With UEFI and without wasting one month of your life.
This is just a short guide in case it is of some aid to avoid your suffering with uefi.
My machine was an IBM System x3500 M4 Type 7383. 16GB RAM memory and 2 HDD (500 TB) each and 4 CPUS with 4 cores.
The HDD come with GPT ( not MBR) format.
I configured both in RAID 1 by hardware. Using the firmware of the machine.
NOTE:
In the process I regret to have done such RAID but
afterwards was impossible to undo the RAID since the HDD were not
found by ubuntu ( seemed like the HDD controlers were not working
well).
So in the end I left the RAID 1 on.
PROCESS:
STEP 1
I downloaded a LIVE iso of UBUNTU desktop 64 bits and made a
bootable USB.(LIVE-ISO)
I downloaded an iso image of UBUNTU 14.04
server LTS 64 bits and made a bootable USB. (SERVER-ISO)
STEP 2
The firmware of the IBM allows BIOS legacy ( that is to start
as the old BIOS firmaware) but anyway it seems to start always in
UEFI mode.
In the firmware ( pressing F1) I add the USB as a new
bootable device and changed the order to be the first place to
check.
I started installing the SERVER-ISO, with this structure:
|
SIZE (aprox) |
TYPE |
Partition /MOUNT |
BOOTABLE |
|
250 MB |
FAT32 |
Sda1 / efi (say explicitely it is UEFI partition) |
Yes |
|
100 GB |
Ext4 |
Sda2 / raiz (/) |
No |
|
200GB |
Ext4 |
Sda3 / srv |
No |
|
190GB |
EXT4 |
Sda4 / home |
No |
|
Rest |
Swap |
Sda5/swap |
NO |
During installation it said that GRUB2 cannot be install. Anyway I
proceeded until it finished. Obviously it did not start.
Then the
nightmare began, but the solution seems to be the following.
STEP 3
Restart the computer with the LIVE-ISO.
Install boot-repair here.
Fix
the keyboard to spanish : $ sudo dpkg-reconfigure
keyboard-configuration
Boot-repair does not work strait ahead but
the next steps are necessary.
STEP 4
The efi partitition where the new stuff about efi is installed is
in sda1.
The root filesystem is in sda2.
In the filesystem of
the USB-LIVE the HDD root was mounted in /media/ubuntu/raiz (
because I gave that label to the root / partition).
Now it is turn
to make everybody aware of each other.
$ sudo mkdir /media/efi
$ sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /media/efi ( this mounts the efi partition in /media/efi of the USB filesystem)
$ sudo mount –rbind /dev /media/ubuntu/raiz/dev (mirror the /dev
of the USB to the one of the HDD)(if you did not label the root, then
it would appears as /media/ubuntu/dev )
$ sudo mount –rbind
/proc /media/ubuntu/raiz/proc
$ sudo mount –rbind /sys
/media/ubuntu/raiz/sys
Finally I said the HDD filesystem where the efi partition was placed
$ sudo mount –rbind /media/efi /media/ubuntu/raiz/boot/efi
STEP 5
Now it is time to run boot-repair: BUT
* look into advanced settings
* uncheck secure-boot
* mark
upgrade GRUB to the last version
* mark /boot/efi in sda1 ( my
case),.... and the other partition is / (root)
When running boot-repair asks you to open a terminal an execute
certain commands. After that execution then proceed with
boot-repair.
It will ask twice. Follow all the steps and it will
end (hopefully) successfully.
Here you will find the log of the successfull bott-repair result.