Interesting #tech problem: I have a Thinkpad X230 and a keychain full of USB drives. I’ve been trying to install a new distro, but no matter what ISO (Slack, BSD, etc) I try, it fails to boot from the USB anywhere past the initial disk enumeration.
Whatever bootloader the distro uses will load, but the actual installer never starts. Tried multiple USBs and multiple distros. CSM is enabled. Ideas? #Techsupport #linux #thinkpad
@moz Is your X230 set to boot using UEFI instead of legacy mode?
@starbreaker it has UEFI+legacy, CSM enabled.
@moz Try setting it to legacy only.
@starbreaker that worked...awesome! had CSM enabled before, but was booting EFI-first. For some reason that worked for the Antergos installer but not for Slackware or BSD installers... strange
@moz The Slackware and BSD installers probably need to be updated to handle UEFI. If you're going to use those, make sure to partition with MBR instead of GPT, and put GRUB in the MBR. Then legacy boot shouldn't be a problem.
@starbreaker good to know. Partitioning and getting bootloaders set up is my least favorite part of installing OSes. So fragile and unreliable sometimes. Wish there was a robust UEFI bootloader solution that could chainload into MBR-only OSes.
@moz I'm not convinced UEFI was ever necessary, let alone a good idea.
@starbreaker it isn’t, but it’s everywhere now so I’d rather make it work than keep using systems from pre-2013.