I installed openSUSE LEAP-42.2 on my Toshiba Z930 laptop, and also on my Core-i7 custom PC over the Christmas break. Both PCs use EFI and I am not very experienced with EFI, so I thought that this might be a good learning experience. The downside was I was doing this with a head cold (ie headache, mild-fever, stuff sinus, hacking cough … etc … which is not the smartest condition to be in when trying something new).
The Toshiba Z930 laptop installation experience was very smooth - and I have to say I learned nothing as it was so smooth (replacing an openSUSE-LEAP-42.1 install). Part of the ‘problem’ in not learning is my setup for this laptop is very simple, and hence the openSUSE installer ‘guessed’ correctly where I wanted everything installed wrt partitioning, and I was able to accept the openSUSE default settings. Hence everything ‘just worked’.
My desktop was more of a challenge (replacing an openSUSE-13.2 install).
Now in both installation cases I was using a USB stick installation (I had previously placed the installation image on this USB stick). When booting from the USB stick on my PCs, I press F12 at the start of the boot which brings me a boot menu selection where I can select the USB stick. For the laptop, there was only one selection for the USB stick (which I selected) which worked fine.
But for the desktop PC, this was actually pretty confusing (for a person with a headcold). This PC has an Windows-7 install (that I have not booted to for over 1-year) and an openSUSE-13.2 install. The BIOS EFI boot selections I had were:
- PD2: TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-222BB
- P0: ST2000DM001-1CH164
- P1: SanDisk SD6SB1M256G1022I
- Windows Boot Manager (P1: SanDisk SD6SB1M256G1022I)
- Windows Boot Manager (P1: SanDisk SD6SB1M256G1022I)
- UEFI: ST2000DM001-1CH164
- opensuse (P1: SanDisk SanDisk SD6SB1M256G1022I)
- opensuse-secureboot (P1: SanDisk SanDisk SD6SB1M256G1022I))
- UEFI: SanDisk Extreme 0001
- SanDisk Extreme 0001
- Enter Setup
Despite my head cold, it was clear to me the “SanDisk Extreme” was my USB stick, and I Initially selected the one that complicated my openSUSE boot (after the initial OS/applications install). I chose “SanDisk Extreme 0001” when I should have selected the one with “UEFI: SanDisk Extreme”.
I mistakenly chose the 1st one, for my 1st two install attempts, when I should have chosen the second.
First (Failed) installation attempt on Desktop PC:
With regard to my first (failed) installation attempt with my desktop PC, I should note that my desktop PC has a GPT disk setup, and I did not like the openSUSE recommendation for carving up the PC. So I had the openSUSE installation partitioner conduct a rescan of the partitions, and I directed where I wanted the various partition mounts to go (I have separate partitions for /var and /tmp on this desktop PC that has a mix of an SSD and an older 2TB spinning HD). I did chose to mount the correct EFI partition under /boot/efi but I was not consistent. OpenSUSE offered me the “GRUB” installer by default (and did not offer the EFI-GRUB) and I mistakenly left the GRUB boot manager.
Of course YaST2 gave me a warning that this was not the correct approach:
YaST2
Warning: There is no partition of type bios_grub present.
Such a partition is recommended (required with Btrs) when Grub2 is
installed in the MBR of a GPT disk. It must be unformatted and
approximately 1MB large.
Really use this setup ?
which I mistakenly ignored.
Then after choosing the OS executables/applications I wanted installed, there was a further warning in the boot section:
The installer will not modify the MBR of the disk. Unless it already contains boot code, the BIOS won't be able to boot from the disk".
This was not a total surprise as I typically never install the openSUSE MBR on a disk, but I still had not clued in to the fact I chose the wrong grub for an EFI/GPT partitioning.
