Friday, October 12, 2018

Linux booting UEFI interface is painful


Linux booting UEFI interface is painful

I am going to be on indefinite digital holiday.


So this may be the last update on booting a laptop with Linux and a welcome satire on Microsoft.

There are three things that I want to high light.

1. One is, this is about SSD disks (not rotatory disks) and my experience with them is limited.

I hacked only two of them and last (the second) one was within the last 24 hours.


2. I am distrohopper, tester of Linux distributions (live and installed) and do not use Windows at all. My understanding of Microsoft is bloated (like any American) image while wasting precise resources doing nothing (very slow to boot and poor workhorse) worthwhile like Facebook.


3. UEFI is pain in the Arxx (I have voiced it adequately, elsewhere).


4. Fourth of course, James has (below) given a very polite (unlike me) account of his undoing of UEFI. 
He deserves accolades.

Points I am raising here are SSDs do not understand GRUB Boot Manager.


Dual booting is virtually impossible and SSD is meant for booting one operating system ONLY.


Safe boot option won’t let you boot Legacy boot option nor it will let a Linux distribution boot unless Microsoft certifies it.


What a spoiled mind set?

I have found a way around with my PC.

I bought a laptop for my son with Windows installed.

He lost interest in it, in no time and I used to store my camera software (install camera software dedicated to Microsoft-Linux won’t jack them in - I have found a simple way around it) and photos.


I thought of booting Linux on it (dual booting) but failed.


I removed the hard disk and tried to install my favorite Linux distribution on the blank SSD and the boot manager won’t let me do it.


After 24 hours, I found a solution.

Only openSuse Linux supports UEFI.


After lot of fiddling for 24 hours except for my feeding and feeding my pet fish.


Good Bye Microsoff, the hard disk containing UEFI is inside a gold casket and will rest there peacefully till my son or wife (she has lost interest in laptops) asks for paid booting but not Linux rooting.

 

Installing Linux on a PC with UEFI firmware:


A refresher




By J.A. Watson for Jamie's Mostly Linux Stuff

Topic: Enterprise Software
What this means is that if you have UEFI Secure Boot enabled, you can only boot a certified signed image - and at least in the original UEFI specification, the only signing authority was Microsoft. I will leave the debate about the wisdom of that decision to others. All I will say here is that this decision had the effect of making installing Linux on UEFI firmware systems much more difficult.
Some OEMs (and their firmware suppliers) have put considerable effort into providing an alternate means for installing keys, certificates and signed images so that their users have at least some slim hope of regaining control of their computers. But in my opinion so far these have been difficult to understand and difficult to use, at best.

 Read also my comments below.
U.E.F.I Monopoly of Microsoft Sucks

This is the first blog post of mine, after I got my two computers working only on Linux, Debian to be precise, without Indians guys/girls working for Microsoft, Meddling with Bogus Updates that really upsets the booting of alternative operating systems.

I did not lose any of my data except the Knoppix 8.1 iso (may be misplaced), the latest.
I found Knoppix hidden in a partition.

But I did make a start up SD Card and the Live DVD.

U.E.F.I. that stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) sucks and is the Monopoly of Microsoft.

It intends to suppress booting other operating systems especially Linux.

This is how YOU nullify these business monopoly on new version of boot up BIOS .

I won’t go into minor details.
First go to UEFI boot up menu (press Del or F2 at boot up).

Find csm and change to other OP systems.

Find the legacy menus and change every options available to legacy.

Go to boot up and change options to boot from CD/DVD.

Go to boot up and change which hard disk to boot first if you have more than one.

There are many other changes you can make but fiddle with one options at a time.

Then save your changes and boot your Live DVD ideally, Gparted and prepare or partition your hard disks to satisfy your liking.

Boot up and install your distribution.

GRUB boot loader takes over booting (if Debian Do Not activate at boot up, UEFI even by mistake) seamlessly and YOU own your computer not Microsoft cronies.
This piece is only for Linux guys and girls.

If you have Windows and it sucks do not blame Microsoft, blame yourself for the stupidity.
Read the description below, it a tiny operating system hidden in the firmware and interfere with free software freedom.
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is a specification for a software program that connects a computer's firmware to its operating system (OS).
UEFI is expected to eventually replace BIOS. Like BIOS, UEFI is installed at the time of manufacturing and is the first program that runs when a computer is turned on.
It’s not just a BIOS replacement, either. UEFI is essentially a tiny operating system that runs on top of the PC’s firmware, and it can do a lot more than a BIOS. 
It may be stored in flash memory on the motherboard, or it may be loaded from a hard drive or network share at boot.