Big install problem with 13.2 and Tumbleweed on a Windows 8.1 netbook

nico_g · December 30, 2014, 6:40pm

Hello,
I have tested 3 different media : Install DVD of the 13.2 version, Install DVD of the Tumblweed one and Live DVD (KDE) of Tumbleweed and I get the same error a boot every time.
I can choose the DVD as a boot device, and immediatly after I’m stuck at the grub prompt.
I can type TAB in order to have all commands, but I don’t know what to do.
The boot command tells me a need a kernel.
The netbook is a HP Zbook 14 with UEFI native enabled in bios (the bios has the last version) and only one SSD with Windows 8.1 Pro on it (fresh install from Microsoft DVD). I’ve created an empty partition for Linux too.
I’ve searched on internet for this problem, but I wasn’t able to find any solution.
So, thanks a lot for any help !

Nicolas

nico_g · December 31, 2014, 10:49am

Maybe should I test booting with a USB stick ?
Or should I modify BIOS setting, selectinf a non-UEFI mode ? But what will happen with my Windows partition ? It will not boot after this BIOS change ?

nrickert · December 31, 2014, 1:21pm

Yes, that is worth trying.

Or should I modify BIOS setting, selectinf a non-UEFI mode ? But what will happen with my Windows partition ? It will not boot after this BIOS change ?

Better to try the USB boot first.

Yes, you will not be able to boot Windows in non-UEFI mode (legacy mode). And repeatedly changing BIOS settings would be a problem.

However, if you do install non-UEFI mode, it is probably possible to later switch that to using UEFI.

nico_g · January 1, 2015, 12:56pm

Hello and Happy New Year to all !

I’ve tried to install from a USB stick and it works (Tumbleweed) !
The installation was fine and there is only a little problem.
When I reboot, my netbook boots on Windows directly : I ca’t see any grub menu.
But if I choose F9 option at boot, I get a menu with all boot entries and I can see that grub created a new entry in last position and if I choose it, then I see the grub menu and I can boot Opensuse !
So grub created a new entry, but I can’t put it before the Windows one so I need to use the F9 key : it’s not very userfriendly.
I will search if there is any solution : swapping of UEFI entries.

Nicolas

nrickert · January 1, 2015, 1:26pm

Great. I’ve been using that method for the last few years. The DVD is probably headed for the scrap heap of history as a relic of the past.

When I reboot, my netbook boots on Windows directly : I ca’t see any grub menu.
But if I choose F9 option at boot, I get a menu with all boot entries and I can see that grub created a new entry in last position and if I choose it, then I see the grub menu and I can boot Opensuse !

I’ve heard that before. It seems to be a problem with HP implementations of UEFI.

You can probably find “solutions” to this on the web. But to me they look like ugly hacks. It may be wiser to keep using the F9 key.

nico_g · January 1, 2015, 3:03pm

I will post any solution I found. I need to search now…

nico_g · January 1, 2015, 4:52pm

I found the solution !!!
In the HP BIOS, you a an option to select a “Customized boot”. You choose it and enter the path to the opensuse .efi file :
\EFI\opensuse\grubx64.efi if you don’t want to use secure mode in UEFI or :
\EFI\opensuse\shim.efi if you want to be in secure mode.

So on the next reboot, the grub2 select page will be the first to be displayed and you can choose in it Windows or Linux.
I tested and all is working, even in secure mode.

I finished setting the default entry for grub2 (there is a little bug in Yast2 : the entry is translated (my Linux native language is not english) and in grub.cfg it is still in english…) so I modified the value in grubenv.

I can now finish installation of other apps and tune the grphcal environment !

Nicolas

nrickert · January 1, 2015, 4:57pm

Interesting. Thanks for posting.

I did wonder if there might be a special BIOS setting.

arvidjaar · January 1, 2015, 5:14pm

Could you post output of “efibootmgr -v”? It would be interesting to know whether it is possible to set this option from within Linux.

nico_g · January 1, 2015, 5:39pm

As far as I know, HP computers have a special behavior with UEFI path : the overwrite any existing value with a default value, correspodning to the Windows UEFI path.
So after a few years, they added a specific option in the BIOS in order to bypass this mechanism.

Here is the efibootmgr -v message :
BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 5 seconds
BootOrder: 0002,0000,0001
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager HD(2,96800,32000,585a2e19-39cd-4a9c-9415-8a45429def22)File(\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi)WINDOWS…x…B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}…y…
Boot0001* Windows Boot Manager HD(2,9641a,32000,6b9fd45f-6e00-482d-8eed-c8a06ce7dd7f)File(\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi)WINDOWS…x…B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}…a…
Boot0002* opensuse-secureboot HD(2,96800,32000,585a2e19-39cd-4a9c-9415-8a45429def22)File(\EFI\opensuse\shim.efi)

I don’t know if it will help ?

malcolmlewis · January 1, 2015, 7:18pm

On Thu 01 Jan 2015 04:16:01 PM CST, arvidjaar wrote:

nico_g;2686470 Wrote:
>
> In the HP BIOS, you a an option to select a “Customized boot”.

Could you post output of “efibootmgr -v”? It would be interesting to
know whether it is possible to set this option from within Linux.

Hi
Never done it but I guess the efivars can be written to;


cat /sys/firmware/efi/vars/CustomBPath-f68494b7-7d5c-476d-99e0-0e6ef0ccf191/data

\EFI\opensuse\shim.efi

This is on a HP ProBook 4440s, secure boot enabled (openSUSE
13.2/Windows Preview).

