Re: UEFI Boot with Grub-Experimental

[stephen]

Hi Reynold,

I've made some progress past you recently!  I think there are bugs in
the Linux Kernel now that must be overcome by the folks over at kernel
development.  Did you try the 'noefi' kernl boot flag?  It allowed me to
get past the hang and my system would actually boot.

Also, I'm using the new 2.6.35 RC kernel (the ubuntu-flavoured one,
acutally) -- i get a weird framebuffer hang (my screen turns orange) if
I use the kernel included in lucid (2.6.32).  I've yet to try 2.6.34;
let us know how it goes for you.

-stephen

On Fri, 2 Jul 2010 16:14:53 +0200 (CEST), Reynald Lercier
<address@hidden> wrote:
> I observed a similar beahaviour as stephen in my side.
> 
> Especially I had no dificulty at all to switch to a 1680x1050x32
> graphic mode (following Piscium's advices) in the grub2 interface with
> what follows in grub.cfg
> 
>       insmod efi_gop
>       insmod font
>       loadfont (hd1,gpt4)/usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2
>       insmod gfxterm
>       set gfxmode=1680x1050x32
>       set gfxpayload=1680x1050x32
>       terminal_output gfxterm
> 
>       insmod part_gpt
>       insmod ext2
> 
>       set timeout=10
> 
>       menuentry "Linux (with fakebios + mbp62hd)" {
>               search  -s -f  /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.34-custom
>               fakebios
>               linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.34-custom root=/dev/sda4 video=efifb
>               initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.34-custom
>       }
> 
> When the power is on, rEFIt first runs, which then, when I select the
> corresponding icon, runs EFI grub2 (that I put in the EFI fat first
> partition), which in turn should boot a linux kernel. But, the laptop
> always hangs here, in the boot comand (black screen, no message).
> 
> I tried several linux kernel, the lucid ubuntu's one
> (2.6.32-22-generic) and a recompiled 2.6.34-custom too. But, the
> laptop still always hangs at the boot up (black screen, no message).
> Unfortunataly, absolutely no output in any file of the /var/log
> directory too.
> 
> Just to test further, I tried to patch the
> "linux-2.6.34/drivers/video/efifb.c" linux kernel file too, by adding
> information about my hardware (framebuffer address, stride, etc... of
> the GT330M nvidia crad, all obtained from rEFIt commands: pci,
> devices, dh, etc.) in the dmi_list[] variable as follows
> 
>       static struct efifb_dmi_info {
>               char *optname;
>               unsigned long base;
>               int stride;
>               int width;
>               int height;
>       } dmi_list[] = {
>                       ...
>       [M_MBP_6_2_HD] = { "mbp62hd", 0x90030000, 2048 * 4, 1680, 1050 },
>       [M_UNKNOWN] = { NULL, 0, 0, 0, 0 }
>       };
> 
> I modified acordingly enum definitionw (for M_MBP_6_2_HD) and
> __initdata dmi_system_table.
> 
> But,
>     linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.34-custom root=/dev/sda4 video=efifb:mbp62hd
> still behaves badly (black screen).
> 
> Any idea about how I could understand further what's going on ?
> 
> 
> On Thu, 1 Jul 2010, address@hidden wrote:
> 
>>
>> Ah, yes -- the gfxpayload variable works.  But now after it
>> successfully initializes the video mode, it hangs at the boot with the _
>> (no output yet at all from kernel).
>>
>> I'm trying to boot ubuntu lucid (2.6.32-22-generic).  The EFI boot
>> works on some machines, one others it doesn't.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> On Thu, 1 Jul 2010 11:33:17 -0700, Seth Goldberg
>> <address@hidden> wrote:
>>> Which kernel or os are you loading?  Did you try setting the
>>> gfxpayload env var to 1024x768?
>>>
>>>   --S
>>>
>>> On Jul 1, 2010, at 10:54 AM, <address@hidden> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Something I forgot to mention that's important -- (sorry for the spam)
>>>> -- GRUB tries to initalize with 800x600 regardless of what $gfxmode is
>>>> set to.
>>>>
>>>> set gfxmode=1024x768
>>>>
>>>> will still result in GRUB trying to initalize the video as 800x600
>>>> after the 'boot' command is issued.
>>>>
>>>> -stephen
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, 01 Jul 2010 10:49:59 -0700, <address@hidden> wrote:
>>>>> Hi everyone,
>>>>>
>>>>> I've had some interesting discoveries / success with this problem in
>>>>> the past couple of days.  Where I am I have several machines to try out.
>>>>> On some of the machines, it works; while on others, it doesn't.  I'm
>>>>> pretty sure this all has to do with the video modes now.
>>>>>
>>>>> On my laptop (which also supports UEFI), there is only one video mode
>>>>> supported as reported by efi_video_modes: 1024x768.  However, when GRUB
>>>>> is booting, it calls grub_video_set_mode with the string "800x600".  It
>>>>> then fails to initialize the GOP adapter (which reports it only supports
>>>>> 1024x768).  Then it complains that no suitable mode is found, and tries
>>>>> to boot nayways without a video mode set.
>>>>>
