Re: grub not properly installing in GuixSD

[Joshua Branson]

I believe the board and APU came out around 2014.  The cpu is an AMD AM1.

The mother board is the gigabyte AM1M-S2H.

The specification for that board is here:  https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-AM1M-S2H-rev-10#sp

On the BIOS column it says:  1 x 32 Mbit flash.  Does that mean that the firmware is 32-bit?  I’m not sure…

Just to clarify, my desktop machine did detect that the usb could be booted via UEFI or via legacy boot.  I could either choose to boot guixSD via UEFI or via legacy.  I could only get it to boot properly the legacy way.  When I chose the UEFI option, it hanged.

BUT to be sure, I entered my bios and now my computer will only boot in UEFI mode.  When I tell my computer to boot via the usb (using UEFI and booting GuixSD), it fails to boot at some point.  Here’s some of the last entries:

snd_hda_codec_realtex hdaudioC1D0:

….

[drm] radeon kernel modesetting enabled

….

AMD IOMMUv2 driver by Joerg Roedel 

…

CU CPU: cores=4 id_base=0

…

found cache entry in CRAT table with processor_id=1

...

Creating topology SYSFS entries

Finished initializing topology ret=0

kfd kfd: Initialized module

fb: switching to radeondrmfb from EFI VGA   

Then it hangs and does nothing more.   I’m assuming that it is has something to do with the APU, but I don’t know.  Actually, it could be that Arch Linux uses a vanilla kernel.  Perhaps the linux-libre kernel doesn’t ship with some certain needed proprietary firmware…actually I’m reading online on several places (online) that this is a problem with mode setting the radeon driver.  If I change the grub command line to disable modesetting, then I may be able to boot properly.   The problem is that I don’t see grub anywhere in my boot process.   

After I turn on the machine, I see a splash image of Gigabyte logo, then I immediately see my boot options.  Arch Linux, or reboot into firmware.  I can’t seem to figure out how to get to the grub command prompt to tell it that I want to boot the usb via UEFI, and disable mode setting…..I think the reason why I do not see grub loading, is because I am using systemd-boot and not grub. hahah.  No wonder I can’t read the grub command prompt.   So now I need to uninstall systemd-boot, boot via grub, then I’ll be able to get to the grub command prompt.

Ok, I booted Arch Linux.  uninstalled systemd-boot.  Installed grub.  Now I am trying to boot the usb stick via UEFI.  systemd-boot was smart enough to realize that I had a usb stick that wanted to boot.  Default grub doesn’t seem to be…That’s ok.  I can do this manually.  I go to a grub command prompt, and am I trying to get the usb to boot.  Chainloading it didn’t work.

aka:  set root=(hd0,gpt5)

chainloader +1

boot

So now I am trying to get grub to boot the usb stick to boot via UEFI.  Since I’ve disabled booting in legacy mode in my bios, it should boot via UEFI.

set root=(hd1,gpt5)

linux (hd1,gpt1)/vmlinuz-linux rw root=/dev/sda5 nomodeset 

initrd (hd1,gtp1)/initramfs-linux.img

boot

gpt5 on the usb stick is the root.  Label “my-root.”   and gpt1 is a fat filesystem.  So  I guess I’m choosing the right partitions.  though is /dev/sda right???

When I try booting this: /dev/sda5 is mounted cleanly (is that the same thing as hd1,gpt5 ?)  but I get an error message:  /sbin/init does not exist.   Bailing out, you are on your own.  Good luck.

And now I’m in a rootfs prompt.

I’ll keep trying to figure out how to book the usb stick via grub….

On Jul 17, 2017, at 5:47 PM, Marius Bakke <address@hidden> wrote:

Joshua Branson <address@hidden> writes:

Hello,

I’m currently trying to dual boot Arch Linux and GuixSD on a desktop machine that I built.  GuixSD seems to be installing well, but grub in not properly installing.  I’m trying to boot using grub-efi.


After I run guix system init /mnt/etc/bare-bones.scm  /mnt


I get this error:


grub-install: error: /gnu/store/ipwgwqaarp304r82…….-grub-efi-2.02/lib/grub/i386-pc/modinfo.sh doesn’t exist.  Please specify —target or —directory.

guix system: error: failed to install GRUB on device /dev/sda1


I believe that for some reason guixSD is install guix in a BIOS way.  At least that’s what this ask ubuntu forum says:   https://askubuntu.com/questions/763472/what-can-i-do-to-fix-this-error-on-grub-efi/763746   Apparently grub should be trying to install via X86_64….

Indeed. The error above indicates GRUB could not detect a UEFI system
and falls back to BIOS (i386-pc), but can't find the required files.

Now here’s detail about my set up.


parted p
/dev/sda1     500MB or so     vfat partition.
/dev/sda2     20 GB  Arch root
/dev/sda3    1GB swap
/dev/sda4    /home    for both Arch and GuixSD
/dev/sda5   /   for GuixSD.

The partition table is using GPT.

Looks good.

Arch linux is already installed.  It boots using UEFI, but Arch mounts /dev/sda1  to /boot.

I booted guixSD via a usb-stick.  I believe that I booted in BIOS mode.  I was unable to get the usbstick to boot via UEFI.

How old is your system, and in particular the mainboard? Do you know the
brand/model? I wonder if this is one of those famous systems with 32-bit
firmware and 64-bit CPU.

Is the GuixSD install image detected if you disable legacy BIOS support
altogether in your firmware? If not, can you test if the i686
installation image works?