Installation Issues and GRUB
Hello,
I need a bit of help...
For several days, I've been trying to install Zorin 17 Lite on my Asus T100TA (one of the worst inventions ever created). Yes... the processor is 64 bits, but the UEFI is 32 bits... Before that, I had installed Zorin 15.3 (32 bits) and Windows 10 in 32 bits.
I tried antiX, MX Linux, and even managed to install Debian 13 Trixie 64 bits simply by adding a bootia32.efi (32 bits) file to the installation USB stick. However, with Zorin, no matter how many times I add the bootia32 file or try to configure the booting correctly, GRUB fails during installation.
I attempted to fix the problem by choosing "Try Zorin" and running several commands in the terminal. But even when GRUB installs successfully, I get stuck on the BIOS menu. If I manually set GRUB as the first boot option in the BIOS, the system still does not go further.
If anyone has the slightest idea of what I could do, I would be infinitely grateful.
2 réponses
Hello,
Which version of GRUB are you using..?
Normally, in the BIOS, you only choose the disk that boots first.. You don't choose the OS... and if you select the wrong disk, it won't boot.
Generally, it's: 1° USB key... 2° CD/DVD... 3° HDD / SSD XXXXmodel disk
If I understand correctly, you have Zorin 15.3 and Windows 10 installed on the same disk...
Is this disk partitioned..? and is each OS in a partition..? in GPT..?
The GRUB choice menu should appear... and not the BIOS..??????
Hello,
It's true that these machines have always been a nightmare for installing Linux. The bootia.efi file needs to be added to the EFI partition of the USB stick in order to boot the live system. It does not allow any way to boot a system installed on the hard drive. So there is no point in injecting it into the /boot/efi of the Zorin partition on your hard drive.
The installer simply installed the 64-bit version of grub, which is incompatible with the 32-bit UEFI... so it's normal that it doesn't boot because UEFI is looking for something else.
You will need to install the 32-bit grub package on your installed system, so you will have to get your hands dirty. You will need to use the chroot command from your installation live USB. First, use the fdisk command in a terminal to identify the root and EFI partitions:
For example, the EFI partition might be /dev/mmcblk0p1
The root partition could be called /dev/mmcblk0p2
This is just an example; it is probably different on your machine.
The next step is to mount these partitions, first the root partition:
Type the commands below one by one because this damn code editor deletes all the line breaks I try to insert in the command list!!!
sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p2 /mnt
Then create the mount point for the EFI partition and mount it:
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/boot/efi sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt/boot/efi
Then execute chroot:
sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev sudo chroot /mnt mount /sys mount /proc mount -t devpts devpts /dev/pts
At this point, you are root on your installed Zorin OS and you can install the 32-bit grub:
sudo apt update sudo apt install grub-efi-ia32-bin sudo grub-install --target=i386-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi
Then we exit cleanly:
umount /dev/pts umount /proc umount /sys exit umount /mnt/dev umount /mnt reboot
Normally, on the next reboot, it should work... let's keep our fingers crossed.
You can see that the word nightmare is not exaggerated! Even the code editor got in on it.
@jns55 :
- Line breaks disappear because you don't specify the "language" (here bash) to use for formatting the code block (to be chosen from the dropdown menu at the top left in the window that appears when you click the button to insert a code block). I corrected your message accordingly.
- I also made some modifications/additions to your message (see /sys/, /proc, /dev/pts). I removed the part about mounting /run, which unless I'm mistaken, is unnecessary for redeploying GRUB.