UEFI Boot and Puppy --- is there a noob HowTo?

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HoerMirAuf
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UEFI Boot and Puppy --- is there a noob HowTo?

#1 Post by HoerMirAuf »

Hi Volks,

i use Puppy now for a long time on all my LapTops and Desktop PCs... and i love it! (the only ... i don't like Rox ... ;) )

Now i bougth a new Acer Aspire Notbook, with Win8 OEM (no install DVD, only Recover Partition and no way to install it as legacy boot) and UEFI Boot.

And here i have some trouble ... how to hell can i install Puppy near Windows on a UEFI machine? I can't disabel secure boot in the bios, because its blocked out

I read a lot about UEFI boot. I was downloading shim i tryed to sign it but i am not experienced enought. The only result was a blocked out HD.
And the bootloader was not displayed in the UEFI bootloader

I tryed out ubunt with UEFI install and this works. After installing ubuntu, one time i even got the message from mokmanager to enroll the key but the x509 key was broken :( (how make the guys fom ubuntu it displayed by UEFI boot manager? )

How ever .... i don't want Ubunutu, i want a powerful small Linux .. i want Puppy Slacko!

Is anybody here, who knows how to make a Frugal or Full installation on a damn UEFI unit?

(please apologize my broken english)

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greengeek
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#2 Post by greengeek »

Take it back to the store and ask them for a refund. Tell them that they did not explain to you that this PC is for restricted use only. Explain that it is not "fit-for-purpose" because it does not allow you to load the operating system of your own choice.

Explain to the store that if you had wanted to buy a restricted computer you could have chosen a Mac. Instead, you chose a PC because PCs are designed to give you choice, and the store failed to explain that this product has a defective bios.

Did this PC come with a written warning that it is only able to run Windows 8? No, I bet it did not. False advertising!

This PC is nothing more than an electronic advertising billboard for Microsoft. Did you want to pay your hard earned money for that? I don't think so.

tempestuous
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#3 Post by tempestuous »

HoerMirAuf wrote:i want Puppy Slacko!
There is no UEFI-compatible version of Puppy Slacko.

A forum search for "UEFI" would have found this for you -
"Fatdog64 with UEFI support: Test build (31 December 2012)"
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=83402

And in general, I agree with greengeek's comments.

Sylvander
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Location: West Lothian, Scotland, UK

#4 Post by Sylvander »

I'm no expert on this stuff, but...

1. I bought at my local "pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap" shop:
A PC that included a mobo=Asrock_H61M-S that includes a UEFI BIOS, that hasn't caused me any problems.
The BIOS seems to be rather sophisticated.
It automatically detects if I've changed to attempting to boot from a different device [HDD, or CD, or Flash Drive], although it does normally get it wrong 1st time, and I need to hit F11 and tell it which device to boot.
It then boots every time from that device, until the next time I change the boot device.

2. I've tried changing the order of boot devices in the BIOS Setup, but that order seems to automatically revert each time I change the boot device at bootup.
I just don't know how these things work, but it isn't causing me problems, so I leave well alone.

3. I successfully use 7 Puppies as follows:
a. Slacko-5.3.3.1 [My number-1 Puppy]
b. Dpup-Exprimo-5.x.3.4.2.8
c. Racy-5.3
d. Precise-5.4.2
e. Fatdog64-600-Firefox
f. Lina-003
g. Macpup-529

tempestuous
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#5 Post by tempestuous »

Sylvander wrote:I bought ...
... mobo=Asrock_H61M-S that includes a UEFI BIOS
I think you were just plain lucky. UEFI implementations vary greatly, and fortunately Asrock's UEFI appears to be not too restrictive.

It's worth reading the information in the Fat Dog thread, particularly the test results by kirk and JustGreg.

Sylvander
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Location: West Lothian, Scotland, UK

#6 Post by Sylvander »

tempestuous wrote:I think you were just plain lucky.
I think the shop knows what it's doing, and made sure that they chose to use a mobo with trouble free UEFI BIOS.
They are very selective in what items they choose to stock.
I'm normally not disappointed when I buy stuff from them.
When my old 2003 PC broke down, I went straight to the shop and bought my new basic PC...
[like this at £326, but with no OS at £245 if I remember right]...
i.e. Bought within 3 hours [in a hurry, with fingers crossed].
Told them I wanted to use it with Puppy Linux, and they said it would be OK.
See all of their various PC offerings listed here.

nooby
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#7 Post by nooby »

Sylvander you are very lucky to know that Shop then.

Here in Sweden one of our biggest chain of shops
that have Acer Notebook Laptops like teh one OP
write about sell them cheap but these guys know nothing
about UEFI at all. I made a phone call and he told me that
if I try to boot a Linux on it then it lose the Warranty.

that makes me pessimistic if OP will get his money back of
some other computer as a compensation.

I was just a few seconds from buying maybe an identical
Packard Bell Notenook as the OP
PB are a Sister or Daughter company of Acer.

