Puzzled about lack of UEFI Secure boot symbols in BIOS screen

[phoenix1963]

Hi, I've installed 15.10 on a new home built PC.
However, in the (Asus) BIOS screen the Live USB shows as UEFI, but the main boot drive shows no UEFI symbol.

Secure boot in MS mode is shown as "on".

Has Ubuntu installed in Secure boot UEFI mode or not?

Maybe the SSD I'm using is not UEFI compatible (Kingston SV300S37A60G)?

How do I know what's going on?

phoenix1963

[oldfred]

If you install in UEFI boot mode there are the standard unsigned kernels & grub files or the signed versions for UEFI with secure boot.
But if you installed in BIOS boot mode there is no secure boot setting.
Three ways you can install or boot. UEFI, UEFI with secure boot, and BIOS. Only one includes secure boot.

Post the link to the Create BootInfo summary report. Is part of Boot-Repair:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Info

My Asus motherboard made it difficult to boot in UEFI mode at all.
It had settings for Windows & Other, and I believe other was not secure boot and Windows was. But I do not use secure boot.

[sudodus]

When running Ubuntu, you can use the following command line in a terminal window to check if the computer is running in UEFI or BIOS mode


test -d /sys/firmware/efi && echo efi || echo bios

See more about UEFI at the following link (and links from it),

Installation/FromUSBStick#UEFI (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick#UEFI)

[phoenix1963]

Thanks for the links to a lot of info, it'll take a while to figure out which is the crucial bit.

Sudodus: it returns "bios", so it's booting the old fashioned way. But when I try the same command on my live-usb I get "efi", so presumably the image I've used is EFI bootable (i.e. signed).

So reading through some of the links, I suspect I may simply need to change the configuration files to get it booting the UEFI way. Hopefully this won't mean putting the PKs into the BIOS...

My starting point was originally https://linuxconfig.org/legacy-bios-uefi-and-secureboot-ready-ubuntu-live-image-customization, a good article, but I fell down at this stage:


sudo xorriso -as mkisofs -isohybrid-mbr isolinux/isohdpfx.bin \
-c isolinux/boot.cat -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 \
-boot-info-table -eltorito-alt-boot -e boot/grub/efi.img -no-emul-boot \
-isohybrid-gpt-basdat -o ../custom-ubuntu.iso .

because my xorriso doesn't find "isohybrid-gpt-basdat". So I just used the default iso instead.

phoenix1963

[sudodus]

Some computers can be set to boot either in UEFI mode or BIOS mode depending on what system you are booting. I have a Lenovo Thinkpad with such a BIOS/UEFI menu, and I can select which mode is preferred if the system can be booted in both modes. It can also be set to boot only in UEFI mode or BIOS mode. I suggest that you check your BIOS/UEFI menus, if it is possible to force it into one of the modes.

'Signed' means that it works with secure boot. You can boot an unsigned system in UEFI mode too, but not with secure boot.

[oldfred]

Why are you going thru the build your own customized ISO when you can just install with the standard 64 bit ISO.

You will need to use the 64 bit version of 14.04 or 15.10 and from the UEFI menu boot the flash drive in UEFI mode. That way it will install in UEFI mode.
Systems need Windows fast start up (hibernation) and UEFI/BIOS fast boot quick boot UEFI settings. Vital for some systems.
Use Windows Disk Tools to shrink Windows main partition, but not to create any new partitions, if installing on same drive. Reboot after shrink so it can run its repairs to its new size.
Backup efi(ESP) partition and Windows partition before Install of Ubuntu. Only one efi partition per hard drive.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI


Ubuntu UEFI install ISO
Also links on how to create a bootable DVD or USB flash drive, from Windows or Ubuntu
http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download
Easy way to create UEFI only bootable flash drive
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2299040

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick
these should then work:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/mkusb
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Win32DiskImager/iso2usb

[phoenix1963]

I've solved it all by point 2 in my recent post http://http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2325340 (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2325340).

Many thanks to Rod of Rod's books.

phoenix1963