI systems, but that was some time ago now. > > However the wiki page "UEFI_Dual_boot_with_Windows_7/8" says to use a > system rescue CD. Is that required or can I use the minimal > installation CD? You can either use SystemRescueCD or use a Mint boot CD. Both are UEFI bootable. Make sure you actually boot in UEFI mode though, most BIOSes have a key to bring up the boot menu with a list of choices. UEFI boot sources are clearly marked there (at least they were when I installed.) I myself used the Mint CD (I had one on hand already) so I had a browser to bring up webpages while I installed. > > 2. The handbook, when discussing Booting the installation CD, says > > Important > When installing Gentoo with the purpose of using the UEFI interface > instead of BIOS, it is recommended to boot with UEFI immediately. If > not, then it might be necessary to create a bootable UEFI USB stick > (or other medium) once before finalizing the Gentoo Linux > installation. If you use SystemRescueCD or the Mint boot CD you'll boot in UEFI mode so this is irrelevant. Pretty certain you need to be booted in UEFI to install the boot loader of your choice. I stuck with grub2 and had no issues installing it. > > I don't understand what I am to do? Must I change the USB stick to > somehow specify UEFI? Or will the laptop firmware ask me whether to > boot UEFI? Or something else? The boot CD/USB needs to support UEFI, if it doesn't you can't boot in that mode. I think my NUC was F10 or F12 to show the boot menu, then you can pick the UEFI boot source. Dan
