On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 8:24 AM, Jack Howarth <howarth.mailing.lists@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 3:16 AM, Chris Murphy <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >> >> On Tue, Dec 6, 2016, 9:47 AM Jack Howarth <howarth.mailing.lists@xxxxxxxxx> >>> [howarth@localhost ~]$ efibootmgr -v >>> EFI variables are not supported on this system. >> >> >> >> It's a CSM-BIOS boot then. It you boot holding down the option key, you >> probably get a hard drive icon labeled Windows as one of the options. >> > > Yes, when I hold down the option key, only a single volume appears > labelled Windows which oddly boots Linux. That's expected, as Apple has hard wired their firmware boot manager to present any legacy OS with a Windows boot icon. Legacy OS is one that uses the firmware's CSM. >Perhaps this has something > to do with how I installed this machine. There's no EFI bootloader this computer can use, so it probably did a fall back to the El Torito BIOS bootloader (isolinux in this case). The installer can distinguish between BIOS and UEFI boots, so it can produce or enforce the correct layout and install the correct bootloader. > I started with 2 partitions > in MBR created with OS X's Disk Utility, The first OS that I installed > was Windows 10 Pro in the second partion. I then booted the Fedora 25 > Live DVD and using gparted removed all the partitions other than the > main Windows 10 one (ie its booter partitions). Then I installed > Fedora 25 x86_64 into this section of spare partition space on the > drive. The Windows install absolutely will not do an EFI installation on MBR disks. So had it booted in EFI mode, it wouldn't have installed to this disk. It was definitely a CSM-BIOS boot for Windows, and that alone also commits you to installing Fedora with a CSM-BIOS boot. While technically possible to support mixed firmware modes, so far no one with a strong enough liver has stepped up to do the work - actually the very idea of this made me glance over at a bottle of tequila. > FYI, I have found that the automatic partitioning in Fedora gets > easily confused and errors out if any prior booter partitions are > present. I normally make sure that there is no remaining partitions > between the start of the disk and the second OS partition (Windows > 10). Is this expected behavior? I would have thought anaconda would > cope with using the free partition space between the Windows 10 booter > partitions and the Windows 10 main partition, no? >From my perspective? It should not be expected. I think it's a terrible experience. But I'm really biased about this. *shrug* There's something OCD with Linux installers generally wanting to shove all partitions in the face of the user. Installers never hassled people with bootloaders in the partitionless MBR gap, but since the arrival of EFI system partition and BIOS boot partition types, installers neurotically expose the user to trivial nonsense. These things are installer and firmware domain, there is no good purpose served by involving the user with them at all in a GUI installer, unless the idea is to confuse users, piss them off, or induce them into data loss - and in that sense it's been a very successful UI/Ux. But the Fedora installer isn't the biggest or only offender. They all seem to suffer from the same absurd logic that more is better. -- Chris Murphy _______________________________________________ devel mailing list -- devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