So reading the FatDog thread and others on UEFI is a must.

I am not clever enough to get it so I decided to wait until
this bad UEFI situation clears up.

To OP some computers do allow that one make DVD recovery
back ups of the recovery just in case something happen.

I've also read that one could open the case and take out battery
and let the Capacitors that is back up decharge and then
put back battery and start all over and that should work
but most likely the warranty will goes down the drain
so think before you do anything drastic.

Most likely try to get your money back. or to find out how
to dual book buy joining Acer forum online or getting to know
other linux users with same Acer and learn from them.
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

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greengeek
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#8 Post by greengeek »

nooby wrote:Here in Sweden one of our biggest chain of shops
that have Acer Notebook Laptops like teh one OP
write about sell them cheap but these guys know nothing
about UEFI at all. I made a phone call and he told me that
if I try to boot a Linux on it then it lose the Warranty.
I am having the same experience in New Zealand. It seems that none of the staff who are working in retail stores have any idea what UEFI is, or how much it cripples a PC.

I will be writing to our major retailers to explain that they are in breach of the NZ "Fair Trading Act" by failing to explain to their staff and customers that the new PCs are partially crippled, and that there is a risk of invalidating the warranty or even destroying the machine if an attempt is made to trial a different operating system.

Every PC which contains this crippleware should be highlighted with a very large sticker warning the customer of this danger. And the price should be dropped by 50% compared to previous models which did not contain this crippled function.

nooby
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#9 Post by nooby »

Keep us informed what they answer.
Somebody better at using English than what I am
should write to Acer forum online and ask if somebody
can help HoerMirAuf the OP in this thread who actually
need a solution so try to help him. I am not clever enough sadly
But I want to buy a new computer but don't trust there is a way
to know in advance if it is the easy to change or the hard to change
version them sell here locally. They are special made for Sweden
due to our åäö needs to be changed on each of them.
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

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greengeek
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#10 Post by greengeek »

I wonder what happens if a Win8/UEFI PC gets a virus? Can you boot into Hirens or some other preferred OS to clean things up?

Most customers would expect they could recover the PC using traditional methods like this but maybe not...

Maybe as well as locking down the OS it forces the user to go to specially authorised repair centres?

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HoerMirAuf
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#11 Post by HoerMirAuf »

Hi Volks,

thanks a lot for all your replies!!

I think, UEFI is not a bad thing, but its too new to have much experience with it. It seems complicated but the same i thougt the first time about grub ;)

After a long quest a have found 3 solutions.
The savest: ( i`m not sure, if i am right) Compile a sign uefi able kernel image and boot it with a microsoft-certificated bootloader like shim. But such things nothing for noobs like me :)

The Next: Disable secure-boot option in Bios. After talking with some guys from bios-mod forum, they shows me a undocumented way to disable secure-boot in Bios. (Great, thank you guys from bios-mod forum!) Now it is able to boot a unsigned efi image. But .... here it is necessary to know sometihng about efi. I was not able with my knowledge to make it work.

The last (thats my way): Grapp a untouched Win 8 PRO image. There are legal ways with setup-tool from microsoft o borrow a install-dvd from a friend. You can read out your Product-Key with pkeys.exe tool. But that was not needful because the Key was deposited in the Bios. Set the HDD to mdos Partition table (with gparted - Attention! All data will be lost!) an make a cleaninstall (please, save your HDD first with clonezilla or something similar) The advantage: No more grabbware on your unit! Win8 will be aktivated with your Product-key during your first internet connection.

Ok.... now you have your good old mdos Partitiontable!!! Install Grub4Dos or Grub .... an have fun! :)

I am glad my Puppy Slacko is running now beside Windows 8 !!!

( i know, my englisch isn t very good, apologize)

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darkcity
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#12 Post by darkcity »

congrats on getting your setup working.

My understanding is that how easy it is to boot Linux on UEFI depends on how the hardware vendor implemented. Annoyingly there does not seem to be standardized way.

Also EFI seems to have many bugs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2aq5M3Q76U

nooby
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#13 Post by nooby »

wow good that you did get what you wanted
but it is not a noob solution at all :)

suppose I buy Packard Bell Notebook
here locally. I don't trust I could replicate
what you describe there at all.
and I would not have access to that DVD
that is needed either.
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

optiplexic
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#14 Post by optiplexic »

Changing BIOS mode from UEFI to Legacy

This article only applies to: Windows 8 Notebooks

Bootable media from previous versions of Windows may not be recognized in Windows 8. You can change the Boot Mode setting from UEFI to Legacy BIOS, and it should recognize the bootable device.

Use the following steps to change the Boot Mode:

Completely shut down your computer.
Power on the system. As soon as the first logo screen appears, immediately press F2 to enter the BIOS.
Use the right arrow key to select Boot.
With Boot Mode highlighted, press Enter, and then use the down arrow to select Legacy BIOS.
Press Enter.
Press F10, and select Yes to save the change and exit the BIOS.

