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Table of Contents
Linux kernel options for UEFI and ELILO
The purpose of this article is to inform the user about necessary kernel options for booting from UEFI, and some info about how ELILO and perhaps other EFI bootloaders work, as this is currently difficult to find and understand online.
Required kernel options for UEFI support
The following options are required for booting a kernel from UEFI. These are already set in the stock Slackware kernels.
- Enable the block layer
- Partition Types
- Advanced partition selection
- EFI GUID Partition support (CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION [=y])
- Processor type and features
- EFI runtime service support (CONFIG_EFI [=y])
- EFI stub support (CONFIG_EFI_STUB [=y])
- Build a relocatable kernel (CONFIG_RELOCATABLE [=y])
- Device Drivers
- Graphics support
- Support for frame buffer devices (CONFIG_FB [=y])
- EFI-based Framebuffer Support (CONFIG_FB_EFI [=y])
- File systems
- Miscellaneous filesystems
- EFI Variable filesystem (CONFIG_EFIVAR_FS [=y])
- Firmware Drivers
- EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) Support
- EFI Variable Support via sysfs (CONFIG_EFI_VARS [=n])
as it is deprecated in favor of CONFIG_EFIVAR_FS, because it has a 1024-byte variable size limit, and because it can cause data inconsistency issues.
However, if you do disable this, you will need a fork of the efibootmgr
program that supports the new EFI Variable filesystem.
Using the new EFI variable filesystem
In order to use the new EFI variable filesystem interface, you need to remove the old efibootmgr program and replace it with a new one that supports the EFI variable filesystem.
- Download and install: https://github.com/vathpela/efivar
- Download and install: https://github.com/vathpela/efibootmgr/tree/libefivars
- Run:
modprobe efivarfs mount -t efivarfs efivarfs /sys/firmware/efi/efivars efibootmgr
The EFI System Partition (ESP)
In order to boot from UEFI you need to create an EFI System Partition (ESP) using gdisk
or cgdisk
instead of the old fdisk
and cfdisk
. The Slackware README_UEFI.TXT recommends a size of 100M, which is also the minimum partition size (except for 4K native drives, where it is 260M). You also need to set the partition hex code to EF00
, which identifies it as the ESP.
UEFI and ELILO
During the install procedure of Slackware 14.1 for ELILO (the eliloconfig
script), the following happens and is required for booting from UEFI using ELILO.
- The EFI System Partition (ESP) is located and mounted. On a running system it is usually found already mounted at
/boot/efi
. This is a special FAT partition that is basically the UEFI firmware replacement of what the MBR was for BIOS. However, it can not only hold a bootloader (all the MBR was capable of), but also config files, the kernel, and other things you might want to access using the UEFI firmware. - The three items required by ELILO (and other bootloaders) are copied onto the ESP to
/boot/efi/EFI/Slackware
. These include:- The bootloader. In the case of ELILO it is
elilo.efi
- The config file. In the case of ELILO it is
elilo.conf
- The kernel, usually titled
vmlinuz
- A boot entry variable is registered in the UEFI firmware using
efibootmgr
. The exact command that is run isEFI_DEVICE=$(mount | grep vfat | grep -w /boot/efi | cut -b 1-8) EFI_PARTITION=$(mount | grep vfat | grep -w /boot/efi | cut -f 1 -d ' ' | cut -b 9-) efibootmgr -q -c -d $EFI_DEVICE -p $EFI_PARTITION -l "\\EFI\\Slackware\\elilo.efi" -L "Slackware"
so if
mount
outputs/dev/sda1 on /boot/efi type vfat (rw)
EFI_DEVICE would be
/dev/sda
and EFI_PARTITION would be1
, each components of/dev/sda1
, which is the ESP.
/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi
. This special location allows the UEFI firmware to run the bootloader without any boot entry.
Upgrading your kernel
This task is now much easier than it used to be. All you really need to do is copy vmlinuz
onto the ESP on top of the old kernel. No need to edit any configs or add any boot entries, unless you want to. Note that you can edit the config in place and ELILO will pick up the changes on next boot, no need to run any commands like with the old lilo.
Updating your UEFI firmware
As all UEFI firmware has a flashing utility built-in, it is now much easier to update the firmware. All you have to do is copy the new firmware onto the ESP and the UEFI firmware should recognize it when you go to the flashing utility menu. However, remember that flashing the firmware can still potentially brick the system, especially if it is interrupted during the flashing process.