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Re: debian installation issue

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On Fri, 11 Jun 2021 18:24:43 -0400
Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> wrote:

> Joe composed on 2021-06-11 20:14 (UTC+0100):
> 
> > I have a netbook which booted fine into grub on stretch,
> > but an upgrade to buster killed that, and to boot into buster I
> > have to use a rescue medium and use efibootmgr to set NextBoot to
> > the right entry. Nobody here seems able to help, and I gave Google
> > a good kicking to no avail.   
> 										
> Almost certainly the culprits live within /etc/default/grub/, this
> line: GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
> likely coupled with this line:
> GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true
> 
> The presence of the second line cements the problem with the first,
> which is that the result of any Debian installation creates
> /EFI/debian on the ESP filesystem. This is fine when there is no
> other installed operating system. The second prevents the
> presentation of another operating system to boot from in Grub's boot
> menu. The first causes replacement of the original /EFI/debian, which
> in effect makes the Stretch installation invisible at boot time
> except via a rescue boot, or to a user knowledgeable in use of the
> Grub shell.
> 
> The solution most obvious to me is to make the content of
> GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR= a unique string, such as stretch or debian9 or
> buster or debian10, followed by running grub-mkconfig, and verifying
> that the UEFI BIOS contains these unique entries for each Debian
> installation.
> 
> Whether or not to set GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER= false or true depends
> on personal preference. If true, the Grub menu selected by the last
> Grub-updated installation will exclude all other OS installations. To
> boot any other OS then requires the services of the UEFI BIOS to
> select booting any other, or booting rescue media. When instead false
> is configured (in both/all), either's/any's Grub menu can be used to
> boot another.
> 
> A much less obvious solution is to utilize the services of
> /etc/grub.d/ to present a custom grub menu configured by a system
> administrator knowledgeable in manual construction of a Grub menu.

Things aren't getting that far. If I turn on the computer, it shows me
its logo and then a brief flash of text at the top of the page. It
waits ten seconds or so, then repeats, and does this indefinitely.

The brief text says that it can't find a Debian file, and I later
discovered that every cycle of this process adds another Debian entry
to the EFI boot table. At the top of this table, and the BIOS recreates
it if I change it, is the hard drive, with a Windows entry lower.

I've been through all the copying, moving and renaming of things in /efi
suggested by Google, and none of it helps. The fact remains that adding
stretch to a Win10 installation worked fine, and upgrading to buster
stopped it booting at all without manual intervention. I later did a
clean reinstall of buster, and it didn't help. Before the text flash
appears, I can hit the F12 key and select the Windows Boot Manager, or
stick in a rescue USB and select that. This BIOS boot manager never
shows me a Debian entry, though the EFI boot table always has at least
one.

It doesn't help that the BIOS is broken, that it does not honour the
EFI DefaultBoot, and always rewrites entry 0000 if I change it.
Fortunately, it does honour NextBoot, or I'd never be able to get it
booted into buster. But it worked with stretch. I could try installing
stretch again and take a disc image, but it's a fair bit of work when I
have no guarantee that whatever is missing will get replaced, and I do
have a workaround which works.

-- 
Joe

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Thread

debian installation issue Semih Ozlem <semihozlemlinuxuser@gmail.com> - 2021-06-11 18:40 +0200
  Re: debian installation issue Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2021-06-11 19:20 +0200
    Re: debian installation issue Semih Ozlem <semihozlemlinuxuser@gmail.com> - 2021-06-11 20:40 +0200
      Re: debian installation issue Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2021-06-11 21:10 +0200
        Re: debian installation issue Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2021-06-11 23:20 +0200
          Re: debian installation issue David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2021-06-22 18:00 +0200
            Re: debian installation issue Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2021-06-24 06:30 +0200
              Re: debian installation issue David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2021-06-29 18:20 +0200
                Re: debian installation issue Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2021-06-29 19:30 +0200
                Re: debian installation issue David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2021-07-04 17:30 +0200
                Re: debian installation issue Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2021-07-05 05:40 +0200
        Re: debian installation issue Semih Ozlem <semihozlemlinuxuser@gmail.com> - 2021-06-12 00:00 +0200
          Re: debian installation issue Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2021-06-12 00:10 +0200
        Re: debian installation issue Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2021-06-14 08:30 +0200
          Re: debian installation issue <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2021-06-14 09:50 +0200
            [Off topic thoughts] Re: debian installation issue "Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net> - 2021-06-14 10:50 +0200
              Re: [Off topic thoughts] Re: debian installation issue <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2021-06-14 11:50 +0200
                Re: [Off topic thoughts] Re: debian installation issue Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2021-06-14 13:20 +0200
              Secure Boot in QEMU (was Re: debian installation issue) Kenneth Parker <sea7kenp@gmail.com> - 2021-06-14 12:10 +0200
                Re: Secure Boot in QEMU (was Re: debian installation issue) "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2021-06-14 13:40 +0200
            Re: debian installation issue Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> - 2021-06-21 15:00 +0200
              Re: debian installation issue tomas@tuxteam.de - 2021-06-21 16:40 +0200
              Re: debian installation issue Richard Hector <richard@walnut.gen.nz> - 2021-06-23 09:50 +0200
                Re: debian installation issue Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2021-06-23 14:30 +0200
      Re: debian installation issue Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2021-06-11 21:20 +0200
        Re: debian installation issue Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2021-06-12 00:30 +0200
          Re: debian installation issue Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2021-06-12 09:00 +0200
            Re: debian installation issue songbird <songbird@anthive.com> - 2021-06-12 13:50 +0200
              Re: debian installation issue "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2021-06-12 13:50 +0200
                Re: debian installation issue Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2021-06-12 14:20 +0200
                Re: debian installation issue songbird <songbird@anthive.com> - 2021-06-12 15:10 +0200
              Re: debian installation issue Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2021-06-12 14:10 +0200
            Re: debian installation issue Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2021-06-12 23:00 +0200
        Re: debian installation issue Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> - 2021-06-12 17:30 +0200

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