Re: A thread on grub-bug could need attention

["Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net>]

Hi,

I wrote:
> > Does this mean that the decisive trick is to use GPT with EFI partition
> > instead of a MBR partition of type 0xEF ?

Michel Bouissou wrote:
> So might this machine boot only from GPT disks ? Well, then it would'tn
> boot a Knoppix ISO image stick. But it does...

Yes, i proposed to Klaus Knopper to deviate from Matthew J. Garrett's
layout which is used by Fedora, Debian, and others.
So Knoppix 8.1 has the EFI partition appended outside the ISO 9660
filesystem range, with a neat MBR partition table without nested
partitions. No GPT gets written, because it would be invalid.

Nevertheless, Knoppix uses SYSLINUX which could be less dependent on
a neat GPT than GRUB2 could be ... theoretically guessing ...


> I have installed a Manjaro with grub onto a blank USB stick, in EFI
> mode, and it would boot perfectly on other machines, but not on affected
> machine.

It would be interesting to compare the particular actions of the
installation with the procedure proposed by Daniel Kiper which works.


> I could boot no
> standard Linux USB install stick made from an ISO image on this machine,
> besides Knoppix or Tails.

Oh. I forgot your success with Tails. My mailbox says i inspected 3.3
and that it was BIOS-only with ISOLINUX as bootloader.
Just to be sure:
  http://dl.amnesia.boum.org/tails/stable/tails-amd64-3.5/tails-amd64-3.5.iso
No EFI partition at all. And no GRUB.
This corresponds to the "mac" ISOs of Debian, which are BIOS-only because
some MacIntoshs are said to take offense on the EFI equipment.
E.g. this 293 MB image:

  https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-cd/debian-mac-9.3.0-amd64-netinst.iso


> >   grub-mkrescue -o output.iso ./minimal

> I will try to test it tonight on the affected machine and let you know.

I am curious what will happen.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas