Jawfish
May 24th, 2016, 06:17 PM
Goal: I needed to have a standard disk image that we can use on many endpoints. We'll use dd to install it and then expand the partitions to fit. It has to work on HDDs/SSDs/USBsticks.
Problem: I was unable to get a bootable UEFI disk using the 16.04 installer, even after following much advice from experts. Bootable MBR was easy.
Note: this recipe may not work with your BIOS.
After many experiments I succeeded with this recipe:
Set BIOS to UEFI only. This changes the way the installer works. This was the key breakthrough for me YMMV.
Option 1: you need a multi-partition, multi-boot setup.
Using a 16.04 installation, ( might work on 14.04, but safer to use Xenial) run gparted ( or parted)
Insert your target drive or flashdrive, reboot as needed
and
Make the target disk gpt
create a Fat32 partition at the beginning of the disk, recommendations vary from 200-500Mb.
Make your other partitions as you wish, even if they are root they won't be bootable.
The EFI partition must be bootable, and choose "EFI..." for its use
You do not need to set the EFI partition to mount at /boot/efi, the installer took care of that
skip to installer instructions below
I tried to create the partitions using the installer, and you might get that to work, but this recipe is what worked for me.
Option 2: you just need a single-boot system that works
skip to the installer below
installer instructions:
Insert USB livecd stick and reboot on the USB stick.
Being careful not to change your pre-installed system ( the installer will try to use other efi boot partitions and swap spaces, if they are available, for instance on your installed system)
Run the installer as usual and choose guided or manual partitioning. I found that with 4 installed partitions I could use guided and still get what I want, but be sure to check the plan before you say "yes" write to disk.
Notes:
By "installer" I mean the server 64 bit iso copied to a flashdrive. It may be that 32bit versions do not handly UEFI/GPT well, esp grub.
Get a fast flashdrive, don't waste time on cheapies.
If you need a second boot partition, I was able to simply copy the files for the installed partition to the second one, edit fstab and the grub files with the correct UUIDs and hd#-part# in the menus, run update-grub and get it working.
Problem: I was unable to get a bootable UEFI disk using the 16.04 installer, even after following much advice from experts. Bootable MBR was easy.
Note: this recipe may not work with your BIOS.
After many experiments I succeeded with this recipe:
Set BIOS to UEFI only. This changes the way the installer works. This was the key breakthrough for me YMMV.
Option 1: you need a multi-partition, multi-boot setup.
Using a 16.04 installation, ( might work on 14.04, but safer to use Xenial) run gparted ( or parted)
Insert your target drive or flashdrive, reboot as needed
and
Make the target disk gpt
create a Fat32 partition at the beginning of the disk, recommendations vary from 200-500Mb.
Make your other partitions as you wish, even if they are root they won't be bootable.
The EFI partition must be bootable, and choose "EFI..." for its use
You do not need to set the EFI partition to mount at /boot/efi, the installer took care of that
skip to installer instructions below
I tried to create the partitions using the installer, and you might get that to work, but this recipe is what worked for me.
Option 2: you just need a single-boot system that works
skip to the installer below
installer instructions:
Insert USB livecd stick and reboot on the USB stick.
Being careful not to change your pre-installed system ( the installer will try to use other efi boot partitions and swap spaces, if they are available, for instance on your installed system)
Run the installer as usual and choose guided or manual partitioning. I found that with 4 installed partitions I could use guided and still get what I want, but be sure to check the plan before you say "yes" write to disk.
Notes:
By "installer" I mean the server 64 bit iso copied to a flashdrive. It may be that 32bit versions do not handly UEFI/GPT well, esp grub.
Get a fast flashdrive, don't waste time on cheapies.
If you need a second boot partition, I was able to simply copy the files for the installed partition to the second one, edit fstab and the grub files with the correct UUIDs and hd#-part# in the menus, run update-grub and get it working.