Dell Boot Rudeness

Feedback Hardware
41

Ahoy @_AP !

I used a DEL Precision M6700 and this summer I had to switch to my new M6800.

Both I boot usin’ UEFI. I created first an additional 128 MB bootable FAT32 efi system partition (labeld as ‘haiku esp’) with DriveSetup at installation preparation - to the same installation USB drive where I installed Haiku.

After installation processed succesfully to the USB thumbdrive on the BFS partition .. then

I just closed Installer

and

HAD NOT restarted the machine,

but

I’ve mounted both

  1. the ‘haiku esp’ of the Haiku Live USB (which contains all necessary folders/files to EFI boot !)

  2. the new FAT32 EFI partition (of course -freshly- formatted) you created on the new Haiku install drive - you may created its label as ‘haiku esp’ as well

COPIED all folders/files from Haiku Live USB’s ‘haiku esp’ partition (or CD/DVD if you install from there) to the empty FAT32 filesystem of this new ESP.

After that you can boot Haiku with with any UEFI/BIOS settings if Secure Boot is DISABLED (!)

… you just need to use F12 at boot time to generate list of bootable devices.

You will have your USB device in the bootable device list

as

UEFI:<and here the long name of your USB device where to you were installed Haiku and created also the additional FAT32 ESP (EFI system partition) >

It works even if you leave the BIOS on CSM !..

Possibly this UEFI can be registered in BIOS … until now I had not care about it. I can do the boot list generation at boot time – no cause to rush !.. :cowboy_hat_face:

This way you don’t have to modify the UEFI partition if you have another OS on your machine .. however you can play with it as well.

Ah yeah, the bootloader in R1B4 ‘haiku esp’ no more usable for nightly – anyone would use it after patches 31th January 2025 (at least I selected that one !) … would get KDL with “BFS Panic !” message at boot.

I migrated from R1B4 once and as I’m a lazy guy, generally I had not refreshed the bootloader. I could resolve this error at this time only with copying a newer bootloader (downgrade had not helped at all - I had to select always a previous patch level ! :slight_smile: , that was annoying to wait some minutes at boot to create the list of saved, available patch levels, previous packages, so “restore points” )

If you have a fresh install : no such problem at all.

I just written here my warning about it .. as if there may be some other lazy guys just as me :wink:

42

I would modify this statement to ..

a CSM/Legacy BIOS recommended for booting a 32bit Haiku. You would have a simpler case.

For 64bit Haiku .. I could boot it only with UEFI.

Once , in a forum thread @michel stated : he can boot 64bit Haiku in BIOS way too.

I admit : it can possible with a boot manager like grub2, but Haiku has no pure 64bit bootloader in case BIOS way boot, but only for UEFI boot.

Fix me if I’m wrong.

43

Haiku x86_64 does have a BIOS bootloader and can boot perfectly fine without grub.
The only reason you’ll ever need something like grub is if you want to install multiple systems on the same computer.
I boot all my Haiku installs using BIOS,because it’s simpler.
Unfortunately,some newer computers don’t support BIOS boot anymore (no CSM or Legacy boot setting available),then you have no other choice but using UEFI.

3 Likes
44

I do know how to set up UEFI booting. But pressing F12 requires correct timing and takes a good 10 seconds of waiting. With the regular BIOS bootman, I have to wait for the dell stuff, but don’t have to time my intervention. I can just wait and see the choices and only the choices.

It’s just a simpler and nicer boot manager.

45

I’m not sure what you mean. With refind correctly installed, you get a boot menu without having to press f12 or any other key. And it’s a nicer graphic one with icons.

46

I was referring to KitsunePrefecture’s instructions. I have already set up rEFInd, and will use it until o can make Haiku’s bootman work.

One of these days I will read the documentation to turn off probing and manually change a couple icons.