[clug] Linux on atom processor

[Chris Smart]

On Sun, Apr 03, 2016 at 07:48:59AM +1000, Robert Edwards wrote:
> 
> My next step it to try and keep a USB wired NIC running when the
> machine "hangs" to see if I can get back in over SSH.
> 
> I also need to try a recommendation from Chris to use a different
> UEFI management tool. I need to ping him on the details of that as
> I can't remember what it was he recommended.
> 

It was rEFInd, a fork of the now deprecated rEFIt:
http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/

There's an rpm and a deb package (created using Alien):
http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/getting.html

I had a quick look at the deb and it appears to only have the 64bit
UEFI (refind_aa64.efi), so you might need to grab the zip file and
install manually to get the 32bit UEFI (which comes with both).

It has been a while but you should be able to get the latest version
and unzip the refind directory into the EFI directory on your ESP
partition - under Debian it's probably mounted to /boot/efi but you can
always just mount the first partition on your disk, it's FAT.

It should come with the 32bit and 64bit UEFI blobs (refind_ia32.efi is
the one you want), so you just delete the refind and tools you don't
want.

Then you have to create a config file and add refind to your nvram using
efibootmgr so that it comes up as a boot option in your UEFI. That does
require that you're booted to a Linux using UEFI - a live image will
work.

There is a refind-install script though that can maybe automate some of
that for you.

If you get stuck, just using the 64bit UEFI deb package might work best,
and then just swap out the 64bit UEFI and tools with the 32bit ones (and
call them the same names to match nvram entry).

Here are the install instructions for Linux:
http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/installing.html#linux

-c

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