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miraculix

- miraculix
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Sun Oct 05, 2014 7:02 pm

## Re: Building UEFI ISO with refracta on Testing.

Thu Feb 19, 2015 12:24 pm

I'm just downloading and will try to find out what's wrong.
Please remark, that I'll support amd64 only in the first step. That is, because nearly all new hardware (including Macs) are 64-bit machines.
You cannot cross-install on uefi, if your distro is I386-based. This doesn't work regardsless you are trying to install on IA32 or amd64.
So what seems to be most important to my is to prepare cross-installation from a computer with msdos-firmware (aka BIOS) running amd64 to a computer with uefi-firmware.
Therefore I selected to install the amd64-version of jessie-testing.
The installer is written already but has to undergo testing yet.
raymerjacque

- raymerjacque
- Posts: 111
- Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2013 9:37 am

## Re: Building UEFI ISO with refracta on Testing.

Thu Feb 19, 2015 12:29 pm

while you guys are rewriting installer code, maybe its time to automate it a bit ? is it not possible to make the locales and time zone part a little easier ? I stopped using refracta installer because users used to get stuck at that part. most users i guess are used to it being done by putting a pin on a map, so when they get asked to select a locale and get given weird file names it is understandable that they would feel lost. I am not saying make a map, but definitely something a little easier, maybe show the location names instead of utf file names ?
fsmithred

- fsmithred
- Posts: 2101
- Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:13 pm

## Re: Building UEFI ISO with refracta on Testing.

Thu Feb 19, 2015 3:12 pm

The timezone and locale settings are run as a separate pre-install script in /usr/lib/refractainstaller/pre-install/. If you can figure out what program some other debian-based distro uses for that, you can replace the pre-install script with one that calls the right program.
raymerjacque

- raymerjacque
- Posts: 111
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## Re: Building UEFI ISO with refracta on Testing.

Thu Feb 19, 2015 3:16 pm

Ah, great idea. i think something like gnome-language selector is perfect. however the question i now is this, if the language and time is changed on system, will it carry over into newly installed OS ?
miraculix

- miraculix
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Sun Oct 05, 2014 7:02 pm

## Re: Building UEFI ISO with refracta on Testing.

Thu Feb 19, 2015 5:23 pm

I also want to say "thank you" for your tip on VB and jessie netinstall.
Because completely different firmware is out now, I'll avoid the word "BIOS" (because it's misleading) and talk of "bios-firmware" (a good old mainboard or notebook equipped with the traditionally BIOS and its restrictions - 4 primary partitions, 2TB maximum disk size etc.) and in opposite uefi-firmware.
I've tried to get I386 running with uefi ticked in Virtual Box. I didn't (and from my understanding, that's correct) work and just booted into the uefi-shell. Only amd64-versions of OSs and therefore also Refracta Snapshots taken from amd64 os-versions will be able to be installed on uefi-firmware.
The job concerning uefi-awareness of refracta-snapshot combined with the refracta-installer (just give me a few days of testing, the basic work for the yad-version is done already) is to allow a snapshot taken on an amd64-os with bios-firmware (aka "BIOS") to be installed on uefi-firmware (64bit). At the time of booting into a brand new machine (or VB) the installer has no chance to detect uefi-firmware and you have to answer a question, if you would like to install on uefi-firmware.
I hope this helps a little bit. The current installer will work only on bios-firmware.
raymerjacque

- raymerjacque
- Posts: 111
- Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2013 9:37 am

## Re: Building UEFI ISO with refracta on Testing.

Thu Feb 19, 2015 5:39 pm

well, as long as it can build a ISO that can boot and install on a UEFI enabled machine
Also be careful of that ISO for VB, i noticed sometimes it boots fine with UEFI enabled, sometimes it doesnt. I am sure its probably a bug with virtualbox itself ... could also be something i did since i am constantly fidling with packages...
fsmithred

- fsmithred
- Posts: 2101
- Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:13 pm

## Re: Building UEFI ISO with refracta on Testing.

Thu Feb 19, 2015 11:02 pm

In ubuntu, it looks like the timezone map is from /usr/share/ubiquity/tzsetup. There's also clock-setup in the same directory. I just looked at what was running when the map was up.
If you select a language at the display manager login screen and create a snapshot, the snapshot will revert to the original language. If you select a language on the boot command line and create a snapshot, the snapshot will retain the selected language. I just did it.
At the syslinux boot menu, press TAB and add the following (for example) to the boot line, and then ENTER:

Code:
  `components=locales,keyboard-configuration locales=fr_FR.UTF-8 keyboard-layouts=fr`

I think running dpkg-reconfigure from the installer is easier. I have to look up the boot commands any time I want to try them, just to make sure I'm doing it right. (Note: for wheezy, it's "config=locales..." and for jessie/sid it's "components=locales...")
miraculix

- miraculix
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Sun Oct 05, 2014 7:02 pm

## Re: Building UEFI ISO with refracta on Testing.

Sun Feb 22, 2015 4:16 pm

Running on Windows I'm using Firefox as my webbrowser with an add-on called "DownThemAll".
"DownThemAll" reports on all jessie-isos without that mentioned above "size mismatch". This includes also the lastest stable iso of Refracta 64-bit (late 2013), which I would like to have for testing. Hopefully this can be regged. Virtual Box also reports errors, when I try to put these isos in VBs CD-media-slot. So they are definitely wrong in some way.
The mixed i386-amd64-iso has a completely unconventional /boot/grub-directory. Therfore the part for uefi-awareness failed in building the snapshot. Maybe I can get this regged.
raymerjacque

- raymerjacque
- Posts: 111
- Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2013 9:37 am

## Re: Building UEFI ISO with refracta on Testing.

Sun Feb 22, 2015 5:07 pm

That makes sense, since everywhere I searched the error they mention grub... but how to fix it?
raymerjacque

- raymerjacque
- Posts: 111
- Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2013 9:37 am

## Re: Building UEFI ISO with refracta on Testing.

Sun Feb 22, 2015 5:44 pm

is it not easier to fix the grub directory rather than rewrite refracta ?
Maybe just a post what needs to be changed in the grub directory and i can change it and test.
Also can you point me to a 64bit debian base ISO that you know works with the refracta and efi ? Might be easier if i just restart development on a supported ISO ?
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