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.12.28-4-default
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malcolmlewis · January 1, 2015, 9:53pm

Hi
Reading here it would seems so;
http://blog.fpmurphy.com/2012/12/efivars-and-efivarfs.html

I built the efivars package in my TESTING repo;

Using the -u switch on openSUSE 13.2 I see;


 uefivars -u
AcpiGlobalVariable (NV,BS,RT): UNKNOWN
AuthVarKeyDatabase (NV,BS,RT): UNKNOWN
Boot0000 (NV,BS,RT):* Windows Boot Manager    HD(2,96800,82000,8aab4d75-f8ce-4691-b094-57bf2f3f20ce)File(\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...0................
Boot0001 (NV,BS,RT):* opensuse-secureboot    HD(2,96800,82000,8aab4d75-f8ce-4691-b094-57bf2f3f20ce)File(\EFI\opensuse\shim.efi)
BootCurrent (BS,RT): 0000
BootNext (NV,BS,RT): 0001
ConIn (BS,RT):
/ACPI(a0341d0,0)/PCI(0,1f)/ACPI(30341d0,0)
ConInDev (BS,RT):
/ACPI(a0341d0,0)/PCI(0,1f)/ACPI(30341d0,0)
ConOut (BS,RT):
/ACPI(a0341d0,0)/PCI(0,2)
ConOutDev (BS,RT):
/ACPI(a0341d0,0)/PCI(0,2)
/ACPI(a0341d0,0)/PCI(0,2)/UnknownACPI(3)
CustomBPath (NV,BS,RT): UNKNOWN
EnableTurboOnDC (NV,BS,RT): UNKNOWN
ErrOutDev (BS,RT):
/ACPI(a0341d0,0)/PCI(0,2)/UnknownACPI(3)
GTTMMADRVar1 (NV,BS,RT): UNKNOWN
GTTMMADRVar2 (NV,BS,RT): UNKNOWN
KbcVersion (BS,RT): UNKNOWN
Lang (NV,BS,RT): eng
LangCodes (BS,RT): eng,fra,deu,spa,ita,dan,nld,fin,jpn,nor,por,swe,zho,zho
MemoryOverwriteRequestControl (NV,BS,RT): UNKNOWN
OsIndicationsSupported (BS,RT): UNKNOWN
PBRDevicePath (NV,BS,RT): UNKNOWN
PchInit (NV,BS,RT): UNKNOWN
PchS3Peim (BS,RT): UNKNOWN
PlatformLang (NV,BS,RT): en-US
PlatformLangCodes (BS,RT): en-US,fr-FR,de-DE,es-ES,it-IT,da-DA,nl-BE,fi-FI,ja-JA,no-NO,pt-PT,sv-SV,zh-CN,zh-TW
SaPegData (NV,BS,RT): UNKNOWN
SecureBoot (BS,RT): UNKNOWN
SetupMode (NV,BS,RT): UNKNOWN
SignatureSupport (BS,RT): UNKNOWN
SysDiagsBiosData2010 (NV,BS,RT): UNKNOWN
Timeout (NV,BS,RT): 0 secs
VPROState (NV,BS,RT): UNKNOWN
WmiDataSize (NV,BS,RT): UNKNOWN
dbx (NV,BS,RT): UNKNOWN
use_openSUSE_cert (BS,RT): UNKNOWN

I would guess the code needs updating for all the unknowns…

nico_g · January 1, 2015, 10:33pm

Hi all
my solution is not perfect, but, for me, the main advantage is that the original UEFI Windows configuration is let unmodified.
If I want to go back to it, I only have to deselct the “Customize boot” option in the BIOS.
But if an equivalent solution needs only some simples modifications in Linux it would be a good solution too.
I’m not an UEFI expert, so I can’t help a lot more !

arvidjaar · January 2, 2015, 6:55am

Oh! Actually now when you mention it it became easy to find …
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HP_EliteBook_840_G1

Yes, this could be made working on Linux then … anyone with affected system cares to open bug report?

P.S. I wonder, did anyone complaint to HP that they violate UEFI specification? If enough people complaint, may be they stop doing it.

malcolmlewis · January 2, 2015, 7:20am

Hi
Found a more recent app and it’s in Tumbleweed now called efivar (Built a 13.2 version in my test repo).

I see;


 efivar -p -n f68494b7-7d5c-476d-99e0-0e6ef0ccf191-CustomBPath
GUID: f68494b7-7d5c-476d-99e0-0e6ef0ccf191
Name: "CustomBPath"
Attributes:
    Non-Volatile
    Boot Service Access
    Runtime Service Access
Value:
00000000  5c 00 45 00 46 00 49 00  5c 00 6f 00 70 00 65 00  |\.E.F.I.\.o.p.e.|
00000010  6e 00 73 00 75 00 73 00  65 00 5c 00 73 00 68 00  |n.s.u.s.e.\.s.h.|
00000020  69 00 6d 00 2e 00 65 00  66 00 69 00 00 00 00 00  |i.m...e.f.i.....|
00000030  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000040  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000050  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000060  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000070  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00                           |........        |

So I guess it’s being looked at, there is a white paper here;
http://h20565.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c03654081

The custom option and set it first seems to work fine, so at least the alternative boot is there now. Need to see if can do something with my HP 4430s… I have to use F9 with that.

arvidjaar · January 2, 2015, 8:17am

Unfortunately it does not really describes or explains observed behaviour.

malcolmlewis · January 2, 2015, 8:11pm

On Fri 02 Jan 2015 07:26:02 AM CST, arvidjaar wrote:

malcolmlewis;2686605 Wrote:
>
> So I guess it’s being looked at, there is a white paper here;
> http://tinyurl.com/pvlgknu

Unfortunately it does not really describes or explains observed
behaviour.

Hi
No, it was a dig at HP since they are win focused

Seems a reasonable work around having the custom boot option, but since
it also needs to be set to be enabled, moved to the first boot option
one might as well add the string. Unless efivar could do all.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.12.28-4-default
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