On Fri, Nov 19, 2021 at 09:09:53PM -0500, Peter King via talk wrote:
Anyone had success with getting linux to boot from an nvme disk? I've been fighting with UEFI and Arch Linux all day now, trying to get a new computer to even recognize the nvme disk as a boot device. (Last time I encountered this problem I gave up and installed an ordinary HD to boot from.) For what it's worth, I have disabled Secure Boot, reformatted the nvme disk to have a new EFI partition without Windows, a swap partition, and a root partition; I'm trying to use efibootmgr (so no loading of a further bootloader), and, as far as I can tell, identified all the right partitions by device name or PARTUUID. Still no go. I even tried adding the parameter nvme_load=YES into the "root" part of the efibootmgr, and also adding nvme and vmd as modules in mkinitcpio.conf, all without any success. If necessary I'll just punt and install a regular HD to boot from, but that rather takes away from having an nvme disk in the first place.
(Over the years I've learning to approach installing Linux with fear and loathing, with almost all the problems being with the bootloader -- from LILO through GRUB and GRUB2 now down to UEFI.)
Any suggestions welcome! I didn't want to spend my weekend doing this.
I tried it 4 or 5 years ago when I was building a machine for a friend with NVMe. I tested the Debian installer at the time since it had recently added nvme support and I wanted to see if it worked. No problems. That was a desktop system with an Asus motherboard. I know some laptops have done idiotic things to do with intel's raid controller that makes linux have trouble even detecting the nvme disk. efibootmgr is of course NOT a boot loader, it is a configuration tool for setting the UEFI nvram for which boot loaders you want. You still need a bootloader (normally grub2). grub2 normally automatically takes care of telling efibootmgr what nvram settings it needs. -- Len Sorensen