On 16/04/2023 05:51, David Christensen wrote:
I installed a 2.5" SATA SSD, inserted a debian-11.6.0-amd64-netinst CD,
booted the CD, and installed Debian:
"Debian GNU/Linux UEFI Installer menu" -> "Install"
...
"Partitioning method" -> "Manual" -> <2.5" SATA SSD>
Perhaps at this point installer detected EFI system partition that was
used to install grub:
In the past, d-i "Install" would prompt me regarding GRUB. This time,
it did not.
...
When I moved the 2.5" SATA SSD to a homebrew Intel DQ67SW computer and
configured BIOS Setup:
"Boot" -> "UEFI Boot" -> "Enable"
The SSD would not boot.
New boot entry usually should be created in such case from EFI Shell, by
efibootmgr, etc. Some firmware allows to choose an .efi file
(EFI/debian/shimx64.efi) to boot. I do not remember which grub or shim
script creates EFI boot entry.
I later discovered that the first install created a directory and put
files into the Dell's ESP (!). I did not select this, nor do I desire
it. This is a defect with d-i:
Why do you think it is wrong? EFI system partition is designed to
contain boot loaders from multiple vendors. A conflict may happen due to
EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi, but it is for removable media and for buggy
firmware (as a workaround).
# ls -l /mnt/nvme0n1p1/EFI/debian
total 5892
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 108 Mar 16 22:19 BOOTX64.CSV
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 84648 Mar 16 22:19 fbx64.efi
Fallback should create boot entries listed in BOOTX64.CSV if some
problem with boot is detected. I am unsure concerning changing boot
order. However this file is invoked by shimx64.efi or grubx64.efi
(loaded by shim) and I do not expect that shim is booted with no user
action when a disk is installed into another computer.
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 121 Mar 16 22:19 grub.cfg
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4150720 Mar 16 22:19 grubx64.efi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 845480 Mar 16 22:19 mmx64.efi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 934240 Mar 16 22:19 shimx64.efi
So, I agree that d-i "Install" choice has bug(s) when installing Debian
into a computer with multiple storage devices.
I do not think multiple storage devices is an issue. I suspect that you
are not happy that by default Debian installer picked existing EFI
system partition.
Were you trying to prepare a disk for another computer? Did you created
ESP on that disk and specified mount point? Anyway likely it is a reason
to enable low priority configuration questions.
