UEFI Boot Menu Discussion

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Hi Davpa-

 

My dream is to have a grub/refind boot menu where I select either Atari OS or my PC mode OS (installed on internal SSD).   However there's been a couple of issues,  the biggest one is that it seems that whenever I boot Atari OS from grub or refind, it triggers Atari OS to download an update even though it's already up-to-date,  as if it loaded an old kernel or booted improperly.

 

My solution now is to plug in a usb stick that boots PC mode and remove it to boot Atari OS.   It works, but consumes a USB slot unnecessarily.  

 

I know you can enter bios and change the boot device, but you have to be really quick to press ESC while booting.   Grub and refind offer much nicer boot menus and more time to make your selection.

 

I don't know if the Atari team has any advice on how to properly use such a boot menu?

 

Thanks

[THX-1138]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Hi Davpa-

 

My dream is to have a grub/refind boot menu where I select either Atari OS or my PC mode OS (installed on internal SSD).   However there's been a couple of issues,  the biggest one is that it seems that whenever I boot Atari OS from grub or refind, it triggers Atari OS to download an update even though it's already up-to-date,  as if it loaded an old kernel or booted improperly.

 

My solution now is to plug in a usb stick that boots PC mode and remove it to boot Atari OS.   It works, but consumes a USB slot unnecessarily.  

 

I know you can enter bios and change the boot device, but you have to be really quick to press ESC while booting.   Grub and refind offer much nicer boot menus and more time to make your selection.

 

I don't know if the Atari team has any advice on how to properly use such a boot menu?

 

Thanks

The ESC thing can be eased by repeatedly taping the key rather than trying to press it once during an elusive sweet spot.  I use Linux more than AtariOS so I also change the boot order to SSD>USB>eMMC    I found doing this easier than trying to get boot loaders like refind to work.  However, if you're getting the AtariOS update triggered, you may be booting the wrong EFI entry.  There are two:

'EFI Embedded MMC Device (TA2932)' boots AtariOS.
'EFI Embedded MMC Device 1 (TA2932)' boots the updater.

 

Edited December 5, 2022 by THX-1138

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50 minutes ago, THX-1138 said:

'EFI Embedded MMC Device (TA2932)' boots AtariOS.
'EFI Embedded MMC Device 1 (TA2932)' boots the updater.

Oh interesting!   I had previous read that they were clones of each other.

 

1 hour ago, THX-1138 said:

I use Linux more than AtariOS so I also change the boot order to SSD>USB>eMMC    I found doing this easier than trying to get boot loaders like refind to work.

Yeah I was happy when they added the ability to give SSD boot priority over eMMC to BIOS,   I envisioned that I'd be able to install reFind onto the SSD, have it boot first and select the OS.   But it didn't work, booted right into my Ubuntu partition instead.   Did some digging with uefi tools and it seems that the UEFI boot partition is still located on eMMC.   I don't really want to alter the eMMC with my own bootloader,  I'd rather it be on a disk that I control.   But I don't know how to move it or even if I should...

 

I just makes me realize how little I know about UEFI compared to the old MBR boot methods.   What I want to do would be trivial on an MBR-based boot system

 

And I'm afraid of doing too much experimenting that I might leave the system unbootable 

[THX-1138]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Oh interesting!   I had previous read that they were clones of each other.

 

Yeah I was happy when they added the ability to give SSD boot priority over eMMC to BIOS,   I envisioned that I'd be able to install reFind onto the SSD, have it boot first and select the OS.   But it didn't work, booted right into my Ubuntu partition instead.   Did some digging with uefi tools and it seems that the UEFI boot partition is still located on eMMC.   I don't really want to alter the eMMC with my own bootloader,  I'd rather it be on a disk that I control.   But I don't know how to move it or even if I should...

 

I just makes me realize how little I know about UEFI compared to the old MBR boot methods.   What I want to do would be trivial on an MBR-based boot system

 

And I'm afraid of doing too much experimenting that I might leave the system unbootable 

On this particular VCS I'm using right now I am running Linux Mint (Ubuntu) off an internal M.2, the bootloader is on the eMMC (TA2932) though.  I will double check later what my other VCS is set to, but I think that's the same.  I remember in experiments I did that when I tried to put the bootloader on an SSD (as opposed to the TA2932 eMMC), it failed to boot.  I didn't really do much investigation, just reinstalled with the loader on the eMMC.

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6 minutes ago, THX-1138 said:

On this particular VCS I'm using right now I am running Linux Mint (Ubuntu) off an internal M.2, the bootloader is on the eMMC (TA2932) though.  I will double check later what my other VCS is set to, but I think that's the same.  I remember in experiments I did that when I tried to put the bootloader on an SSD (as opposed to the TA2932 eMMC), it failed to boot.  I didn't really do much investigation, just reinstalled with the loader on the eMMC.

yeah if I set bios to SSD first, it will boot into ubuntu, but not refind even though it's supposedly installed on that drive.   

 

But now I'm thinking...   I remember there were "legacy boot" options in BIOS,  I wonder if I can put grub on MBR of SSD, enable legacy boot, and ensure grub is booting EFI Embedded MMC Device (TA2932) if that will give me what I want?

 

 

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On 12/5/2022 at 2:35 PM, THX-1138 said:

On this particular VCS I'm using right now I am running Linux Mint (Ubuntu) off an internal M.2, the bootloader is on the eMMC (TA2932) though.  I will double check later what my other VCS is set to, but I think that's the same.  I remember in experiments I did that when I tried to put the bootloader on an SSD (as opposed to the TA2932 eMMC), it failed to boot.  I didn't really do much investigation, just reinstalled with the loader on the eMMC.

I've been reading up more..   turns out my SSD does not have its own /boot partition (aka known as the ESP -- EFI System Partition).  Theoretically if I create one, then it will use that when I boot, and I can install a boot manager there.   Right now I guess it just boots the boots the first OS it finds on the SSD if SSD is given boot priority over eMMC.

 

Luckily I still have some unpartitioned space on that drive, so I'll try that.   I just hate experimenting with boot stuff, in case something goes wrong.

[THX-1138]

16 hours ago, zzip said:

I've been reading up more..   turns out my SSD does not have its own /boot partition (aka known as the ESP -- EFI System Partition).  Theoretically if I create one, then it will use that when I boot, and I can install a boot manager there.   Right now I guess it just boots the boots the first OS it finds on the SSD if SSD is given boot priority over eMMC.

 

Luckily I still have some unpartitioned space on that drive, so I'll try that.   I just hate experimenting with boot stuff, in case something goes wrong.

I did kind of experiment, accidentally removed the wrong EFI entry, had to reinstall AtariOS, but -accidentally- ended up with a situation where the boot partitions of each drive are working individually.  I can't recall the specific details of how I did it, there was a lot of swearing and coffee involved.

(We have inadvertently hijacked this thread - sorry, I suggest to @justclaws these posts be moved?)

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5 hours ago, THX-1138 said:

I did kind of experiment, accidentally removed the wrong EFI entry, had to reinstall AtariOS, but -accidentally- ended up with a situation where the boot partitions of each drive are working individually.  I can't recall the specific details of how I did it, there was a lot of swearing and coffee involved.

if I understand the boot process correctly now,  it sounds like each disk can have it's own EFI system partition,  and it will use the EFI from whichever disk it boots from.

 

I plan on adding this partition to my SSD this weekend and take another stab at getting the bootloader to work.

 

5 hours ago, THX-1138 said:

(We have inadvertently hijacked this thread - sorry, I suggest to @justclaws these posts be moved?)

If my experiment above works, I'll start a new thread to explain to anyone interested how to get it working