On Fri, 2013-03-01 at 22:44 -0800, David Benfell wrote:
Hi all,
So far, my attempt to install Arch Linux on a UEFI system is a total facepalm moment. The problem is in booting post-install.
So, first, does anyone have actual--and successful--experience installing Arch on a UEFI system? Yes, I went to the Arch Wiki, which initially pointed me at GummiBoot. There are actually two sets of instructions, one given where I looked first, for the UEFI entry, and another under the entry for GummiBoot. Neither succeeds, but I wound up following the latter set of instructions (and cleaning up extra entries with efibootmgr, which fortunately makes this relatively easy).
GummiBoot says it can't find /vmlinuz-linux. I tried modifying the configuration to say /boot/vmlinuz-linux, but no joy. Apparently, I'm really supposed to copy this file and the initrd image to the EFI partition, but nobody says where in the EFI partition, so I have no idea.
I also tried following the instructions for grub-efi. I'm just mystified. I managed to install the right package, but from there I just wasn't understanding a thing. I've been using linux since 1999 so this shouldn't be so completely mystifying.
I tried installing rEFInd (from sourceforge). As near as I can tell, it does indeed detect all the possible boot options on the system. But when I try booting the Arch installation, it says it can't find the root partition. It also detects the GummiBoot option, but that leads the same place as before. Finally, it detects the Windows option, which I hope still works (unfortunately I do need this).
I guess getting something that just works--like it did with BIOS systems--is not in the cards. What do I do now?
Thanks!
I have been succesfully using a GRUB2 based UEFI system for the past year, but it died on me a week ago. Didn't want to load any kernel anymore... I switched to refind and it works beautiffuly, just follow the wiki here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UEFI_Bootloaders#Using_rEFInd and set your ESP partition like Mike suggested. The tricky part is to boot the iso into efi mode, it complains about it having no loader config (at least for me). You can work around that if you already have refind on the ESP partition, if you don't, install it in EFI/Boot/ and name the efi file bootx64.efi (be sure that it scans externals, or optical if you're using a CD). You can then load refind by going into your EFI bios and choosing "Load EFI Shell" (note that not all EFI bioses have that option). -- Maxime