Off-Topic > Off-Topic - Tiny Tux's Corner

Gparted Live on uefi machines

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PDP-8:
Hi Curaga!  Good thought, but just to make absolutely sure, I pulled a fresh Samsung usb stick out of the blister packaging with default factory fat32 formatting.

Booted just fine.  Freaks me out. :)

Here is a snippet of the "usb-installation.txt" file from the Porteus iso, that many don't see since they never attempt to mount it and just dd it without thinking:


--- Code: ---Porteus can be installed to a flash drive or hard
drive in several ways.

FOR EFI SYSTEMS:
Ensure the first partition is of type FAT32.
a) Copy the EFI, boot and porteus folders onto the FAT32 partition.
You may create a second partition with a linux filesystem for the porteus folder.
If you do so, you need to add the from=/mnt/sdb2 cheatcode to the porteus-v4.0-x86_64.cfg file.
This file is located in the porteus folder.
--- End code ---

For Bios systems, one needs to use either the windows exe or linux shell script to make it bootable after copying.

BUT, back to Gparted Live!  Same thing here!  Although it is a zip file, not an iso - but still, a simple extract and copy to a fat32 is all that is needed for uefi.  I should probably contact the gparted dev and inform them that some users may needlessly be using the exe or sh file.

To make matters worse, I even installed Porteus to a spare usb hard drive with spinning platters as a goof.  Just made it a big-ass fat32 drive, copied the files, and the freaking thing boots on uefi-only machines.

Didn't know whether to laugh or cry, because a quick glance at the drive partitioning says that something this simple is impossible! :)

gadget42:
hypothesis: some manufacturers might be making the primary/machine/startup/code(basic-input-output-stuff) with the ability to read fat32 on anything the io can communicate-with/initiate-at-startup AND to actively look for actionable/bootable stuff(which is probably why "secure-boot" was then desired to keep the machine from running "just-any-thing/system/malware/etc").

nick65go:
A good manufacture will build a FIRMWARE which allow you, the BUYER, to chose what EFI file and path to boot. To allow you to disable "secure"-boot. Because you bought the machine, you did not rented it, you are the owner.

Expertise is not gained doing the same thing 1000 times. It needs to do 1000 different things,  sometime learning from mistakes.

You have the parts of a weapon. With Linux you can shout yourself in the foot during assembling it. Instead M$windows is like a nanny, lead your hand with instructions, to not allow you to harm yourself; and you learn nothing because restrictions to experiment. But hey, you are more productive (slave) for your tasks (employer), because you can focus on "real" job of using the tools provided.

gadget42:
@nick65go - agree wholeheartedly

nevertheless, it is probably for the best that some measures are put in place to limit malware/botnets/etc given the general-user-apathy of the 99-percent

PDP-8:
Guys, this has absolutely nothing to do with secure-boot.  Which unless you have been locked out of the so-called bios by some other person, is easily disabled as part of the secure-boot spec.  And that is assuming that secure-boot is enabled by default, which on many consumer machines is NOT.

So this isn't about secure-boot.  And frankly, uefi is not the boogey-man many think it is.  We've talked that subject to death.  Somehow, I don't think Dell is paying attention to a handful of guys on the TC forum. :)

This is about how both Gparted Live and Porteus use similar techniques of mere /copying/ of distribution files to a fat32 partition to easily boot into modern machines, rather than having to even use dd.

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