Fortunately using a USB the executable/application install to the 1st boot was very fast (~5-minutes) and of course the very 1st boot failed. It went to a black screen with the GRUB messages:
GNU GRUB version 2.02~beta2
Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB
lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists possible
device or file completions.
grub>
I looked at this for a few seconds, and then the light penetrated my head cold and I realized I had chosen the wrong GRUB selection up boot.
So a simple rebooted the PC to the USB installation disk to re-install again. This was an easy decision to make as I had spent less than 20-minutes so far on the 1st failed attempt.
Second (failed) installation attempt on Desktop PC.
Again, when booting to the USB stick I was given the option :
-
UEFI: SanDisk Extreme 0001
-
**SanDisk Extreme 0001 **
and again, with my headache warping my decision, I chose the wrong option (ie the one WITHOUT the UEFI). The installation program ran, and again I did a rescan of the partition area to chose my preferred hard drive partitioning/mount locations. Again I chose the /boot/efi mount (pointing to the correct partition) and thought I chose type “FAT” but likely I did not apply the correct File System (FS), for again I obtained the error :
YaST2
Warning: There is no partition of type bios_grub present.
Such a partition is recommended (required with Btrs) when Grub2 is
installed in the MBR of a GPT disk. It must be unformatted and
approximately 1MB large.
Really use this setup ?
My head cold prevailed, and I mistakenly ignored this and proceeded.
This time, under the “Boot code options” I was careful to select under the “Boot loader” the option “GRUB2 for EFI”. I also ‘checked’ the option “Enable Secure Boot support”, and for the “Protective MBR flag” I selected “do not change”. Of course having the correct settings here was a “mute point” due to my previous error during the partitioning, and as I suspect I did not chose the correct partition type for the EFI partition. So I obtained this warning BEFORE staring all the executables/applications were installed:
Unsupported combination of hardware platform x86_64 and bootloader grub2-efi
That puzzled, me as I know this hardware supports EFI. Underneath the above warning openSUSE installer had:
Boot Loader Type: GRUB2 EFI
Enable Secure boot yes
I decided to proceed with the install anyway, and less than 5-minutes later, after most of the executables/applications were installed, I obtained this YaST2 error:
YaST2
Error
Execution of command ""/usr/sbin/shim-install","-config-file=/b0ot/grub2/grub.conf","--no-nvram","--removable"]]" failed.
Exit code: 1
Error output: Unrecognized option '--no-nvram'
OK
I selected OK, the PC then rebooted, and again it failed to boot properly, again taking me to the black screen Grub menu:
GNU GRUB version 2.02~beta2
Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB
lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists possible
device or file completions.
grub>
I looked at this a bit longer on this occasion (maybe for about 30-seconds) and then decided to try another install attempt, this time being more careful.
3rd (successful) installation attempt
On this 3rd install attempt, after pressing F12 to obtain the PC’s boot menu, I was again given the option for the USB stick :
-
UEFI: SanDisk Extreme 0001
-
**SanDisk Extreme 0001 **
I decided to select the option this time called “UEFI: SanDisk Extreme 0001”. My logic was perhaps that would store different information in NVRAM (or elsewhere) that the openSUSE installer would detect upon boot.
Again, I performed a rescan of the partitioning (as I was not happy with the partitioning), but this time the partition selection for the mounting of the /boot/efi was clearly a “FAT-EFI” which was not so obvious on my previous install.
For the boot code option settings I again chose:
Boot code options
Boot loader
GRUB2 for EFI
....
check - Enable Secure Boot support
Protective MBR flag
do not change
I obtained no dialog box nor red warnings in any place on this occasion 
, and the install went smooth, with executables/applications installed within 5-minutes, and a nice proper boot to openSUSE-42.2 (retaining a number of my older openSUSE-13.2 settings from the retained /home/oldcpu).
OVERALL TIME - 60-minutes for the 3-install attempts. And I think I learned something - despite the head cold.
Sometimes one needs to make mistakes to learn.
I will post the output of “inxi -F” for my Laptop and Desktop PCs in a subsequent post to this blog entry.