>>>>> Does anyone know why it would be trying to boot as 800x600 only and not
>>>>> the 1024?
>>>>>
>>>>> I'll be looking into the code more, but thought I'd let those who are
>>>>> interested know.
>>>>>
>>>>> -stephen
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, 1 Jul 2010 08:16:34 +0200 (CEST), Reynald Lercier
>>>>> <address@hidden> wrote:
>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I encounter very similar problemes on a my macbook pro 15', a MBP 6,2.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> (I need full EFI booting on this machine in order to use under linux
>>>>>> the INTEL graphic card, instead of the NVIDIA GT330M one, and finally
>>>>>> increase a lot the battery run time)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In my case efi_video_info returns
>>>>>>
>>>>>> GOP info:
>>>>>> List of video modes:
>>>>>> 0: 1680 x 1050, BGRA8, scan line 1680
>>>>>> Current mode: 0
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Same question, what to do now with this ?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, 30 Jun 2010, address@hidden wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks for the response.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> After trying terminal_output, the computer screen would simply go black
>>>>>>> and the machine would hang (the numlock key would not respond) after the
>>>>>>> terminal_output gfx command was executed; this would happen regardless
>>>>>>> of whether or not set gfxmode was called before.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I also have just tried the efi_video_info patch; the system reports:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> GOP info:
>>>>>>> List of video modes:
>>>>>>> 0: 1024 x 768, bitonly, scan line 1024
>>>>>>> Current mode: 0
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Do i need to pass this information on to the kernel somehow?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:40:31 +0100, Colin Watson <address@hidden>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 01:54:36AM -0700, address@hidden wrote:
>>>>>>>>> After having no luck using the grub-efi-amd64 package in ubuntu, or 
>>>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>>> grub trunk, I've started trying to compile my own grub and getting it 
>>>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>>>> boot on a new Intel motherboard which supports EFI.  I've not been 
>>>>>>>>> able
>>>>>>>>> to get any output yet from the acutal linux kernel; usually the system
>>>>>>>>> will simply hang after the boot menu option is selected, or the 'boot'
>>>>>>>>> command is issued from the grub command line.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Currently the farthest I've gotten is using the grub command line and
>>>>>>>>> typing in the following commands:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> insmod efi_gop # no impact on result
>>>>>>>>> insmod ext2
>>>>>>>>> insmod part_gpt
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> set root=(hd0,gpt3)
>>>>>>>>> fakeroot # optional, no impact on result
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I guess that should be 'fakebios'.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> error: no suitable mode found
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> After 'insmod efi_gop', could you try 'insmod gfxterm' and then
>>>>>>>> 'terminal_output gfxterm', and see what happens?  Before the
>>>>>>>> terminal_output command, you can also use 'set gfxmode=MODE' (e.g. 'set
>>>>>>>> gfxmode=1024x768') to change its mode selection.  gfxterm can help
>>>>>>>> matters here, as that way you have a working video mode that the kernel
>>>>>>>> can be told to inherit, rather than having to probe its own.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Unfortunately right now it's hard to get debugging information on EFI
>>>>>>>> video modes.  Since you're building your own GRUB anyway, though, you
>>>>>>>> could try this patch against trunk:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  http://people.canonical.com/~cjwatson/tmp/grub-efivideoinfo.patch
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> That will give you an 'efi_video_info' command, which should dump out
>>>>>>>> the available GOP modes, and might be useful to get a slightly better
>>>>>>>> idea of what's going on.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> booting however
>>>>>>>>> _
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> And then nothing else happens.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It's possible that the kernel may have booted successfully, but that 
>>>>>>>> you
>>>>>>>> simply don't have a working console.  It would be useful to try pinging
>>>>>>>> the machine to test that.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I've also tried newreloc, but I don't think this has anything to do 
>>>>>>>>> with
>>>>>>>>> relocations.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Agreed.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
>>>>>
>>>>>
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