bug#40496: cannot install bootloader

[Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_bab@web.de>]

Marius Bakke <mbakke@fastmail.com> writes:

> Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_bab@web.de> writes:
>
>> Marius Bakke <mbakke@fastmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_bab@web.de> writes:
>>>>   1. &message: "'/gnu/store/xlcbi7dc89n4wvyz4jk6j0g4590ymi6q-grub-efi-2.04/sbin/grub-install --boot-directory //boot --bootloader-id=Guix --efi-directory //boot/efi' exited with status 1; output follows:\n\n  /gnu/store/xlcbi7dc89n4wvyz4jk6j0g4590ymi6q-grub-efi-2.04/sbin/grub-install: error: /gnu/store/xlcbi7dc89n4wvyz4jk6j0g4590ymi6q-grub-efi-2.04/lib/grub/i386-pc/modinfo.sh doesn't exist. Please specify --target or --directory.\n"
>>>
>>> This error suggests that you are attempting to use EFI GRUB on a non-EFI
>>> system.
>>>
>>> More specifically, you are using 'grub-efi-bootloader', but 'grub-efi'
>>> failed to detect a UEFI system and attempts to install the 'i386-pc'
>>> (BIOS) target instead, which does not exist in 'grub-efi'.
>>>
>>> Does that ring a bell?
>>
>> Yes: I’m now booting from the live-USB Stick of Guix, so grub might not
>> detect that this is a UEFI system.
>
> Disabling "legacy BIOS compatibility" in your firmware configuration
> should work around this.  Some firmwares tend to try "legacy" boot
> before a native UEFI boot on external media.

I’ll try that, thank you!

> The GRUB EFI detection code just checks whether /sys/firmware/efi
> exists, which is only the case when you are already booted in "UEFI
> mode".
>
>> I don’t know why it stopped booting. After a pull + system reconfigure
>> on 30th of March, the bios did not see my system disk as bootable
>> anymore — but this could also be due to problems in the disk, so I’m not
>> sure that it’s due to Guix.
>
> That's terrible.

Yes, wednesday and thursday last week were hard days. This is my
homeoffice computer and I only got everything I require for work back
into fully working state yesterday. Though on the bright side: Friday to
tuesday I actually worked more or less productively with Emacs lsp-java
plus workarounds.

> I hope you are able to recover your system. If the problem is "just"
> that the boot entry is missing,

Do you mean in grub?

> you should be able to create a new one
> with "efibootmgr --create" manually. Here is a typical entry with the
> EFI System Partition as the first partition of a disk:
>
> # efibootmgr -v
> BootCurrent: 0000
> Timeout: 1 seconds
> BootOrder: 0000,0002
> Boot0000* Guix  HD(1,GPT,32944052-6012-4cda-b270-fe653d430c84,0x800,0x4800)/File(\EFI\Guix\grubx64.efi)

When I run efibootmgr -v, I get an error:
$ efibootmgr -v
EFI variables are not supported on this system.

> 1 is the partition number, and the UUID is the same as 'lsblk -o
> PARTUUID /dev/sda1' assuming your disk is /dev/sda.  I don't remember
> what 0x800 and 0x4800 means, but don't think they are required.

I get somewhat too little information from that:

$ lsblk -O /dev/nvme1n1p1
NAME KNAME PATH MAJ:MIN FSAVAIL FSSIZE FSTYPE FSUSED FSUSE% MOUNTPOINT LABEL UUID PTUUID PTTYPE PARTTYPE PARTLABEL PARTUUID PARTFLAGS  RA RO RM HOTPLUG MODEL SERIAL  SIZE STATE OWNER GROUP MODE       ALIGNMENT MIN-IO OPT-IO PHY-SEC LOG-SEC ROTA SCHED RQ-SIZE TYPE DISC-ALN DISC-GRAN DISC-MAX DISC-ZERO WSAME WWN RAND PKNAME HCTL TRAN   SUBSYSTEMS REV VENDOR ZONED
nvme1n1p1
     nvme1n1p1
           /dev/nvme1n1p1
                259:2     15,4G 884,9G        824,5G    93% /home                                                                     128  0  0       0               900G       root  disk  brw-rw----         0    512      0     512     512    0 none     1023 part        0      512B       2T         0    0B        0             nvme   block:nvme:pci

Best wishes,
Arne
--
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heißt politisch sein
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