[clug] Linux on atom processor

[Robert Edwards]

On 3/04/2016 8:29 am, Chris Smart wrote:
> 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/

Turns out that the solution to getting the UEFI working in Ubuntu
15.10 was a lot simpler than this - had I had a better look at how
Debian were doing it on the Debian partition earlier...

I just had to:
sudo apt-get install grub-efi-ia32

and now Ubuntu is managing the EFI partition and keeping the kernel
up to date (no need to boot into Debian to update grub any more).

All good.

I still have the internal WiFi adaptor driver (r8723bs) blacklisted
and am using an external (USB) WiFi adaptor - the screen is
blanking and unblanking as expected without hanging the system now.

This netbook is a Lenovo Ideapad 100S-11BV.

As Rodney pointed out, it is necessary to turn off Security in the
boot ROM (no longer BIOS) and there is no "legacy" (BIOS) boot mode.

Thanks for your help, Chris.

Bob Edwards

>
> 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
>