Re: Laptop won’t boot after Guix install

[Julien Lepiller]

Hi Ian,

Something similar happened to me before. After reconfiguring a lot of times, 
the firmaware had no space left for EFI variables. I didn't notice the error 
message at first because guix system did succeed. Maybe you have some similar 
errors that don't lead to a failure? What does the last phase say, when 
installing the bootloader?

Le 6 janvier 2024 04:41:34 GMT+01:00, Ian Eure <ian@retrospec.tv> a écrit :
>Hello,
>
>I have Guix running on one computer already, and wanted to set it up on 
>another, a ThinkPad L390 Yoga.  This was previously running Debian, but I 
>wiped it to put Guix on, by running `sudo dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/nvme0n1 
>bs=1M'.  After the Guix install, the laptop doesn’t boot -- the firmware shows 
>a boot device selection menu, rather than bootint into Guix.  The only entry 
>is the internal NVMe SSD, and choosing it does nothing -- the firmware can’t 
>figure out how to boot from it.  I tried two other third-party installers 
>based on Guix 1.4.0, and got the same result.  The installer boots and runs 
>fine, the install process appears to succeed, but after restarting, the 
>machine doesn’t boot.
>
>This is a very vanilla setup.  I used the graphical Guix installer, let it 
>partition things, and have one partition for everything.  I have no other OS 
>on this computer, I’m not dual-booting, net-booting, or anything else exotic.
>
>Secure boot is disabled in the BIOS.
>
>I tried updating the firmware on the laptop and restoring it to the default 
>settings -- no change.
>
>I tried wiping the partition table again, but using /dev/zero -- no change.
>
>If I boot the installer image and drop into its GRUB menu, I can chainload 
>GRUB off the internal SSD’s ESP, which lets me boot Guix.  So the installation 
>itself is fine, but the bootloader is broken.  After booting this way, I tried 
>`guix pull' and `sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm'.  This also 
>didn’t work -- the machine still will not boot.
>
>After digging in the ESP, I thought I’d found a clue: the GRUB payload is 
>placed at /EFI/Guix/grubx64.efi, and there’s no /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI, which 
>is typically what a UEFI platform would look for to begin booting the OS.  
>But!  My existing Guix machine (a ThinkPad X13 Gen 2 AMD) *does* boot, but 
>*doesn’t* have a /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI payload, either.  My Debian machine has 
>/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI as well as /EFI/debian/grubx64.efi -- both files have 
>identical contents per sha256sum.  But but!  The X13 *also* has some Debian 
>files in the ESP, so it’s not 100% identical to the L390.  Not sure how those 
>got there.  It’s also a former Debian box, but I wiped it, and am surprised to 
>see anything remaining from that.
>
>My only hypothesis around this is that perhaps the EFI variables are messed 
>up, and resetting BIOS settings doesn’t clear them. That might make the BIOS 
>do something weird in its boot process; or make GRUB think some other OS is 
>installed, and install the bootloader wrong for a single-OS setup.
>
>Does anyone have any suggestions or advice?  Needing a USB stick to boot the 
>machine is a pain.
>
>Thanks,
>
> — Ian
>