[gentoo-user] A question regarding building Gentoo and UEFI vs Non UEFI

[gentoo-user] A question regarding building Gentoo and UEFI vs Non UEFI

[Andrew Lowe]

Dear all,
	In the past I had a non UEFI motherboard setup for my Gentoo machine.
The motherboard started failing so I took the opportunity to replace the
motherboard & CPU and also to buy a new SSD thingy to become the home of
my Gentoo install.

	I'm currently running, on a day to day  basis, the older hard disk, on
the new motherboard, but want to speed up the process of getting the new
SSD set up so I can swap over. Rather than booting into the SSD,
starting an emerge, and walking away, in other words, making my machine
useless for any number of hours, am I correct that there is no problem,
vis a vis, old hard disk built on non UEFI machine Vs new SSD built on
UEFI machine, of chrooting[1] from the old environment into new
environment and doing the building whilst I"m doing something productive
within the old environment?

	I just have this little niggling doubt, probably baseless, in the back
of my mind that there maybe something that may cause a problem for the
newly built stuff due to it not being natively booted in UEFI or
something like that when it was built.

	Anyone built their new machines like this who can allay my, probably
baseless, fears?

	Thanks,
		Andrew


[1] Just like in the "Installing the Gentoo base system" part of the
installation doco.

Re: [gentoo-user] A question regarding building Gentoo and UEFI vs Non UEFI

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

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On Mon, Nov 19, 2018 at 10:51 PM Andrew Lowe <agl@wht.com.au> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>         In the past I had a non UEFI motherboard setup for my Gentoo
machine.
> The motherboard started failing so I took the opportunity to replace the
> motherboard & CPU and also to buy a new SSD thingy to become the home of
> my Gentoo install.
>
>         I'm currently running, on a day to day  basis, the older hard
disk, on
> the new motherboard, but want to speed up the process of getting the new
> SSD set up so I can swap over. Rather than booting into the SSD,
> starting an emerge, and walking away, in other words, making my machine
> useless for any number of hours, am I correct that there is no problem,
> vis a vis, old hard disk built on non UEFI machine Vs new SSD built on
> UEFI machine, of chrooting[1] from the old environment into new
> environment and doing the building whilst I"m doing something productive
> within the old environment?
>
>         I just have this little niggling doubt, probably baseless, in the
back
> of my mind that there maybe something that may cause a problem for the
> newly built stuff due to it not being natively booted in UEFI or
> something like that when it was built.
>
>         Anyone built their new machines like this who can allay my,
probably
> baseless, fears?

I've done this exact same scenario two or three times by now. However, I
don't recompile anything, I just rsync the old drive into the new one, and
then I chroot (or, more often, I systemd-nspawn) into it and update the old
configuration where necesary. Unless you change from Intel to AMD it should
be fine (and even then it could be fine, depending on your CFLAGS).

Also, have a live USB around to boot into it for emergencies.

Regards.
--
Dr. Canek Peláez Valdés
Profesor de Carrera Asociado C
Departamento de Matemáticas
Facultad de Ciencias
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

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Re: [gentoo-user] A question regarding building Gentoo and UEFI vs Non UEFI

[Andrew Lowe]

On 20/11/18 13:12, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 19, 2018 at 10:51 PM Andrew Lowe <agl@wht.com.au
> <mailto:agl@wht.com.au>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear all,
<snip>
...
...
<snip>
> 
> I've done this exact same scenario two or three times by now. However, I
> don't recompile anything, I just rsync the old drive into the new one,
> and then I chroot (or, more often, I systemd-nspawn) into it and update
> the old configuration where necesary. Unless you change from Intel to
> AMD it should be fine (and even then it could be fine, depending on your
> CFLAGS).
> 
> Also, have a live USB around to boot into it for emergencies.
> 
> Regards.
> --
> Dr. Canek Peláez Valdés
> Profesor de Carrera Asociado C
> Departamento de Matemáticas
> Facultad de Ciencias
> Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Canek,
	Thanks for the reply. I've fiddled & "optimised" the old install enough
that I want a fresh start so will be compiling. I'm going older AMD to
newer AMD and always have a stick with SysRescue on it within easy reach.

	Hopefully all goes well,
		Andrew

Re: [gentoo-user] A question regarding building Gentoo and UEFI vs Non UEFI

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 20 Nov 2018 12:51:34 +0800, Andrew Lowe wrote:

> 	I just have this little niggling doubt, probably baseless, in
> the back of my mind that there maybe something that may cause a problem
> for the newly built stuff due to it not being natively booted in UEFI or
> something like that when it was built.

The only issue you're likely to face is setting up booting from the SSD.
You need to be booted via UEFI to set up UEFI booting, but you can do
that from your SysResCd stick.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Few women admit their age. Few men act theirs.

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Re: [gentoo-user] A question regarding building Gentoo and UEFI vs Non UEFI

[Andrew Lowe]

On 20/11/18 17:16, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Nov 2018 12:51:34 +0800, Andrew Lowe wrote:
> 
>> 	I just have this little niggling doubt, probably baseless, in
>> the back of my mind that there maybe something that may cause a problem
>> for the newly built stuff due to it not being natively booted in UEFI or
>> something like that when it was built.
> 
> The only issue you're likely to face is setting up booting from the SSD.
> You need to be booted via UEFI to set up UEFI booting, but you can do
> that from your SysResCd stick.
> 
> 

	The SSD is up and running. I get Gentoo booting to a console and I'm
now in the process of getting stuff installed, LibreOffice, Firefox,
Thunderird etc, stuff that takes ages to build. So now that I'm
confident that things will work, I can continue to work, from the old
disk, chroot into the new and continue to install there.

	Thanks,
		Andrew

Re: [gentoo-user] A question regarding building Gentoo and UEFI vs Non UEFI

[Mick]

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On Tuesday, 20 November 2018 09:29:42 GMT Andrew Lowe wrote:
> On 20/11/18 17:16, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> > On Tue, 20 Nov 2018 12:51:34 +0800, Andrew Lowe wrote:
> >> 	I just have this little niggling doubt, probably baseless, in
> >> 
> >> the back of my mind that there maybe something that may cause a problem
> >> for the newly built stuff due to it not being natively booted in UEFI or
> >> something like that when it was built.
> > 
> > The only issue you're likely to face is setting up booting from the SSD.
> > You need to be booted via UEFI to set up UEFI booting, but you can do
> > that from your SysResCd stick.
> 
> 	The SSD is up and running. I get Gentoo booting to a console and I'm
> now in the process of getting stuff installed, LibreOffice, Firefox,
> Thunderird etc, stuff that takes ages to build. So now that I'm
> confident that things will work, I can continue to work, from the old
> disk, chroot into the new and continue to install there.
> 
> 	Thanks,
> 		Andrew

You can check you have booted with UEFI instead of MBR legacy (emulation) by 
listing the EFI variables:

ls -la /sys/firmware/efi/

If it's empty you have booted in good ol' MBR.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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