[arch-general] UEFI madness

[Jan Steffens]

On Sat, Mar 2, 2013 at 7:44 AM, David Benfell <benfell at parts-unknown.org> wrote:
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> 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!
>
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Make sure the EFI System Partition is mounted at /boot. Gummiboot
expects this: The /vmlinuz-linux path is relative to the ESP. With the
ESP at /boot, pacman automatically installs the kernels where they
need to be, and no ugly copying hacks are necessary.