Hi folks,
Sorry to open another thread but it seems that everybody seems to be having different problems to me.
That might be wrong but I will try to get this sorted.
I have a new HP Pavillion g6 With preinstalled windows 8. Last week I tried and largely failed to get a satisfactory dualboot with Ubuntu 12.10.
I had to pull the pin on Ubuntu as I was having trouble with it and I hate its UI.
Anyway someone recommended openSUSE so now I am trying that.
I have installed windows 8 and openSUSE from the DVD. The suse installation was a UEFI installation and has left me with what I think is two efi partitions.
One from the Windows installation
sda2 (a fat32 partition named EFI system partition)
sda7 (a fat 16 partition which was created during the suse installation. When I run efibootmgr this show up as opensuse.)
The goal is to have a choice of one or the other when I turn the thing on. I suppose Grub2 if that will work.
At the moment when I power on, it boots to windows 8.
In order to boot openSuse I need to interrupt the start up with <esc> and select opensuse from the boot device menu, which in turn takes me to a lovely green graphical openSUSE boot menu.
Interestingly I can also get to the same SUSE boot menu in 3 steps from the lovely windows 8 boot menu, but by picking the right one of 3 identically named hard disks. Also windows links on that list don’t work.
Before UEFI I didn’t really have to worry about this stuff so please let me know what I can do to clarify this a bit better.
But can anyone suggest how I can sort this? It would be much appreciated.
I have limited options at the bios setup, my choices in UEFI are os bootloader or external media.
Really I just want SUSE booting without having to race for the escape key or click 10 different things.
Is it even possible to just have it boot into grub or Suse first?
I can live with using the next boot setting to get into windows.
Anybody any idea?
It seems that you may need to select openSUSE in the UEFI selection to boot and to manually create a Windows menu item that works and to not use the one that Grub 2 efi creates. I would not mess around with anything else as you actually have a working setup if you are just selecting which to boot using the PC UEFI setting.
I did read that thread but it seemed that that user had already had and dealt with the problem I’m having, before starting the thread.
I’d like to get to where they started.
In short they had installed and SUSE with Grub but the PC was booting to windows.
I intend SUSE to be my primary environment on this computer, right now I have to either:
get to the <esc> button in time to get to interrupt the startup, then select opensuse from the bootmenu which takes me to Grub
go through 4 menus in the windows boot menu to get to an unidentified hard-drive which then takes me to grub.
The setup utility (nee the BIOS menu) gives me nothing. I can change the UEFI boot order but only OS Boot manager, Internal cd/dvd, USB key/hdd, USB cd/dvd or network adapter. No option to alter what the Boot manager is doing.
Windows 8 really isn’t *that *important so if the choice is between jumping through hoops to get to SUSE or losing windows then windows eats it.
But Ideally I’d like to have the option to keep Win8.
So I am not sure, but it does not sound like you may have booted the openSUSE DVD install disk into the efi mode. With the openSUSE DVD in the CD/DVD ROM drive, you reboot and go into the PC UEFI setup, and you will find a UEFI boot of the DVD present. The DVD is considered to be a Hybrid boot device and when booted into EFI mode, can create a ESP boot partition on a GPT disk you can select in your PC UEFI setup. Also, in that same thread, there was info on using a LiveCD, the loading a gptfdisk utility to create the proper boot setup to select between openSUSE & Windows on a GPT partitioned disk.
The bottom line is there are issues to over come to dual boot Windows 8 and openSUSE in EFI mode. Most people do not know you must select the openSUSE boot DVD in UEF mode to be able to install to a GPT partitioned disk. And, openSUSE can create a successful boot setup on a GPT disk, but the booting of Windows if already on the disk, does not work. Manual intervention is required to get a working dual boot setup. And finally, if you do get both on your GPT disk in EFI mode, Grub2-efi does not create a Windows menu entry that can boot Windows from a GPT disk, but the UEFI PC can select between the two.
In the end, I would not delete Windows 8 out of hand, even if I was only going to seldom use it as a few things only work with Windows. Since openSUSE, after booted, is able to read and write to GPT disk, you might just consider loading openSUSE on a secondary disk in normal MBR mode where it seems to create proper Windows menu entry. You always have the last option to wipe out the GPT disk, but if the hard disk is larger than 2.2 Terabytes, you need GPT to address the entire disk. Further, I would suggest you go through that entire thread to see what solutions were talked about there.
I read a lot of stuff these last two days.
I have no more time to devote to it really.
I did install in UEFI with the DVD, like both OS’s worked, just it was too much to boot into SUSE.
The idea of not booting at most 1 or 2 user actions from my primary OS is just too frustrating.
I might look at it again in a few months time when the excellent people who develop and maintain the Distros catch up with this mess, but Win8 is never gonna be my primary OS so I reckon I have done enough to accomodate it.