JustSomeGuy wrote:thebs wrote:JustSomeGuy wrote:Oh and one more SSD dedicated for Linux with very much manual dual boot, meaning "press F11 to choose which drive to boot from" - solution.
If you're using native uEFI (no CSM) to boot, then let me introduce you to my colleague Rod Smith's rEFInd Boot Loader.
-
http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/Rod Smith works at Canonical (Ubuntu) now, as much as I tried to get him hired at Red Hat (who moves way too slow on hires).
CSM is enabled. It is my first and only uEFI board, ASrock Z77 Extreme4. CSM was enabled by default, and the text box next to it just said that 'do not disable unless running WHCK test'. And since I did not know what it is, and everything seemed to work fine, it was left enabled. Now I don't know what happens if I did try to disable it. Fearing the worst I have not tried.
You cannot change it once the OS is installed.
It has to do with disk label ...
- GUID Partition Table (GPT) instead of Master Boot Record (MBR), supporting unlimited number of partitions (although 128 seems to be the universally compatibile limit)
and layout ...
- Requires the EFI System Partition (ESP), Partition Type EF00h (yes, there are 4 hex digits to GPT, instead of 2 for MBR) that is formatted FAT*
*NOTE: the uEFI spec states FAT32 for non-removable, FAT12-16 for removable, but usually most do FAT12-32 without issue, although Windows installers sometimes take issue with FAT16, and create a 2nd ESP on a disk formatted FAT32.It also requires a bootloader and OS that supports it. E.g., grub-efi (0.97 patched w/uEFI) or grub2-efi (1.99).
All Windows NT 6 releases in x64 version (Vista and later) support, it although I recommend NT 6.1+ (7+). PC OEMs are required by contract to ship Windows 8 x64 and later in native uEFI booting mode. This is because the Windows Licensing Key is stored in an uEFI area, so there is no label on the PC OEMs' box.
SIDE NOTE: Microsoft also requires a 128MiB Partiton Type 0C01h for "Reserved Data" where it can write uEFI/GPT specific information. Long, long story, Microsoft is quite specific on what it requires for GPT.Red Hat backported uEFI boot support to GRUB 0.97, and many of the patches for 1.99 as well in Fedora and other distros. I was booting native uEFI on Fedora as early as 2010 (GRUB 1.9x) , and working with IBM in 2011 to fix early RHEL 6.0 GA support (backported GRUB 0.97), that made it into 6.1 and then 6.2.
JustSomeGuy wrote:I have seen that name rEFInd somewhere before, probably on the ArchWiki pages. Interesting, but sounds like I'm out of luck with that CSM.
rEFInd really addresses what most uEFI firmwares do not ...
A dynamic way of loading any OS bootloader/kernel in any EFI System Partitions (ESP) on any GPT disk in the system. Most uEFI firmwares require a specific 'label' in the uEFI firmare to target the exact disk, the exact ESP and the exact OS file.
If you've never done native uEFI boot, then you're probably not familiar with the details. In-a-nutshell, there no more MBR, just the ESP where files go. The ESP is mounted as
/boot/efi
in a Linux system. In fact, if you have an ESP, you shouldn't need a separate
/boot
any more. Unfortunately GRUB 1.99 is quite ignorant of many things, so a separate /boot is usually done by most installers.
JustSomeGuy wrote:thebs wrote:JustSomeGuy wrote:Wanted to keep those two well separated.
With native uEFI booting using the EFI System Partition (ESP), mutliple OSes coexist without issue. It's why I've gone 100% native uEFI since 2012 with Fedora/RHEL and Windows 7 x64, although Ubuntu and most other distros were also good by 2014.
Anyway, if a disaster happens, it is a good reason to re-think and rebuild the whole setup the way I would like it to be today.
As I mentioned, every system I've installed since 2012 has been native uEFI with GPT, including with Windows 7 x64. Despite what most people say, Windows 7 x64 is just fine installing native uEFI, as long as you have the required storage drivers.
The only kicker is that the stupid Windows USB Installation creator does not create an uEFI/GPT compatible USB device. So Rufus is what most people use, including myself.