On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:19:35 -0500 e...@gmx.us wrote: > On 12/29/24 11:38, Andy Smith wrote: > > Hi, > > > > On Sun, Dec 29, 2024 at 11:26:38AM -0500, Eben King wrote: > >> The boot device is currently /dev/sdb which has a GPT partition > >> table, and its first few partitions are > >> > >> number size mount point > ... > > > Does UEFI booting not require an EFI System Partition (ESP) of type > > vfat typically mounted at /boot/efi on Debian? > > eben@cerberus:~$ ls /boot/efi > ls: cannot access '/boot/efi': No such file or directory > > Fudge. > > >> I swear I ran a program that showed me EFI boot vars (if they > >> exist) and it showed nothing. But now I can't remember what that > >> program was. > > > > Probably "efivar --list". It's in the "efivar" package and not > > installed by default. > > Thanks. It was probably in a live CD environment. > > >> How can I ensure that I'm actually booted using EFI? > > > > If you're booted by UEFI then /sys/firmware/efi/ will exist. > > eben@cerberus:~$ ls -ld /sys/firmware/efi > ls: cannot access '/sys/firmware/efi': No such file or directory > > Bummer. OK. Has anyone booted using EFI with this motherboard? > Either I've done something wrong, or its EFI implementation is shoddy > or remarkable forgiving of incompetent installations. > >
The answer may be in an earlier post. The partition on which the boot EFI information is stored *must* be one of the FAT varieties, containing a FAT filesystem, the modern VFAT being the obvious choice. Debian normally puts just the EFI information on the partition and then mounts it as /boot/efi. This will happen automatically with an installation in UEFI mode (the installer splash screen will contain 'UEFI'). There may be more to your problem, but this will definitely be part of it. -- Joe
