I'm having trouble installing arch linux in uefi mode

[Daniel77]

Hi so I'm trying to install arch linux on samsung rv510 with legacy os support disabled in it (so uefi) but when i try to get into the usb stick, the pc will just message me "Unregistered exception handler", when i set the boot priority of the usb to 1. and don't do anything during the boot process the usb boots up taking like 5-8 minutes, when i try to install it with archinstall and select anything other than GRUB the pc will start kernel panicking 3 minutes after the installation process and i won't be able to shut it down (unless i plug out the battery)

How do i solve this?

if anything then there's no Secure boot option in the bios settings, not even in the hidden ones

-the kernel panic log was "not syncing: fatal exception in interrupt"

 

[Brickwizard]

I have serious doubts, Your machine was built 2009/2010 It probably is NOT UEFI compatible and will need to have a distribution with Legacy support on

 

[Daniel77]

I have serious doubts, Your machine was built 2009/2010 It probably is NOT UEFI compatible and will need to have a distribution with Legacy support on

I don't know, when i installed windows 11 as efi and checked msinfo32 the log either said UEFI or "older version"

 

[Brickwizard]

Found this on a windows help site [i Havent used windows in over 20 yrs as a daily drive]

Checking your system's firmware type using the msinfo32 command. If it shows "UEFI," your system is using the newer firmware, while "older version" likely refers to the legacy BIOS mode

 

[Daniel77]

Checking your system's firmware type using the msinfo32 command

I just checked it again and it says UEFI at the moment but sometimes it says older version
Also the windows is booted from a gpt partition
And when i press esc on the bios startup it will say "UEFI boot menu"

 

[KGIII]

UEFI has been around since 2005, though initially it was more common with Intel products. Intel also had EFI, and that predated UEFI. When EFI ended, UEFI took over.

OP could have UEFI.

UEFI - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[bob466]

My 2012 Laptop is Legacy...no UEFI or secure boot.

 

[Daniel77]

My 2012 Laptop is Legacy...no UEFI or secure boot. View attachment 29065

In bios there might be an option to disable "legacy os boot"

 

[KGIII]

I'm not all that familiar with Arch. That error can often be a GPU thing. You could look into 'nomodeset'. Also, you can try it with the legacy enabled to see if that makes a difference.

 

[Trml]

Yes, could be something like nomodeset helps or missing microcode for old CPU, or faulty old uefi. The 3 minutes is also a kernel watchdog default (180s).

What I would do is reset the bios/uefi to defaults (if it has such option and you don't use bitlocker), then change back to uefi and what is needed that your Win boots fine. The reset in case there were some changes to interrupts, power management. An Arch ISO is small, it should boot quicker than the 6 minutes on any USB2. Any case, let it boot, exit to command line in the iso menu and do the following to save the kernel messages like so dmesg > /tmp/dmesg. After that copy the file to your efi partition, mount /dev/xyz /mnt (find xyz with lsblk), cp /tmp/dmesg /mnt/. Next execute efivar --list and confirm it outputs without an error at the end.

You will probably see chunks of kernel errors in dmesg. Note the counter at the beginning. Once it makes big jumps, it is probably something hanging or crashing during boot. Have a look what you think look suspicious and share/link it here. Maybe it gives hints.

 

[dos2unix]

efibootmgr does not tell you whether your hardware supports UEFI in general. It only works (and can report anything) if your system is currently booted in UEFI mode and the firmware’s EFI variables are accessible. It doesn’t rely on the presence of an EFI System Partition (ESP); rather, it reads/writes boot entries in the firmware’s NVRAM. If you’re booted in legacy BIOS/CSM, efibootmgr will typically fail and won’t be able to confirm support.

 

[Daniel77]

I'm not all that familiar with Arch. That error can often be a GPU thing. You could look into 'nomodeset'. Also, you can try it with the legacy enabled to see if that makes a difference.

In legacy it works well i just want to know how would arch react if it ran with uefi on the old laptop (like would it install more drivers and such?)

 

[CaffeineAddict]

In bios there might be an option to disable "legacy os boot"

If there is no CSM or UEFI option in your BIOS to set mode, you're wasting your time.

 

[Daniel77]

If there is no CSM or UEFI option in your BIOS to set mode, you're wasting your time.

Yeah you might be right
Even if i have some efi in my laptop
It might be very unstable
(It couldn't even run windows 10 which is funny because the other ones were starting up well even 11)

 

[CaffeineAddict]

It couldn't even run windows 10 which is funny because the other ones were starting up well even 11

Neither Windows 10 nor 11 require UEFI from what I see:

Windows Setup: Installing using the MBR or GPT partition style

Windows Setup: Installing using the MBR or GPT partition style

learn.microsoft.com

The only requirement is that if UEFI is used then disk has to be GPT, but this doesn't prevent you installing to MBR.

So the answer is in your BIOS, seeing what options are there.

 

[Daniel77]

Neither Windows 10 nor 11 require UEFI from what I see:

Oh no that's not what i meant
I meant that while i was trying out windows with legacy disabled all of them worked fine except for windows 10 for some reason
And even so my windows installation took like 10 minutes to load

 

[CaffeineAddict]

with legacy disabled

OK, sorry, I see now, you do have legacy option in bios:

samsung rv510 with legacy os

I suspect your mobo firmware is to blame, if you had issues with both Windows and Linux.

Every mobo may have firmware problems, mine does as well although problem is something else, not fatal.

 

[KGIII]

In legacy it works well i just want to know how would arch react if it ran with uefi on the old laptop (like would it install more drivers and such?)

UEFI just checks to make sure the OS you're loading is the same OS it's supposed to be.

You can use legacy mode. The odds of being compromised are low, and there are other symptoms you'd notice before you'd see anything that compromised the OS itself.

 

[Deleted member 210773]

efibootmgr does not tell you whether your hardware supports UEFI in general. It only works (and can report anything) if your system is currently booted in UEFI mode and the firmware’s EFI variables are accessible. It doesn’t rely on the presence of an EFI System Partition (ESP); rather, it reads/writes boot entries in the firmware’s NVRAM. If you’re booted in legacy BIOS/CSM, efibootmgr will typically fail and won’t be able to confirm support.

In my above post I made reference to the following tutorial to the section "check if you are using BIOS or UEFI on Linux"

Check if Computer Uses UEFI or Legacy BIOS [Linux & Windows]

A quick tutorial to tell you if your system uses the modern UEFI or the legacy BIOS. Instructions for both Windows and Linux have been provided.

itsfoss.com

What I must do for to boot my computer (with only Linux installed) in UEFI mode ?

 

[dos2unix]

What I must do for to boot my computer (with only Linux installed) in UEFI mode ?

Can you boot from a live USB? Typically the bigger distros will auto-detect if you are legacy BIOS or EFI.