[arch-general] USB flash installation medium in BIOS machines

[Juergen Werner]

On 03.11.2020 15:15, u34 at net9.ga wrote:
>> I have 2 options for that during POST. Press F2 or Del to go into BIOS
>> configuration and see and reorder the boot devices. This list is a
>> classical BIOS boot device list. The other option is press F12 and
>
> Don't F2, or Del show more complex screens, other than just reorder boot devices?

Yes of course. I just didn't want to describe my whole BIOS settings
menu, because I thought your question was aimed the boot device
selection. There is some unrelated stuff, but like with most consumer
laptops it is very rudimentary and narrow, like disable USB or disable
Camera or disable Micorphone or ASF configuration...

> Perhaps the problem is that itthe dirmware is looking for an ESP, which
> can not be found?

Shouldn't the ESP be on the Live medium? I never had one on my hard
drive, which is a plain MBR partitioned one with no fancy firmware
loading stuff... plain old BIOS GRUB setup. Always been.

>> I came to the conclusion, that my hardware is faulty. Somehow it is
>> capable to start the systemd-boot loader but not the actual UEFI image.
>> And all while not mentioning any EFI capabilities in BIOS settings.
>
> Well, if it boots systemd-boot, have you tried to configure systemd-boot?
> Are you aware to the fact that there used to be 32 bits variant of the efi firmware?

What do you mean by configure? It is the unchanged
archlinux-2020.11.01-x86_64.iso I dd'ed on a stick.

>> Just out of curiosit, does anyone know a way to "ask" the hardware about
>> EFI capabilities, without actually booting through EFI?
>
> I think that if you can start the installation, you might query hardware capabilities.
> I am referring to https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#Checking_the_firmware_bitness .

I am aware of /sys/firmware/efi, but it only shows up when you actually
boot through the EFI, which, as stated, I was never able to.

I worked around the problem, so I am good for now. If someone is
interested in investigating the problem with that dated hardware I am
more than willing to do whatever you need for that. Just mail directly,
no need to spam the list any further.