Legacy/Uefy/Secure-Boot/Grub/Systemd oh my...

H

HeneryH

Member
Jan 20, 2023
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This has been way more challenging than I expected. Installing on an HP EliteDesk 800 G4 Mini i7-8700T

First used Balena Etcher and burned the installer but on boot (choose boot location) for the elitedesk it couldn't even find the USB drive. Then I tried using Ventoy, same. Then I think I realized I might have had UEFY-only set in my BIOS. Maybe not. Who knows anymore I tried so many combos.

Is there a simple rule for installers like:
  • Legacy Boot Enabled = use Balena
  • UEFI Boot Only = use xxx
Then I was messing with ZFS vs EXT4 and realized that if using ZFS that will make the OS disk a systemd-boot UEFI boot device. If using EXT4 then the result will be a Legacy GRUB OS disk.

Then I was trying out IOMMU/SR-IOV virtual passthrough using both the Grub and the Systemd-boot flavors and got myself into Secure Boot hell. What mess. I think I am going to go back to just doing old school Grub/Legacy and forgoing any benefits of ZFS.

I'll experiment some more and post again. Just expressing frustration and if anyone has a concise rule set I would be grateful if you could share it.
 
Crap, now I can't get either Balena or Ventoy installers to even be recognized by the boot loader. I am in Legacy Enabled, Secure-Boot Disabled..
 
I rebuilt my Ventoy usb and now it is recognized. I think all of the attempts and changing bios settings might have whacked my installer usb.

Back to trying my vanilla legacy/grub/ext4 installation and passing through the virtual iommu/sr-iov vGPU...
 
These gremlins are getting really annoying. I want to start over again and, once again, I cannot get my usb installer drive to be recognized. I even rebuilt my usb installer with the ventoy app.

Is this a common occurrence with the community?
 
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