Two questions

[John McKee]

1)  I have installed Fedora on a number of computer, mostly BIOS based.  Also two UEFI based.  In all cases, GRUB was installed on MBR amd I was able to choose Linux or Windows. 

After telling a friend, for over ten years, how much better Linux was over Windows, I was surprised when he finally asked me how to make ad dual boot on his new computer.  It was a new computer, with Windows 8 installed.  Even after an upgrade, he was still quite unhappy with the changes.  He installed Fedora 19, and liked what he saw.  And upgraded, by the upgrade path, to Fedora 22.  All the while, he was dealing with a frustration that he thought was "normal".  Turns computer on, and it boots to Windows 8.1.  He then has to do a reboot to get to Fedora.   to get to mac

I don't know if the terms are different between BIOS and UEFI.  My guess is he misunderstood an install question and installed the boot onto the partition instead of MBR.

So, I do some Googling.  I have been to a number of sites.  I am now more confused.  My friend was a computer professional, and not really afraid of doing odd things.  I have seen three sites that seeminly contradict each other as to how to fix, shy of a comple reinstall.  Methods suggested:

1) Boot from install media, mount internal drive, chroot, run grub2-install

2) Boot to Linux as usual, open terminal, su root,   run grub2-install

3) And this conflicting piece, I don't have the URL handy at the moment, but it seems to come from a Fedora site.  Their is a yellow box (reminds of the "Danger Will Robinson") stating that grub2-install only works with BIOS.  I don't know the dates associated with the three responses.  I would like to help my friend.  Too far away to easily get to machine.  I just want to be able to tell him a definitive way to fix it that won't leave him with a brick and longing to return to Windows. 

Can anybody tell me the proper method to fix this?  In talking with my friend, Despite his computer history, I learned he is uncomfortable with monkeying with MBR.  I did suggest he use Clonezilla, and he has.  But, he did have initial issues with using it - likely partly due to less than obcious wording, I suspect.

2)  My dumbness.  I skipped a lot of Fedora updates.  Finally took on he arduous process from Fedor 14 to Fedora 22.  I can understand the reccomendation of doing a clean install.  But, I am wondering if saving /home, /etc/passwd, /etc/groups, and /etc/shadow and then restoring them to a clean install would work.  Also, if other files should also be saved and restored.  Trying to no make a mess of file ownerships.  I can see issues if, for example, the format of /etc/passwd changed.  As it did when /etc/shadow was introduced. 

I apologize for what may be too much information, or too much oriented to new user.  I have seen a lot of information on this list over the years, and I trust it a lot better than a random list.

Thanks,

John McKee

[usererror]

I've had a bit to drink and it's late, but...

bios and uefi are different. uefi allows the o/s to interact with the bios more, if I can remember correctly. A quick google  http://superuser.com/questions/496026/what-is-the-difference-in-boot-with-bios-and-boot-with-uefi

1) It was my impression that grub 2 couldn't use efi until recently, and there are specialized distro images (with a grub patch) to handle this. I have had no problems myself, but I haven't ever enabled UEFI. ( but fedora boots fine in uefi mode on my Mac)

This ubuntu related article has a bunch of info: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

I HAVE however had a problem with the windows bootloader completely screwing up the process of booting linux. I've also had it disappear, unable to boot windows.

Also, in some linux installers when its time to write the bootloader bit, it installs to the MBR of another drive (other than the o/s you are installing to)

2) that's the normal way to do it. 

3) I think there was a special patched version of grub for efi at some point.

    Using the MBR has always been the best method for me, I have read that it's better than a partition. 

2) I never clone anything, user files like music and documents, etc are persistent, the operating system itself and the software configurations can change drastically across distributions and versions. I would rsync those off and always keep them separate enough that they can be extracted easily, not inside of a cloned file system image.

    I can understand restoring the home directory, but most of your configuration files in the folders starting with a ' . ' or in /etc won't necessarily be compatible with your new software, so the user files themselves are more important. ( especially taking a leap from 14 - 22). As for passwords and groups, unless you have a ton of users and custom groups, why preserve them? If you are in a large organization then using ldap or samba for directory services is a great way to go, instead of individually configuring each machine.  Directly copying the old shadow file onto the new one seems like trouble, best to have a clean install all the way around. I would just install from scratch, save yourself the upgrade troubles, recreate the users and groups, copy your friends files back to his /home. ( I have had problems and random performance issues several times with fedora's ever changing upgrade methods.) Then use chmod as root to change any unfortunate ownership mishaps that might happen.

I hope that helps at least a little bit. Cheers!

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