Re: [gentoo-user] New PC, new boot concepts

[Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk>]

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On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 15:22:04 +0000, Mick wrote:

> The MoBo is capable of booting in CMS mode, but I am not sure if there
> are any benefits in creating a 2MB partition for a conventional MBR
> bootloader, or I should forego MBR altogether and go directly with a
> GPT FAT32 EFI System Partition (ESP).
> 
> If the latter is the way to go and I forget all things I ever learned
> about MBR, does the 550MB FAT32 ESP partition have to be at the
> beginning of the drive?

Yes, it should be sda1. You can also use this partition as /boot, and
should do so if you use Gummiboot.

> Is it beneficial to install a Linux boot loader/manager like GRUB2, or
> rEFInd, etc., or should I just use the kernel EFI Boot Stub to boot
> gentoo with?

I use a bootloader, gummiboot, as it makes it easy to select different
options when booting.

> The PC will single boot in Gentoo, although I may drop in
> a sysrescuecd image for recovery purposes and would be nice to be able
> to boot this straight off the disk, without having to burn it on a
> CDROM.  Is it simply a matter of adding the LiveCD iso in the ESP with
> a .efi suffix, or will I need to use efibootmgr to inform the UEFI
> about *any* kernel images in the ESP other than the default
> EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi?

I still use GRUB to boot ISO images, and have a sysrescd image in /boot
for this. With UEFI, you can have more than one bootloader installed. I
hadn't considered the possibility of UEFI booting to an ISO directly, I'd
be interested to know if it is possible.

> Finally, what's your opinion on 'secure boot'?

That the main security is is aimed at is job security for MS employees. I
turn it off straight away.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Top Oxymorons Number 44: Advanced BASIC

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