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KevinC_63559
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Joined: 02 Jan 2021
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 Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2025 10:26 pm Post subject: Gigabyte X870E mobo UEFI issues |
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Has anybody here managed to get a Gigabyte X870E Aorus motherboard to boot Gentoo?
BIOS is not behaving as I expected and dynamically creates the boot order upon reset, ignoring any EFIBOOTMGR configurations defined.
So far I have not stumbled across the magic sauce required. Had a similar problem with an MSI X870E mobo (although this was just one of many issues on the MSI stuff).
I have a single VFAT partition on a NVME drive, mounted as /efi. Directory structure is /efi/EFI/BOOT per the standard default, but can't seem to get the BIOS to load any *.EFI files I have there. I've BOOT86.EFI per the standard, with that being a copy of my bzImage and it recognizes it as an OS, but no signs of loading. Tried with Grub, both with the default name and making that as BOOT86.EFI and it doesn't see anything.
Of course have things like GRUB_PLATFORMS="efi-64" in /etc/portage/make.conf.
Have GRUB_CFG=/efi/EFI/BOOT/grub.cfg and a kernel "make install" is in fact calling installkernel and created the grub.cfg as expected.
Ramdisk and vmLinux are being created on /boot, both wife and without USE="efistub" - basically all combinations I can think of.
Handbook recommends XFS for root. /boot is a separate EXT3 partition (last pass, was getting desperate), but root itself is XFS.
I've tried /, /usr, and /var all in one partition to remove the requirement to use an initramfs, still no luck.
Suggestions? |
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sublogic
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Joined: 21 Mar 2022
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Location: Pennsylvania, USA
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| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 1:37 am Post subject: Re: Gigabyte X870E mobo UEFI issues |
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| KevinC_63559 wrote: | | I have a single VFAT partition on a NVME drive, mounted as /efi. Directory structure is /efi/EFI/BOOT per the standard default, but can't seem to get the BIOS to load any *.EFI files I have there. I've BOOT86.EFI per the standard, with that being a copy of my bzImage and it recognizes it as an OS, but no signs of loading. Tried with Grub, both with the default name and making that as BOOT86.EFI and it doesn't see anything. |
Shouldn't that be BOOTX64.EFI ? |
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pietinger
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Joined: 17 Oct 2006
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Location: Bavaria
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| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 2:15 am Post subject: Re: Gigabyte X870E mobo UEFI issues |
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| sublogic wrote: | | Shouldn't that be BOOTX64.EFI ? |
I would like to add this information: Many (all?) UEFIs check at system startup whether the file specified by a UEFI entry really exists; and if not, that entry is silently deleted.
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KevinC_63559
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Joined: 02 Jan 2021
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| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 4:11 am Post subject: Re: Gigabyte X870E mobo UEFI issues |
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| sublogic wrote: | | Shouldn't that be BOOTX64.EFI ? |
Tis what I get from typing from memory. You are correct and it is... |
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KevinC_63559
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Joined: 02 Jan 2021
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| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 4:20 am Post subject: Re: Gigabyte X870E mobo UEFI issues |
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| pietinger wrote: |
I would like to add this information: Many (all?) UEFIs check at system startup whether the file specified by a UEFI entry really exists; and if not, that entry is silently deleted. |
Apparently permanently. Really wishing I could just go back to CSM/Legacy mode and use LILO - that was SO easy, but CSM mode on this bleeding edge board doesn't work as expected either.
I reinstalled, and have GRUB popping up now. No idea what I did differently, but it gets past "loading Linux 6.6.67-gentoo" and hangs on "loading initial ramdisk". Out of desperation, I tried copy the *.img and kernel files up to /efi/EFI/Gentoo, but naturally that didn't do anything.
Thinking about reformatting root as EXT4 instead of XFS, just to eliminate another variable. |
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KevinC_63559
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Joined: 02 Jan 2021
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| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 4:33 am Post subject: |
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XFS -> EXT4: same symptom
FWIW /boot is separate EXT3 filesystem - not that it should matter.
Still looking for suggestions please! |
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pietinger
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Location: Bavaria
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KevinC_63559
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Joined: 02 Jan 2021
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| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 10:58 pm Post subject: Re: Gigabyte X870E mobo UEFI issues |
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First and foremost: THANK YOU for putting that outstanding document together. I've been doing linux since Slackware 0.96 kernel (loaded via 4 1.44mb floppies) and Gentoo basically forever. Just the comment about using "/" with 'make menuconfig' is (since I somehow missed it) and lifeline. I just spent several hours going through your doc.
Rather hoping my lack of framebuffer settings was the problem...
OK - progress. Have to undo some things like installing grub.cfg in the /efi filetree. Manual copy from there to /boot/grub managed to get a system boot! That failed, but making progress.
Purged everything in /efi and /boot and reran 'grub-install' and 'make install'. Found it interesting that 'make install' created an initframfs (enabled in kernel because zfs_mod seems to want it and trying to keep builds clean). Good thing I did, my /usr mount point is /dev/vg/usr - an LVM device. Reinstalled dracut and ran a new 'make install'... and we are booted!
Now just fixing up a few things, like the kernel renaming my eth0 device. Been there, done that... no biggie.
Last edited by KevinC_63559 on Tue Jan 21, 2025 11:22 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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KevinC_63559
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Joined: 02 Jan 2021
Posts: 19
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| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 11:19 pm Post subject: Re: Gigabyte X870E mobo UEFI issues |
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| KevinC_63559 wrote: | [
Now just fixing up a few things, like the kernel renaming my eth0 device. Been there, done that... no biggie. |
FWIW - this is now trivial. Edit /etc/default/grub and uncomment the line: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="net.ifnames=0" |
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pietinger
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Joined: 17 Oct 2006
Posts: 5362
Location: Bavaria
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| Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2025 3:07 pm Post subject: Re: Gigabyte X870E mobo UEFI issues |
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| KevinC_63559 wrote: | | [...] Reinstalled dracut and ran a new 'make install'... and we are booted! |
Happy to hear that! 
| KevinC_63559 wrote: | | First and foremost: THANK YOU for putting that outstanding document together. [...] |
You are very Welcome!
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