This is from the acer website, the desktop is a little different. According to the people who have read the agreement, Microsoft states that you must be able to disable the secure boot on the machine. So I guess they should all have instructions on their websites. (Microsoft probably did not want a lawsuit!)

nooby
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#15 Post by nooby »

Thanks much appreciated that you share this info
hopefully that works on our Swedish versions
of Acer and Packard Bell too. But I don't dare to buy one
just for to find out :)
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

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greengeek
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#16 Post by greengeek »

Here is the response I got from Dick Smith Electronics (DSE) when I emailed them to explain that they were not correctly informing customers about the restrictive nature of the UEFI and possible maintenance difficulties and loss of resale value:

"Thank you for your feedback
The UEFI is an update to the computers traditional BIOS that had not
changed for many years and needed to be updated.
Dick Smith sells the computers products as supplied by the
manufacturers and do not modify them ourselves.
We do provide the the basic system requirement at the time of sale and
also most manufacturers do provide specifications on their website

Nigel xxxxxxx
Customer Liaison Specialist"



So basically, read the manufacturers website before you go shopping or else it's just too bad. I don't think they are going far enough to educate the customer or explain how much the customer will be affected over the lifetime of the purchase. What happens in a year or two when they need maintenance or want to run Fedora or Android? What's the resale value going to be like? Will these PCs be of any use to someone who is learning Linux programming?

I doubt I'd be buying a PC that requires me to go cap-in-hand to some organisation for an "OS approval certificate". I guess if the "legacy" thingy works ok there may be no problems, but we shall see...

nooby
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#17 Post by nooby »

I have only tested one of our biggest resellers of computers.
Elgiganten.se and not the other chains of resellers so maybe
my info is not complete but what they told me is that the warranty
get ditched if I try to do dual boot install on the computer.

what it means is that I can not take a DVD or USB with me
to the store and test if it allow me to boot even because
they would say they can not risk there is some virus on that DVD/USB

So the only way to find out would be to ask the Press Officer/Information
Service of the Acer or Asus or Dell or HP or whatever company that have
that laptop or desktop made.

One can not trust the resellers to care. They sell them as is.
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

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HoerMirAuf
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#18 Post by HoerMirAuf »

Hi nooby..

... here in germany it is the same. I went to a shop and ask the reseller if i can try to boot from my usb-device. But he sayed the same like your resller. So, i bought my Notbook in the www. In germany you can give back every thing bought in internet since 2 weeks.

About lost warranty .... why it should lost it if you make a dual boot? You are not committed to use only windows on the Notebook. It is no improperly use, isn't it? You don't break any seals, only change the software. You can backup it bevore and if you want restore it to the original condition.
So the only way to find out would be to ask the Press Officer/Information
Service of the Acer or Asus or Dell or HP or whatever company that have
that laptop or desktop made.
On the search to my solution i started a request to Acer how to disable the secure-boot in Bios. The answer i get back from the support was wrong. They gave me not working instruction .... but, thanks good, the bios-mods guys knew the right way.

To switch between lagacy boot and uefi through bios is not very useful for every day use. On this way you can only boot from usb or similar, because you can't install any other bootloader to your gbt partitiontable-HDD. But you can use ubuntu by example. It can manage uefi an it is easy to install it beside windows8.

nooby
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Location: SwedenEurope

#19 Post by nooby »

HoerMirAuf , thanks for sharing your experiences.

I get curious on dual boot with Ubuntu.
Would that dual boot maybe allow us to
ride on Ubuntu by adding to the Ubuntu
boot a frugal install of any standard Puppy?

One use Ubuntu to enter the extra line of code
to the boot entry for ubuntu? So when one change
from windows to Ubuntu one see two entries there

Ubuntu and Puppy? Or am I too naive maybe?

How is it set up that only Ubuntu can be seen?
Does the boot complain if one try to change the code?

Does it get over ridden each time one shut down Ubuntu
so it is always fresh when one reboot? Could one not
manually add Puppy to the menu.lst something for Ubuntu?

The Puppy directory are only files on the same partition
that have Ubuntu so would the boot program know one
added that code?

Sorry me ask so much.

I can buy the cheapest "Acer" now on Sunday here locally.
Less than 300€uro for 4GB RAM and 500MB HD
and 64bit Laptop. Would be cool to have but if it fail to boot
then it is lost money so me feel too unsure and want to have
some kind of good advice first. :)
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

kirk
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#20 Post by kirk »

I think BIOS is gone on new computers. All I've seen now is UEFI. It's really not that bad. Secure boot can be disabled on all computers that ship with Windows 8. With Fatdog64-620 we support booting with Secure boot on or off. If it's on you'll be prompted to add Fatdog64's key. Here's some links to our FAQs that will give you some more information:

How to make a flash drive that will boot on BIOS and UEFI:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/fa ... drive.html

How to add Fatdog64's key for secure boot:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/fa ... -boot.html

How to do a frugal dual boot with Windows 8:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/fa ... drive.html

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