I’ve had zero problems with BtrFS spanning 2 ea 2TB Samsung 870 SSD’s since I disabled automatic snapshotting. (HP ZBook 15 laptop)
(ID_MODEL_FROM_DATABASE=8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI (ZBook 15))
The only “unusual” thing I encounter is that I must press F9 immediately after power-on during boot in order to get to the BIOS boot manager which displays opensuse as an option to boot.
(Otherwise BIOS says no bootable OS’s are installed.)
So I’m wondering if this will cause a problem with an online update from 15.3 -> 15.4, and, if so, are there any wise advice on the update (besides full backup before starting the update)? https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:System_upgrade
Hi
If you fire up YaST2 bootloader and change the timeout (default 8) to say 4 and save, it should do some foo and hopefully make the nvram entry to be recognized. If that doesn’t work we can delete the entry and manually re-create.
Just to clarify - if I don’t hit F9 within about 3 seconds of power-on, then BIOS reports no OS installed and says it will shut down. It apparently doesn’t even find a filesystem if I don’t select F9 (which is labeled “BIOS bootloader”). Would the suse boot software even be activated? So that seems to be somehow a BIOS problem? (Is that what YaST is calling “nvram”?)
My main concern is that the existing BtrFS will be maintained during the 15.3 -> 15.4 process. I guess it should since an online update never goes through the FS setup that a fresh install does. The BIOS thing is sort of a separate issue. I guess you could call it a “bug” in BtrFS? I set up my BtrFS through the opensuse installer using merged-BtrFS defaults. So it’s vanilla.
Boot order: there’s no options for booting to specific partitions or disks, only externals (e.g., “USB hard drive”), or whatever is in the SATA bay (such as a CD/DVD). No forbidden options.
So it looks like this BIOS predates whatever hardware BtrFS is expecting, although F9 does find OpenSuSE as a listed option - so the UEFI is at least partially compatible with BtrFS.
There is an “add custom boot” feature into which I can type a path. No examples given or help available in BIOS.
BTW: I didn’t visit here during the forum big chanageover a while back, so I was demoted in the penguin ranks to a beginner.rotfl!
(although I’ve always asked strange questions)
UEFI does not “boot from specific disk” at all. That is simply not how UEFI boot works.
So it looks like this BIOS predates whatever hardware BtrFS is expecting,
Do not mix apples and oranges.
Your firmware is not aware of btrfs at all. But there are known cases when firmware accepts only Windows boot entry and ignores everything else. Your case sounds like this one. Show output of “ls -lR /boot/efi” (or “tree -Dh /boot/efi” if you have tree installed).
Hi
Unusual for a HP system to be this way, I’ve seen that with the likes of Toshiba and Acer laptops… Maybe it needs an ‘Internal Hard Drive’ entry;
HP Pavilion 15-aw057nr (Secure boot and TPM 2.0 active) [MicroOS-Desktop]
BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0001,9999
Boot0000* opensuse-secureboot HD(1,GPT,a28b7e33-daf6-4353-b1ea-bb86f074b606,0x800,0x100000)/File(\EFI\opensuse\shim.efi)
Boot0001* Internal Hard Disk PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x11,0x0)/Sata(0,65535,0)/HD(1,GPT,a28b7e33-daf6-4353-b1ea-bb86f074b606,0x800,0x100000)..BO
Boot9999* USB Drive (UEFI) PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1d,0x0)/USB(16,0)..BO
HP Notebook 14-an013nr (No secure boot or TPM, dual boot) [openSUSE Leap 15.4 - Online upgrade from Leap 15.3 btrfs no snapper]
BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,3000,0002,2001,2002,2004
Boot0000* openSUSE HD(1,GPT,383ba74c-8a8e-43b5-a073-679cb3703729,0x800,0x82000)/File(\EFI\opensuse\grubx64.efi)RC
Boot0002* Windows Boot Manager HD(1,GPT,383ba74c-8a8e-43b5-a073-679cb3703729,0x800,0x82000)/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.}....................
Boot2001* EFI USB Device RC
Boot3000* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk RC
According to efibootmgr output UEFI configuration has sufficient data to boot openSUSE. If firmware ignores this configuration, it is a firmware bug. Boot entries you show are vendor specific and we have no way to create them without knowing exact content. One possibility is to reset all BIOS settings to default (which may add default boot entries) but then one need to boot from rescue medium to reinstall bootloader.
Requirements for a rollback from a bootable snapshot
The root file system needs to be Btrfs. Booting from LVM volume snapshots is not supported.
The root file system needs to be on a single device, a single partition and a single subvolume. Directories that are excluded from snapshots such as /srv (see [Section 3.1.3, “Directories that are excluded from snapshots”](https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/reference/html/book-reference/cha-snapper.html#snapper-dir-excludes) for a full list) may reside on separate partitions.
The system needs to be bootable via the installed boot loader.
Hi
OK, the system boots with the F9 boot key and selecting the entry.
No need to re-install bootloader on HP system, you can use the F9 key and browse to the efi file and select it to boot.
@Pattim Can you boot he system press the F9 key and confirm there is a “<boot from efi file>” entry, browse to the EFI/opensuse direcotry and select the grubx64.efi file to boot.
Now I do wonder if you enable secure boot in YaST bootloader to add the second entry and install that may help?
Hi Malcom - F9 offers 2 choices: “Boot from EFI file” and “opensuse” - I normally use the second one, but some time back I recalled using the first one. Anyway, I tried booting from EFI file and a couple of path choices later it offered grub64.efi and it booted fine. So does that mean this is a “firmware problem” and does that mean the BIOS needs to be updated? (does “firmware” mean it resides in an EPROM or the modern equivalent of an EPROM?)
BBS stands for BIOS Boot Specification. It is a standardized boot process that directs the BIOS to identify and prioritize the initial program load (IPL) of the devices in the computer. Usually allowing the selection of a specific drive to boot from.
Malcom and Karl - thanks for the great stuff! This is the mini-lesson I’ve been waiting for. I used to be able to walk into Herb’s office and ask …whatever… but he’s long-since retired. He gave me my first Cromix computer (Cromemco). Thanks again - I’ll work on this. Malcom - I see a lot in your coding that seems understandable. I didn’t know I could do that. When GRUB/UEFI took over, I felt orphaned.
(Has anyone else noticed that search engines are junk-advertising-and-often-wrong-engines now?)
Ultimately, it sounds like nobody thinks 15.3 -> 15.4 online update will be disrupted by the F9 requirement. I guess the 15.4’s grub64.efi will point to the correct things after the update? https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:System_upgrade
One reason to update is I read that 15.4 supposedly handles displays better. My laptop has Intel on-chip and NVidia discrete graphics. I’d love it if I could only use NVidia, but I think opensuse “likes” nouveau better. In the old days, I’d just install the driver with an nvidia***.run file. Now there are many howto pages (many outdated) and it looks really tricky to change the default video driver.
I pretty much understand the basics… but knowing the exact files and ways to edit them as needed got tricky when LILO disappeared and GRUB came along in Opensuse. And I haven’t seen a good UEFI discussion - always too basic or too technical - but that’s life…
