[13.04 64Bit] - Installation Fails On UEFI Grub Install ?

[Steve Riley]

On 2013-05-28 23:05:09 Myriam Schweingruber <myriam at kde.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Jesse,
> 
> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 5:36 PM, Jesse Palser
> <jessepalsermailinglists at gmail.com> wrote:
> > [13.04 64Bit] - Installation Fails On UEFI Grub Install ?
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I tried several times to install Kubuntu 13.04 64Bit on my desktop
> > but it always fails on UEFI Grub installation?
> >
> > System is the following:
> > - AMD FX 3.5GHz 8-Core CPU
> > - Asus Sabertooth 990FX Gen2 Motherboard
> > - 32GB DDR3 RAM
> > - VisionTek AMD Radeon HD 7800 2GB GDDR5 Graphic Adapter
> > - Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB HDD
> > - DVD+/-RW Drive
> >
> > I boot from a DVD with Kubuntu 13.04 64Bit installation installed.
> > Everything seems to work until the end where it crashes on UEFI Grub
> > installation?
> > (I thought UEFI BIOS was better supported by new 13.04?)
> >
> > Anyone know how to get this working on above desktop?
> 
> Try setting the BIOS to "Legacy" boot options instead of "UEFI" for
> the installation, that should do the trick. At least recent BIOS on
> Lenovo laptops all have that option (I had to do that yesterday when I
> reinstalled on an SSD in my laptop) and you can just re-enable it
> again (setting it to "both") once the installation is done.
> 
> 
> Regards, Myriam


However, that process will leave the installed version of Kubuntu in BIOS emulation mode. It will not boot into UEFI mode.

Most of the kernels in the 3.8 series have a problem in which they refuse to add UEFI NVRAM variables if the available space is reported to be less than 50%. This is to work around a serious bug in certain implementations that completely break some Samsung laptops.

http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthread.php?62470
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1167622
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1173423

As you can tell by reading bug 1167622, commit 68d929862e29a8b52a7f2f2f86a0600423b093cd is the cause of the problem. Kernels built with this commit reverted (http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~jsalisbury/lp1173423/) work fine.

Commit 31ff2f20d9003e74991d135f56e503fe776c127c is an attempt to get smarter about the 50% space issue. But kernels containing this commit (http://people.canonical.com/~jsalisbury/lp1173423/) are still failing.

Unfortunately, until this gets fixed in the kernel and the ISOs are updated to include a fixed kernel, UEFI installs are going to break. We have many reports of this on the Kubuntu forum.

...Steve