Re: How to boot in UEFI mode: practically no documentation

[Robert Nestor <rnestor%mac.com@localhost>]

I’m not convinced that booting in UEFI mode actually works in 8.0_RC1.  The uefi-install image is constructed with both UEFI and BIOS boot loaders so it can boot in either mode.  The system I’m testing on gives me the capability to disable UEFI or Legacy/BIOS boot capability.  When I disable the BIOS capability to force only UEFI booting the install image won’t boot.  The only way I’ve been able to boot it is with the Legacy/BIOS boot.

Copying /usr/mdec/boot to / and running the install boot for bootxx_ffsv1 installs the Legacy/BIOS files for booting and shouldn’t be needed (or done) if you want a plain UEFI boot setup.  At least that’s what I was told last year when I was playing with this.

When I install on a disk using only what is needed for UEFI booting the system won’t boot.  When I add the BIOS boot files (boot and bootxx_ffsv1) the system boots, but only if I disable UEFI boot capability. (On my system UEFI takes precedence and so it will load the NetBSD kernel which then fails to run.  It gets an error attempting to obtain information from the EFI tables I think, at least that’s what the error output seems to indicate.)

As far as I can tell use of GPT wedges is separate from the style of boot in NetBSD, unlike Windows where the two are tied together (at least that’s what I was told).

So, unless you build a system without the BIOS boot files and/or totally disable Legacy/BIOS boot capability in your system you can’t be sure if you booted via UEFI just because the system came up or is using wedges for partitions.

Not sure if the non-working UEFI boot is generally known or if a PR has been filed though.