Hi Ian, Something similar happened to me before. After reconfiguring a lot of times, the firmaware had no space left for EFI variables. I didn't notice the error message at first because guix system did succeed. Maybe you have some similar errors that don't lead to a failure? What does the last phase say, when installing the bootloader?
Le 6 janvier 2024 04:41:34 GMT+01:00, Ian Eure <i...@retrospec.tv> a écrit : >Hello, > >I have Guix running on one computer already, and wanted to set it up on >another, a ThinkPad L390 Yoga. This was previously running Debian, but I >wiped it to put Guix on, by running `sudo dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/nvme0n1 >bs=1M'. After the Guix install, the laptop doesn’t boot -- the firmware shows >a boot device selection menu, rather than bootint into Guix. The only entry >is the internal NVMe SSD, and choosing it does nothing -- the firmware can’t >figure out how to boot from it. I tried two other third-party installers >based on Guix 1.4.0, and got the same result. The installer boots and runs >fine, the install process appears to succeed, but after restarting, the >machine doesn’t boot. > >This is a very vanilla setup. I used the graphical Guix installer, let it >partition things, and have one partition for everything. I have no other OS >on this computer, I’m not dual-booting, net-booting, or anything else exotic. > >Secure boot is disabled in the BIOS. > >I tried updating the firmware on the laptop and restoring it to the default >settings -- no change. > >I tried wiping the partition table again, but using /dev/zero -- no change. > >If I boot the installer image and drop into its GRUB menu, I can chainload >GRUB off the internal SSD’s ESP, which lets me boot Guix. So the installation >itself is fine, but the bootloader is broken. After booting this way, I tried >`guix pull' and `sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm'. This also >didn’t work -- the machine still will not boot. > >After digging in the ESP, I thought I’d found a clue: the GRUB payload is >placed at /EFI/Guix/grubx64.efi, and there’s no /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI, which >is typically what a UEFI platform would look for to begin booting the OS. >But! My existing Guix machine (a ThinkPad X13 Gen 2 AMD) *does* boot, but >*doesn’t* have a /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI payload, either. My Debian machine has >/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI as well as /EFI/debian/grubx64.efi -- both files have >identical contents per sha256sum. But but! The X13 *also* has some Debian >files in the ESP, so it’s not 100% identical to the L390. Not sure how those >got there. It’s also a former Debian box, but I wiped it, and am surprised to >see anything remaining from that. > >My only hypothesis around this is that perhaps the EFI variables are messed >up, and resetting BIOS settings doesn’t clear them. That might make the BIOS >do something weird in its boot process; or make GRUB think some other OS is >installed, and install the bootloader wrong for a single-OS setup. > >Does anyone have any suggestions or advice? Needing a USB stick to boot the >machine is a pain. > >Thanks, > > — Ian >
