Hello Max, thanks a lot for your input! I do, however, believe that the problem has a different cause. I came to that conclusion, mainly because the issue with the BIOS boot interface (see my original posting) is still unsolved, but also because I tried using the EFI removable media path (which should bypass any issues with EFI variables) without success.
Therefore, and to make it easier for new people entering this thread, I restart the thread now by asking my original question again, in a single and well arranged posting. You can forget everything you read in the thread before if you just read this one post: Hello everyone, I want to install Debian on my Asus UX31A using command line utilities like debootstrap and grub-install. I want to install it to the internal drive /dev/sda, and I want to do so by executing commands on an installer system, which is a system already installed on the external drive /dev/sdb. To reproduce the issue, you should use a current stable Debian Live-CD as the installer system. Just write the Live-CD image to the external drive /dev/sdb using dd. For now, I only want to get a GRUB command line, because that appears to be the difficult part. Here are the step-by-step instructions to reproduce the problem: 1.: On the installer system, type "sudo apt install ..." to install any dependencies required by the recipe (see below). 2.: On the installer system, exercise one of the following two recipes: For the BIOS boot interface: sudo parted /dev/sda mklabel gpt sudo parted /dev/sda mkpart init 0% 512MiB sudo parted /dev/sda mkpart root 512MiB 100% sudo parted /dev/sda set 1 bios_grub on sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2 sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt sudo debootstrap stable /mnt sudo mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys sudo mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev sudo mount --bind /dev/pts /mnt/dev/pts sudo mount --bind /run /mnt/run sudo chroot /mnt apt install grub-pc sudo chroot /mnt grub-install /dev/sda sudo umount /mnt/run sudo umount /mnt/dev/pts sudo umount /mnt/dev sudo umount /mnt/proc sudo umount /mnt/sys sudo umount /mnt For the EFI boot interface: sudo parted /dev/sda mklabel gpt sudo parted /dev/sda mkpart init 0% 512MiB sudo parted /dev/sda mkpart root 512MiB 100% sudo parted /dev/sda set 1 boot on sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sda1 sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2 sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt sudo mkdir /mnt/boot sudo mkdir /mnt/boot/efi sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi sudo debootstrap stable /mnt sudo mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys sudo mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev sudo mount --bind /dev/pts /mnt/dev/pts sudo mount --bind /run /mnt/run sudo chroot /mnt apt install grub-efi sudo chroot /mnt grub-install --target=x86_64-efi /dev/sda sudo chroot /mnt grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --removable /dev/sda sudo umount /mnt/runsudo umount /mnt/dev/pts sudo umount /mnt/dev sudo umount /mnt/proc sudo umount /mnt/sys sudo umount /mnt/boot/efi sudo umount /mnt Please check every command's output before entering the next one. 3.: Shut down the installer system and disconnect the external drive /dev/sdb. 4.: Start the computer with the ESC key pressed. This will show a list of boot options (the ESC boot menu). The expected behavior is that the list contains an entry for the installed system. Selecting that entry will give you a GRUB command line. The actual behavior is that there is only the "Enter Setup" entry in the list, which is always there and does not do what we want (boot to GRUB command line). That much for the step-by-step instructions. Notice that the EFI variant of the recipe does set the "boot" and "esp" flags and the partition has the recommended size. Also notice that the EFI recipe will create the following directory structure on /dev/sda1: drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 16384 Jan 1 1970 /mnt/boot/efi drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 8192 Apr 26 09:33 /mnt/boot/efi/EFI drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 8192 Apr 26 09:33 /mnt/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 108 Apr 26 09:33 /mnt/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.CSV -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 934240 Apr 26 09:33 /mnt/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 84648 Apr 26 09:33 /mnt/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/fbx64.efi -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 126 Apr 26 09:33 /mnt/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/grub.cfg -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3827136 Apr 26 09:33 /mnt/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/grubx64.efi -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 845480 Apr 26 09:33 /mnt/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/mmx64.efi drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 8192 Apr 26 09:33 /mnt/boot/efi/EFI/debian -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 108 Apr 26 09:33 /mnt/boot/efi/EFI/debian/BOOTX64.CSV -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 84648 Apr 26 09:33 /mnt/boot/efi/EFI/debian/fbx64.efi -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 126 Apr 26 09:33 /mnt/boot/efi/EFI/debian/grub.cfg -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4150720 Apr 26 09:33 /mnt/boot/efi/EFI/debian/grubx64.efi -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 845480 Apr 26 09:33 /mnt/boot/efi/EFI/debian/mmx64.efi -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 934240 Apr 26 09:33 /mnt/boot/efi/EFI/debian/shimx64.efi And finally, also notice that it uses the EFI fallback location which is guaranteed to work in every EFI implementation and doesn't depend on EFI variables. On my hardware, the problem exists no matter which of the two recipes I use. Can you reproduce the issue on your hardware? Or is it just my old hardware causing the problem? I'm really interested in people trying out my recipes on their hardware (not VMs, there it works) because this allows me to rule out any issues with my hardware. (And by the way, that is why I wanted to "restart" the thread: Because I want to attract people who have sparse hardware available for the experiment, but don't want to read through everything posted earlier.) Kind regards, Valentin Caracalla
