[syslinux] Syslinux EFI x64

poma pomidorabelisima at gmail.com
Fri Dec 18 16:06:20 PST 2015


To share with you the result of testing,
Syslinux EFI x64

It actually works pretty solid.


Starting graphical installation
$ liveinst -G
...

As seen on the screens [1], it is unnecessary to install a boot loader thus Grub 2, through the installer,
but upon successful completion, it will be done manually - Syslinux EFI x64 installation.
Do not reboot.

Switching to a freshly installed system
$ su -
# chroot /mnt/sysimage

Unnecessary - Grub2 and Syslinux for BIOS
# dnf erase grub2-tools syslinux

Necessary - Syslinux for EFI x64
# dnf install syslinux-efi64-6.04-0.12.20151210git721a0af.fc24.x86_64.rpm

What is there
# rpm -qil syslinux-efi64 
...
Description :
SYSLINUX binaries and modules for 64-bit UEFI systems
...
/usr/share/syslinux/efi64/syslinux.efi
...

The reason for use extlinux{.conf}, rather than syslinux{.cfg} is nothing but Fedora specificum thus grubby.
https://github.com/rhinstaller/grubby/blob/master/grubby.c#L656
Via grubby the configuration file for the boot loader gets an update, during the {un}installation of the kernel.
Installing required folders and files
# mkdir /boot/efi/EFI/extlinux
# cp /usr/share/syslinux/efi64/* /boot/efi/EFI/extlinux/

However, this step needs to be "self made",
copy the kernel and initramfs image to efi root dir - Syslinux proximity.
# cp /boot/{vmlinuz,initramfs}-4* /boot/efi/

Let's find out what is the root partition uuid ...
# cat /etc/fstab 
...
UUID=5af9ee8f-0553-4ca0-ab4f-75c06e3e46ae / ...

... for the necessary boot loader configuration file,
/boot/efi/EFI/extlinux/extlinux.conf
ui menu.c32
menu title Syslinux efi64
timeout 50

label Rawhide 4.4.0-0.rc5.git0.1.fc24.x86_64
  kernel /vmlinuz-4.4.0-0.rc5.git0.1.fc24.x86_64
  append root=UUID=5af9ee8f-0553-4ca0-ab4f-75c06e3e46ae
  initrd /initramfs-4.4.0-0.rc5.git0.1.fc24.x86_64.img

This is also necessary so grubby can update configuration file
# ln -s /boot/efi/EFI/extlinux /boot

And finally, what disk and partition, ...
# fdisk -l /dev/vda
...
Disklabel type: gpt
...
Device       Start      End  Sectors  Size Type
/dev/vda1     2048   411647   409600  200M Microsoft basic data
/dev/vda2   411648  1435647  1024000  500M Linux filesystem
...

Switching from a freshly installed system
# exit

... disk, and partition number, pass to EFI Boot Manager
# efibootmgr -c -d /dev/vda -p 1 -l /EFI/extlinux/syslinux.efi -L "Syslinux efi64"
BootCurrent: 0002
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0002,0003
Boot0002* EFI DVD/CDROM
Boot0003* EFI Internal Shell
Boot0000* Syslinux efi64

And finally
# reboot


SW components & Co.:
- QEMU/KVM
- edk2.git-ovmf-x64 [2]
- libvirt
- virt-manager
- Rawhide-Xfce-Live-1218.iso
- syslinux-efi64 [1]

[1]
http://goo.gl/Gm4ffO
/syslinux efi64

[2]
UEFI with QEMU
https://www.kraxel.org/repos

Rawhide LiveCDVDs
http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/nightly-composes
"Live image list in koji"


That's all folks!



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