My unhappy adventures with Linux installation

[WizardStan]

I wonder how a firmware can corrupt itself... 

Poor exception handling, from my understanding.  Configurations get into a broken state and it doesn't have an effective recovery method.

 

[Björn]

They wanted a SMART-BIOS and that's what happened... I wonder how a firmware can corrupt itself... 

I'm reading about a lot of unhappy adventures with linux installation thanks to UEFI, and I'm loosing my will to even try the thing...
 

Every UEFI machine has a little flash memory inside it, the UEFI variable storage. The firmware and/or Operating system can save data on that chip, for example Linux has the capability to store Coredumps on it in case of a kernel panic to investigate the crash. It's also used for the bootloader configuration. The data on the chip can become corrupted due to buggy Firmware and when that happens the system can't really cope with that and might do all sorts of crazy things, like not boot anymore.

 

[Björn]

I'm reading about a lot of unhappy adventures with linux installation thanks to UEFI, and I'm loosing my will to even try the thing...
 

To be honest, just put your system in CSM mode and install the system with a simple MBR partition table. Make the 4th partition an extended partition. That will allow you to have more partitions than just 4. Much easier to install and maintain. The issue with the bootloader getting overridden by some stupid installer is really not that big of a deal. When that happens grab a live CD, pop it in, chroot into your other system and do a grub-install again. Alternatively, you can backup the MBR with dd and restore it from the live environment.

It's not like you will feel much of a difference when using UEFI. If I didn't know I'm using it, I couldn't even tell. And on CSM mode the system starts just as fast (although that might depend on your Mainboard).

It's ironic that the UEFI boot process was intended to make the boot process easier, but actually made it worse and more miserable when things go wrong. Try deleting bootloader entries with efibootmgr, It's really fun.

 

[Klumpen]

They wanted a SMART-BIOS and that's what happened... I wonder how a firmware can corrupt itself... 

I'm reading about a lot of unhappy adventures with linux installation thanks to UEFI, and I'm loosing my will to even try the thing...
 

Every UEFI machine has a little flash memory inside it, the UEFI variable storage. The firmware and/or Operating system can save data on that chip, for example Linux has the capability to store Coredumps on it in case of a kernel panic to investigate the crash. It's also used for the bootloader configuration. The data on the chip can become corrupted due to buggy Firmware and when that happens the system can't really cope with that and might do all sorts of crazy things, like not boot anymore.

I'm no IT-guy, but this sounds like it's giving some mad possibilities to people creating and spreading root-kits that are really hard to find and remove. oO

...and like a possibility governments would love to have anyway.

 

[Björn]

Yes, modern UEFI implementations are very scary. Some Firmwares have a full network stack included with them. They also barely get any updates, if at all. And you're right a virus could write itself into flash memory and use a Firmware bug to take over the firmware at boot. This could only be solved by resetting the flash chip (assuming you detect the virus, of course), but I have yet to find a method that does this.

So basically, your "old" BIOS machine is more secure than UEFI.

 

[PowerGod]

I'm reading about a lot of unhappy adventures with linux installation thanks to UEFI, and I'm loosing my will to even try the thing...
 

To be honest, just put your system in CSM mode and install the system with a simple MBR partition table. Make the 4th partition an extended partition. That will allow you to have more partitions than just 4. Much easier to install and maintain. The issue with the bootloader getting overridden by some stupid installer is really not that big of a deal. When that happens grab a live CD, pop it in, chroot into your other system and do a grub-install again. Alternatively, you can backup the MBR with dd and restore it from the live environment.

It's not like you will feel much of a difference when using UEFI. If I didn't know I'm using it, I couldn't even tell. And on CSM mode the system starts just as fast (although that might depend on your Mainboard).

It's ironic that the UEFI boot process was intended to make the boot process easier, but actually made it worse and more miserable when things go wrong. Try deleting bootloader entries with efibootmgr, It's really fun.

The main problem is, I already have Windows 8.1 installed with UEFI, and as far as I understood, if I disable the UEFI mode I can't boot Windows anymore, and also I don't have a physical support to reinstall it...

Can I "just" write MBR info on the Windows drive with gparted and then reboot in CSM mode ? Or Windows will become unhappy ? it seems so integrated with that functionality...

 

[Björn]

I don't think that you can change the system to CSM without reinstalling Windows. Seems like you will have to go with UEFI installation then.

 

[PowerGod]

I don't think that you can change the system to CSM without reinstalling Windows. Seems like you will have to go with UEFI installation then.

 when I find a little time I want to try calling the HP support to see if they can help me with some info... they also sells PCs with FreeDos installed...

In the mean time I have set up Cygwin, and I'll spend some time with a lot of AAA game titles that I expected for years to be able to play
 

 

[Björn]

I doubt most of them even know what Linux is

 

[levi]

After a number of linux installations, I don't even bother with extended MBR partitions now.  I generally partition for /, /boot, /var and /home.  I split off /var because it's relatively noisy, and I'd rather not lose /usr if that partition breaks.  And /home I split off so that I can reinstall the OS without losing my data. I split off /boot because apparently if everything else breaks but you can at least get into the kernel, you've some chance of getting the system back up (though I've never tried it, and without a shell I can't imagine how you'd get very far).  In practice, / consits 99% of /usr - /etc and so on are pretty tiny in comparison.

On another machine with a weird drive layout, I've split off /usr as well (which causes some fun complications in the early boot, I can tell you). I've used 23MiB in (non boot, non home, non usr) root, while I've used 3300MiB in /usr.

 

[Björn]

I only do that because I always try out distributions and usually have multiple distributions installed.

 

[PowerGod]

Oh, I have something more, the HP support software is telling me that there is a BIOS software update, I already did it one some days ago, but I didn't read the description at the time:

"HP Consumer Desktop PC BIOS Update

This package provides an update to the HP Consumer Desktop PC BIOS for supported models running a supported operating system"

So, now I'm also concerned that even if I'm able to install Debian without issues, one day an update could ruin everything

EDIT: also the CMD window with the updating program is still open after 15 minutes... doing nothing...

EDIT: ...seems something went wrong, even the HP software is telling to reboot before trying the thing again... well let's try my luck...

EDIT: last time worked, anyway the real update started at the boot, but the last time wasn't like that... anyway after 5 autoreboot I checked the version and it is installed correctly, but the HP support assistant still asks me to install it... but well, I'm a little OT here... these are my unhappy adventures with Windows...