[2024-feb-29] Sad news: Eric Layton aka Nocturnal Slacker aka vtel57 passed away on Feb 26th, shortly after hospitalization. He was one of our Wiki's most prominent admins. He will be missed.

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howtos:installing_on_uefi_hardware [2012/09/18 21:37 (UTC)] – [Creating your own install media] ruariohowtos:installing_on_uefi_hardware [2012/09/20 06:54 (UTC)] – [Tips on install when not using BIOS legacy mode] / Slackware 14.0RC5 uses kenel 3.2.29 so I switched the example to match it ruario
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 The easiest way to make your own Slackware UEFI-capable install media is to create a USB boot disk. To do so you may need to use a second machine. Alternatively you can use the target machine directly if it has another OS installed that provides a GPT (GUID Partition Table) capable partitioning tool or you have UEFI-capable Live media (CD, DVD, USB, etc.) provided by another Linux distro, which includes such a utility. Suitable partitioning tools include GPT fdisk (a.k.a gdisk) and GNU parted, both of which are provided by recent versions of Slackware. The easiest way to make your own Slackware UEFI-capable install media is to create a USB boot disk. To do so you may need to use a second machine. Alternatively you can use the target machine directly if it has another OS installed that provides a GPT (GUID Partition Table) capable partitioning tool or you have UEFI-capable Live media (CD, DVD, USB, etc.) provided by another Linux distro, which includes such a utility. Suitable partitioning tools include GPT fdisk (a.k.a gdisk) and GNU parted, both of which are provided by recent versions of Slackware.
  
-The USB disk you are going to use as install media will need to be partitioned with a GPT partitioning scheme. It will need to have a UEFI System Partition as a bare minimum. This system partition is used by UEFI to hold a UEFI-capable bootloader(s) and one or more kernels. The system partition must use a FAT32 filesystem (or it can be HFS+ if your machine is using Apple-based hardware) and must be big enough to hold the Slackware install media's huge kernel, initrd and a boot loader. It is therefore recommended that you make the partition at least 50Mb in size (slightly less could be used but 50Mb gives you a little extra free space to work with). Of course more space will allow for a greater range of options (e.g. including additional kernels or alternative bootloaders). The system partition must be marked as such via the partition manager. If you use GPT fdisk this is done by using the partition type code EF00. If you are using Slackware to create this partition, formatting can be done via the mkdosfs utility.+The USB disk you are going to use as install media will need to be partitioned with a GPT scheme. It will need to have a UEFI System Partition as a bare minimum. This system partition is used by UEFI to hold a UEFI-capable bootloader(s) and configuration file(s), along with one or more kernels. The system partition must use a FAT32 filesystem (or it can be HFS+ if your machine is using Apple-based hardware) and must be big enough to hold the Slackware install media's huge kernel, initrd and a boot loader. It is therefore recommended that you make the partition at least 50Mb in size (slightly less could be used but 50Mb gives you a little extra free space to work with). Of course more space will allow for a greater range of options (e.g. including additional kernels or alternative bootloaders). The system partition must be marked as such via the partitioning tool. If you use GPT fdisk this is done by using the partition type code EF00. If you are using Slackware to create this partition, formatting can be done via the mkdosfs utility.
  
 Once the system partition has been created add a ./EFI/BOOT/ directory structure to this partition, into which you place an EFI-capable bootloader, which should be named BOOTX64.EFI if your PC is x86_64 capable. This exact naming (./EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI) is not an absolute requirement. You can use a different directory structure and name for your bootloader, however conforming to this suggestion will simplify things for you as UEFI systems consider a bootloader named in this way to be the default. Once the system partition has been created add a ./EFI/BOOT/ directory structure to this partition, into which you place an EFI-capable bootloader, which should be named BOOTX64.EFI if your PC is x86_64 capable. This exact naming (./EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI) is not an absolute requirement. You can use a different directory structure and name for your bootloader, however conforming to this suggestion will simplify things for you as UEFI systems consider a bootloader named in this way to be the default.
  
-Whilst you can use any EFI-capable bootloader, it is recommend that you use Elilo. Elilo is very simple to use and configure, it is reliable and works in a similar manor to Lilo. As such it should feel familiar to most Slackware users, given that Lilo is Slackware's default bootloader. Elilo does not need to be compiled as the binaries provided by the upstream project should work directly. For example, if you plan to use install Slackware64 download [[http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/elilo/elilo/elilo-3.14/elilo-3.14-all.tar.gz|elilo-3.14-all.tar.gz]], extract elilo-3.14-x86_64.efi and place it on your system partition as ./EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI.+Whilst you can use any EFI-capable bootloader, it is recommend that you use Elilo. Elilo is very simple to use and configure, it is reliable and works in a similar manor to Lilo. As such it should feel familiar to most Slackware users, given that Lilo is Slackware's default bootloader. Elilo does not need to be compiled as the binaries provided by the upstream project should work directly. For example, if you plan to install Slackware64, download [[http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/elilo/elilo/elilo-3.14/elilo-3.14-all.tar.gz|elilo-3.14-all.tar.gz]], extract elilo-3.14-x86_64.efi and place it on your system partition as ./EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI.
  
 Into the same directory on your system partition (./EFI/BOOT) copy over the following two files from the official install media: kernels/huge.s/bzImage and isolinux/initrd.img (just the files, not their directory structures). Plus create an elilo.conf, that looks like this: Into the same directory on your system partition (./EFI/BOOT) copy over the following two files from the official install media: kernels/huge.s/bzImage and isolinux/initrd.img (just the files, not their directory structures). Plus create an elilo.conf, that looks like this:
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 After umounting and removing the install media you should now be able to reboot into your new Slackware install (you may need to change the boot order in your UEFI again if you adjusted it previously).  After umounting and removing the install media you should now be able to reboot into your new Slackware install (you may need to change the boot order in your UEFI again if you adjusted it previously). 
  
-Finally, after booting into Slackware remember to configure an initrd for the generic kernel and copy both over to the local system partition. A further adjustment to the elilo.conf to account for this could look something like the following (assuming a 3.2.28 kernel):+Finally, after booting into Slackware remember to configure an initrd for the generic kernel and copy both over to the local system partition. A further adjustment to the elilo.conf to account for this could look something like the following (assuming a 3.2.29 kernel):
  
 <code> <code>
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 default=generic default=generic
  
-image=vmlinuz-generic-3.2.28+image=vmlinuz-generic-3.2.29
   label=generic   label=generic
   initrd=initrd.gz   initrd=initrd.gz

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howtos:installing_on_uefi_hardware ()