Install with UEFI Bios and no KMS support

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hi everyone,

recently I upgraded my motherboard (ASUS M5A97 Evo R2.0, 970 Chipset with new UEFI Bios) and CPU (AMD FX-8350).

And now I detected following problem: I have a Radeon R9 270X grafik card. This card won’t work with KMS support in kernel enabled. Won’t work means: the installer is freezing. With the old bios this wasn’t a big deal, because I was able to added the grub option nomodeset, or later there was already a grub menu “no KMS” or something like this available.

So at the moment I won’t be able to reinstall OpenSuse on my computer because I cannot tell the installer to not use kms.

I’st question is: why? Maybe it’s because the boot loader is signed and cannot be modified. hmmm.

Second question is: Is there a solution? I’m not in hurry since my existing installion is still working. But I wan’t to know how it would be possible to reinstall, or upgrade my openSuSE. Of course I can replace my grafik card by something that is supported and replace it again later after installation, but that’s not a smooth solution.

Any thoughts?

2

The UEFI boot screen is grub2 (really, grub2-efi).

On that screen, hit the ‘e’ key. That puts you in an edit mode to edit the grub command line.

Scroll down until you find a line begining “linux” (or, actually, “linuxefi”).

Go to the end of that line (the END key may do that). Then add " nomodeset" to the end of the line (without the quotes).

Continue booting. There’s a message on the screen that tells you the keys for that.

And you should then be into the installer without KMS.

3

I forgot to answer that part.

Traditionally the installer uses “syslinux” for booting. That offers a lot of flexibility.

To support UEFI and secure-boot, opensuse has been using grub2-efi for booting, and that is less flexible. So it’s a bit hard to do, but you can still do it as indicated in my first reply.

4

Signing should only be a problem if Secure boot is on.

IMO Secure boot is a placebo. If any bad program can get at the boot stack it owns you anyway.

here is some thoughts

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/meet-badbios-the-mysterious-mac-and-pc-malware-that-jumps-airgaps/

LOL yep that secure boot thing is great at not protecting a thing :open_mouth:

5

On 2015-08-06 01:56, gogalthorp wrote:

> here is some thoughts
>
>
> http://tinyurl.com/q3e4zgj
>

Gosh :-/

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))

6

On Thu 06 Aug 2015 01:08:06 AM CDT, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2015-08-06 01:56, gogalthorp wrote:

> here is some thoughts
>
>
> Meet “badBIOS,” the mysterious Mac and PC malware that jumps airgaps | Ars Technica
>

Gosh :-/

Hi
An almost two year old article though…

But it’s still happening with OSX and Mac’s…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/apps/70863966/new-mac-malware-tarnishes-apples-security-credentials

Still less susceptible than than mbr booting…

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel
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below… Thanks!

7

On 2015-08-06 03:17, malcolmlewis wrote:
> On Thu 06 Aug 2015 01:08:06 AM CDT, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On 2015-08-06 01:56, gogalthorp wrote:
>
>> here is some thoughts
>>
>>> http://tinyurl.com/q3e4zgj
>>>
>>
>> Gosh :-/

> Hi
> An almost two year old article though…
>
> But it’s still happening with OSX and Mac’s…
> http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/apps/70863966/new-mac-malware-tarnishes-apples-security-credentials
>
> Still less susceptible than than mbr booting…

Well, the issue that scares me is that an usb device can inject, via
buffer overflow or something, code into the usb reading firmware, that
survives a complete format. Or other kinds of firmware flashing without
consent from owner. This is a terrible security issue.

I should have think that after about a century of computing
manufacturers would know better than leave devices open to unintentional
manipulation, by malign parties, automatically. But no, they haven’t.

Last week I saw a video of hackers demonstrating how to take control of
a vehicle, starting by manipulating the air conditioning, but then
actually driving the car into a ditch, without the driver being able to
do anything about it.

And the hacker was miles away, using internet.

It is a nightmare. Not because of the bad guys, but because of how daft
the good guys are :-/

UEFI adds to the equation, because it has addition for programming it.
Or so I understand. It is a standard, so millions of machines will have it.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)