Booting Puppy with UEFI and GRUB4DOS.

[cobaka]

Hello all and woof!
My experience in installing Puppy has been on older PCs - not so many modern ones.

I want to know if I continue to use а "tried and trusted' installation method will it work with a modern UEFI-based bootstrap loader?

My method for installing Puppy Linux:
Well ... it's not 'my' method - except that I 'use' it.
The method is documented (see below) - on the forum - by @mikeslr
Identified as: 'manual frugal install with Rox Tips'. (This method is 'the best', Mike!)

The link -> viewtopic.php?p=1788&hilit=ROX+install+puppy#p1788

In short: click the *.iso file to open it. Drag and drop the component files into the system directory. That loads the OS.
After that: install the bootloader - Grub4DOS

Menu -> Setup -> Grub4DOS bootloader configuration -> (then do it!)

So! The question! Will a modern PC, running UEFI boot a thumbdrive if I can open the "BIOS" config page to set 'my' thumbdrive as the first boot opion?

If the answer above is 'no' - what other options do I have?
I am installing Puppy from Puppy, not Windows.

собака

[wizard]

@cobaka

So! The question! Will a modern PC, running UEFI boot a thumbdrive if I can open the "BIOS" config page to set 'my' thumbdrive as the first boot opion?

Yes, with conditions.
1. Grub4dos requires the computer bios/setup be set for MBR/Legacy mode
2. Grub2 can boot in either MBR or UEFI mode

So, in order for your USB thumbdrive to boot on a UEFI mode computer it must have a Grub2 bootloader (unless the bios/setup has a UEFI + Legacy option). The program grub2config included in many newer Pups can install Grub2. Additionally, many newer Pups installed from ISO with Rufus will have Grub2. There are several other options that will use Grub2 during an install.

In any case you must disable secure boot in bios/setup

As previously stated stated, if the system also has MS Windows, you must disable fastboot and hibernation.

wizard

[bigpup]

I have Grub4dos boot loader booting OK on my UEFI bios computer.

I disabled secure boot.

Have UEFI setup ->Boot mode set to legacy boot. This could also be enable CSM mode. Depends on the UEFI setup what it calls it.

My UEFI setup also has a disable/enable option for booting from USB.
So that is set to enable.

[mikeslr]

I don't like to mess with changing bios. Bigpup can correct me if I'm wrong as I haven't used frugal-pup often but when I did it wasn't necessary for me to change bios settings.

If I'm correct, the easiest way to create a boot-loader for ONE Puppy is to use frugalpup, viewtopic.php?p=1588#p1588. Just remember after using gparted to create/modify partitions to create a folder to hold your Puppy's system files.

If and when needed, after you've created a boot-loader for your first Puppy, adding others is a simple as:
(2) Create a folder for each additional Puppy;
(3) Copy the additional Puppys into their respective folders;
(4) Manually edit* grub.cfg.

if the Puppys are on different partitions, open a terminal and type 'blkid' without the quotes to obtain partition's UUID. You can cut&paste from the terminal output to the grub.cfg.

garnet has provided the grub.cfg stanza for chainloading Windows, viewtopic.php?p=1912#p1912

-=-=-=-=-
To provide flexibility, frugalpup writes a lot of code to grub.cfg that might not be necessary. When editing (noting the possible need to specify a different UUID) your additional entries for other Puppys may be as simple as this:

menuentry 'Bionicpup64 8.0 (sda3/bionic64)'{
search --no-floppy --set=root --fs-uuid FROM blkid
linux /bionic64/vmlinuz psubdir=/bionic64 pmedia=ataflash pfix=fsck
initrd /bionic64/initrd.gz
}

But the above to not load ucode.cpio if it is needed.

[Tahrbaby]

One of my Desktop computers is fairly modern with UEFI but does not have any option in bios to change it to Legacy,CSM or any other mode and so Grub4dos doesn't work at all.Not even with secure boot,fast boot or hibernation disabled.

I use Grub2config of Limine,both of which work successfully and also boot from USB once selected in bios.

[mikeslr]

Regarding the use of the Limine Bootloader, see williwaw's instructions here, viewtopic.php?p=61241#p61241. Read the rest of that thread for further info.

[mikewalsh]

@cobaka :-

Basically, Les, it boils down to this; if you want to boot your Puppy-on-a-stick (or indeed, ANY Puppy) on a machine that's running in UEFI mode, then you have far fewer choices. It HAS to be either GRUB2 or 'Limine' - about which I know absolutely nothing - because it's right out the window as far as Grub4DOS is concerned. It's beyond its capabilities.

UEFI has been around for many years, but it's only in recent years that manufacturers have begun to implement it in anything like a 'standard' way. Many of us run UEFI-equipped hardware, but unless there's a requirement to dual-boot, or otherwise co-exist with other OSs that will ONLY boot in UEFI mode, the robust ease-of-use and simple elegance of Grub4DOS still has a lot going for it.

To use the latter with UEFI is perfectly possible.....but you MUST enable 'Legacy' boot in the BIOS/UEFI/whatever the hell it's called these days. (And while you're in there, do yourself a favour and turn off the Windoze-mandated FastBoot/SecureBoot crap. Who needs it?)

Puppy certainly doesn't, that's for sure.

Mike.

[jamesbond]

One is not limited to grub2 or Limine.

For example we have the venerable rEFInd, which is one of the very first (and very versatile) boot loader for UEFI (Barry used to use this for EasyOS before he moved to Limine). There are many others, such as syslinux-efi, etc, with their own strength and weaknesses.

But since the topic is about grub4dos, allow me to share a little tidbit.

There is this thing called grub4dos for UEFI. Yes the name is a mouthful, and it does sound like a joke, but it is __real__ and it __works__. You have to disable secure boot however, it does not support secure boot (as of now).

The link I provided will bring you to the download page (latest at the time of writing). If you would rather download from github, click here (choose one that has "for_UEFI" in its name). The .7z is identical whichever way you download it from.

There is no installer script however, you will have to setup manually. Inside the 7z file you will find a file called bootx64.efi. This is what you need. Install it the way you install grub2efi, but instead of grub.cfg you can now use the familiar menu.lst along with its familiar features.

Enjoy.