Inform user about extra steps for EFI

[rnelson]

I've used Haiku on and off for years, but always in VMs or BIOS systems. I just installed on a UEFI system for the first time and it continually failed to boot. A user on IRC pointed me at ​the UEFI Booting Haiku guide, and following that got my system booting.

I don't know where the effort for an automated EFI setup is at, but if it's still a ways away, maybe the installer or the disk setup can point users to that guide if they're working with a GPT disk?

[Starcrasher]

I guess that it will avoid few threads on the forum indeed. Note that this guide also miss a few things.

First, that the EFI loader type is tied to the BIOS kind. Motherboards with 64 bits BIOS can load both 32 bits and 64 bits EFI loaders. On motherboards with have a 32 bits BIOS, you may have to use 32 bits EFI and 32 bits Haiku even if they can support 64 bits CPU. That is partly because 32 bits EFI loader can only boot 32 bits Haiku and 64 bits EFI loader can only boot 64 bits Haiku. There's work in progress to ameliorate that but nothing finished yet. See here ​https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/uefi-guide/8457/21

Also important, the default name is different in 32 bits (BOOTIA32.EFI).

It is possible to add signature to boot in secure mode. See ​https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/haiku-esp-efi-secure-boot-partition-image/13002/6 Also some BIOS are allowing to bless EFI loader.

Depending of your BIOS, ESP partition format can be different from FAT32. That's important to know if you want to install another system with multiboot. In this case, you may only need to add Haiku loader there and use efi manager software from the other system to add an entry for Haiku.

EFI implementation on Mac is not always fully compatible with the standard. Sometimes Refind is needed.

Refind is really useful but perhaps would it be interesting to precise that even if you have installed both 32 bits and 64 bits Haiku to different partitions, it will only see one Haiku loader. Though, I don't know if it is always the 64 bits one or if it differs depending of your BIOS kind.

[pulkomandy]

For the "Inform user" part, I think the Installer "EULA" screen already has some instructions on setting up bootloaders. But no one reads it.

So, where can we put this information to make sure users do not continue to ignore it?

[rnelson]

I was thinking a message box in the drive setup app when the user goes to do something that involves EFI.

Hardware is not my forte so I don't know if that means the user is working with GPT or if (U)EFI is detected as part of the boot process or what, but something where the tool can be reasonably certain that it's needed.