Experience encountered installing openSUSE 12.2 on HP Pavilion g7-2268sg
Win8 laptop
bios
uefi/legacy set to legacy
boot from internal CD/ROM selected
openSUSE12.2 DVD
nomodeset put on boot command line
no KMS selected
lower screen resolution chosen
–(GRUB2 has no support for 1600x900@60.0hz, machine default)
NB. any other settings always ended up with a black screen.
Partitioning selected :-
linux:~ # parted -l
Model: ATA Hitachi HTS54505 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 4302MB 4301MB linux-swap(v1) primary
2 4302MB 112GB 107GB ext4 primary boot
3 112GB 500GB 388GB ext4 primary
Installed amd graphics driver with the following results,
al at screen resolution 1600x900@60.0hz
before with vesa graphics driver
michael@linux:~> date
Sun Jan 27 17:41:24 CET 2013
michael@linux:~> glxgears
419 frames in 5.0 seconds = 83.722 FPS
420 frames in 5.0 seconds = 83.924 FPS
407 frames in 5.0 seconds = 81.400 FPS
after fglrx graphics driver
michael@linux:~/Updates> fglrxinfo
display: :0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 7640G
OpenGL version string: 4.2.12002 Compatibility Profile Context 9.012
michael@linux:~/Updates> date
Sun Jan 27 17:57:44 CET 2013
michael@linux:~/Updates> glxgears
2252 frames in 5.0 seconds = 450.359 FPS
2252 frames in 5.0 seconds = 450.374 FPS
2254 frames in 5.0 seconds = 450.770 FPS
michael@linux:~/Updates>
Only anomaly noticed,
if laptop is boot without wired network connection only wireless networking is
possible. (Anyone found a tweak for this?)
Current machine status,
updated to openSUSE-current then Tumbleweed
i have not tried battery life on purpose, but i do like how long it stays on batter when i do web surfing, it is way better when my other laptop with mageia 2 on it. didn’t tried wired network, so cant tell. over all I do like the way opensuse is on this machine.
You have partition that is marked as “boot” but has file system ext4. But this is OK, Linux does not care about partition types. But you also have bootloader installed two times - once in partition sda3 and another one in MBR. I wonder how it happened. Did you explicitly select bootloader location during installation? Or probably did you repair bootloader after installation?
On the last install, the screen resolution was left at 1600x900 by mistake.
The install failed at 97,5% complete and froze.
On reboot a message read ‘1600x900 had been depreciated’ and kde came up
with screen resolution of 640*480.
From there yast was run and bootloader selected. Only halve of the screen was
visible, so selected resolution 1152x864, 24 bits (mode 0x356) for GRUB2.
The shift+tab was used to blindly select the ok button.
(the alt-o key should have been used).
Hence I ended up with the setup as shown.
Not perhaps ideal but its rock solid in operation.
I’ll change it later for the bootloader only to be in the root partition.
Do not do it. In your configuration the only possible bootloader location is MBR. I am surprised your system boots at all. In my testing default installation on GPT was unbootable.
Under Boot Loader Settings - Boot Loader Location
There are five tick boxes Status
- Boot from Master Boot Record set
- Boot from Root Partition set
- Boot from Boot Partition (not available for selection)
- Boot from Extended Partition (not available for selection)
- Custom Boot Partition set
--- with value: /dev/disk/by-id/ata-Hitachi_HTS545050A7E380_TE85123RKK7G9W-part3
Also under Boot Loader Options there are two tick boxes Status
- set active Flag in Partition Table for Boot Partition set
- Write generic Boot Code to MBR set
These setting are reflected in the parted -l output.
What is your advice on the correct setup for GPT?
Is the assumption correct,
if Write generic Boot Code to MBR is set, the MBR is not written to the Root
Partition and Boot from Master Boot Record is active.
(All other settings being irrelevant)?
Unset everything except “Boot from Master Boot Record”. All other options cannot work.
And it makes sense to create so called bios_boot partition to embed grub2 into. It is small partition, 2MB should be enough. It does not need any file system, it is used by grub2 to store its “stage2”. After this partition is created, you need to reinstall grub2 into MBR. I believe openSUSE installer creates it by default when suggesting partition layout.
if Write generic Boot Code to MBR is set, the MBR is not written to the Root
Partition and Boot from Master Boot Record is active.
(All other settings being irrelevant)?
To be honest I do not understand what YaST2 does here. I asked on yast-devel list. It obviously should have some prioritization, because you cannot at the same time do “Boot from Master Boot Record” (meaning - install bootloader there) and “Write generic Boot Code to MBR”. One will overwrite another. May be it performs them all and “Boot from MBR” just happens to be the last in this list, so it works in your case.
That explains anyway why your system boots. In my testing with default installation does not have “Boot from MBR” active.
Either you booted the “wrong” setup (from an UEFI point of view) or your HDD already contained a legacy MBR - in which case you should have blanked it first (probably the easiest).
Installing/booting in legacy mode is of course a possibility. Unfortunately most people don’t do it by choice, but just because they are not able to install in UEFI mode properly - which would be possible in most cases by doing things in the right order.
>
>@arvidjaar
>
>
>Code:
>--------------------
> Under Boot Loader Settings - Boot Loader Location
> There are five tick boxes Status
> - Boot from Master Boot Record set
> - Boot from Root Partition set
> - Boot from Boot Partition (not available for selection)
> - Boot from Extended Partition (not available for selection)
> - Custom Boot Partition set
> — with value: /dev/disk/by-id/ata-Hitachi_HTS545050A7E380_TE85123RKK7G9W-part3
>
> Also under Boot Loader Options there are two tick boxes Status
> - set active Flag in Partition Table for Boot Partition set
> - Write generic Boot Code to MBR set
>--------------------
>
>
>These setting are reflected in the parted -l output.
>
>What is your advice on the correct setup for GPT?
>
>Is the assumption correct,
>if Write generic Boot Code to MBR is set, the MBR is not written to the
>Root
>Partition and Boot from Master Boot Record is active.
>(All other settings being irrelevant)?
I have been reading on how to make a efi boot with Windoze and Linux and
there are some interesting issues.
Do you have a /boot/efi directory tree? If so what is in the tree?
The comments here reflect the title of the thread,
assumed starting point,
laptop purchased with Win8 and UEFI pre-installed
HDD re-partitioned with normal swap, /, /home.
Aim - to have a legacy install (not UEFI)
Correct
Incorrect to both. The laptop had Win8 and UEFI pre-installed by HP. Either the
MBR was pre-written by HP or from the BIOS when the UEFI/legacy flag was toggled
to legacy or openSUSE12.2 install.
By HP or BIOS is doubted because the partitions have been re-numbered since the
initial openSUSE12 install.
The choice was made for a non-UEFI install. With a UEFI install all network traffic appeared to be limited to IPv6 by the BIOS setup.
