Problem installing Debian 11 as dual boot with Windows 10

[Martin Liddle]

I have been installing Unix/Linux as dual boot with Windows for 30 years
without problem but I am struggling with my first attempt to install on
a Lenovo Thinkpad E570 laptop with a UEFI BIOS. I am using Rufus to
format a USB memory stick with the following parameters:

Boot selection: Debian 1150-i386-netinst.iso
Partition scheme: GPT
Target system: UEFI (non CSM)
File system: FAT32
Cluster size: 4096

Rufus runs and creates what seems like a reasonable image. But when i
reboot and try and boot from the USB stick there is a brief flash of the
LED on the drive and the boot menu returns to the the default Windows
boot device. I have googled looking for similar problems and tried
turning off Secure Boot but I am getting nowhere. I have also looked at
quite a number of YouTube videos and tried a couple of USB memory
sticks. At the moment I am completely out of ideas. Any suggestions on
what I am doing wrong or where would be a better place to ask the
question? I am trying to install a 32bit version of Debian alongside a
64 bit version of Windows; could this be a problem?

--
Martin Liddle,
Staveley, Chesterfield, Derbyshire UK

[Marco Moock]

Am 21.11.2022 um 17:33:10 Uhr schrieb Martin Liddle:

> I have been installing Unix/Linux as dual boot with Windows for 30
> years without problem but I am struggling with my first attempt to
> install on a Lenovo Thinkpad E570 laptop with a UEFI BIOS.

Go to the UEFI and set the boot mechanism to "UEFI only". Disable
Fastboot.

> I am using Rufus to format a USB memory stick with the following
> parameters:

Don't use Rufus, only write the original ISO image to the flash disk.

Boot into Windows, disable Fastboot and Hibernate.
If you don't have a free partition, shrink the windows partition, so
you have enough free unpartitioned space on the disk.

Then boot the Debian flash disk and do the partitioning.

[Martin Liddle]

On 22/11/2022 07:28, Marco Moock wrote:
> Am 21.11.2022 um 17:33:10 Uhr schrieb Martin Liddle:
>
>> I have been installing Unix/Linux as dual boot with Windows for 30
>> years without problem but I am struggling with my first attempt to
>> install on a Lenovo Thinkpad E570 laptop with a UEFI BIOS.
>
> Go to the UEFI and set the boot mechanism to "UEFI only". Disable
> Fastboot.
>

Thank you for your response. Boot mechanism is "UEFI only". I can't
find a Fastboot setting in the BIOS but there is a setting to disable
fast-startup in Power Options and I have turned that off.

>> I am using Rufus to format a USB memory stick with the following
>> parameters:
>
> Don't use Rufus, only write the original ISO image to the flash disk.
>

In Linux I have copied the ISO to the flash drive.

cp debian-11.5.0-i386-netinst.iso /dev/sdb

> Boot into Windows, disable Fastboot and Hibernate.
> If you don't have a free partition, shrink the windows partition, so
> you have enough free unpartitioned space on the disk.
>

As I have said previously I have done this lots of times on non UEFI
hardware and had already made space available.

> Then boot the Debian flash disk and do the partitioning.
>

Sadly the Debian flash drive still won't boot. There is a setting in
the BIOS to enable or disable USB UEFI BIOS support; enabled seemed to
be sensible but I have tried with it disabled. The complete lack of any
output when it fails to boot is making it very difficult to diagnose
what is going on. As I can't find anything relevant via googling I am
clearly doing something stupid but have no clue as to what that is.

[Steve McIntyre]

Hi Martin!

In article <tlgcom$3pqmj$1...@dont-email.me>,

That's exactly your problem. When booting via UEFI, the firmware will
only ever boot an image using a matching architecture/size. As your
system is using a 64-bit UEFI implementation, it won't boot a 32-bit
image. You'll need to grab the amd64 netinst instead.

Steve (the Debian guy who made those images)

--
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK
st...@einval.com https://www.einval.com/~steve/

[Marco Moock]

Am 22.11.2022 um 16:42:27 Uhr schrieb Martin Liddle:

> In Linux I have copied the ISO to the flash drive.
>
> cp debian-11.5.0-i386-netinst.iso /dev/sdb

You need to use dd to do that.

dd if=debian-11.5.0-i386-netinst.iso of=/dev/sdb status=progress bs=4M

[Martin Liddle]

On 22/11/2022 17:46, Steve McIntyre wrote:
>
> That's exactly your problem. When booting via UEFI, the firmware will
> only ever boot an image using a matching architecture/size. As your
> system is using a 64-bit UEFI implementation, it won't boot a 32-bit
> image. You'll need to grab the amd64 netinst instead.
>

Thank you, that is very helpful. However I do have a good reason to run
a 32 bit version for the time being. I have finally discovered a BIOS
setting that with secure boot off, allows me to give legacy devices
priority over UEFI; this has allowed me to do a basic 32 bit install
from a DVD drive with one issue; the grub installation failed. I have
reset the BIOS back to Secure boot and Windows stills boots. How would
I install grub in this situation (assuming that I can)?

--
Martin Liddle, Tynemouth Computer Services
Staveley, Chesterfield, Derbyshire UK

[Marco Moock]

Am 22.11.2022 um 18:59:28 Uhr schrieb Martin Liddle:

> hank you, that is very helpful. However I do have a good reason to
> run a 32 bit version for the time being. I have finally discovered a
> BIOS setting that with secure boot off, allows me to give legacy
> devices priority over UEFI; this has allowed me to do a basic 32 bit
> install from a DVD drive with one issue; the grub installation
> failed. I have reset the BIOS back to Secure boot and Windows stills
> boots. How would I install grub in this situation (assuming that I
> can)?

i386/i686 and UEFI might be a problem. What is the exact reason for
using i386 in 2022 on a machine with UEFI that has a amd64 compatible
cpu.

[Martin Liddle]

I have 2 servers and about 20 other computers running 32 bit Linux
mainly because our software is developed using an ancient 32 bit
compiler. I am getting very old and it is very debatable whether it is
worth the hassle of porting everything to a different 64 bit compiler.
If it is confirmed that we can't mix 32 bit and 64 bit then I'll have to
rethink things.

--
Martin Liddle
Staveley, Chesterfield, Derbyshire UK

[Theo]

You have roughly two choices:

1. Work out how to boot a 32 bit OS on a 64 bit UEFI. It might be possible
to use a 64 bit GRUB to boot a 32 bit kernel, for example. Some tinkering
is likely to be required.

2. Install a 64 bit OS. Then just install whatever 32-bit libraries are
needed for your 32-bit compiler and apps. You can still run your compiler
and 32-bit binaries on a 64 bit OS and they will work fine.
https://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch
https://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch/HOWTO

#2 is the most preferable becaues you're running a 64 bit kernel so you can
take advantage of the hardware you have, and just your specific apps are 32
#bit.

Theo

[Martin Liddle]

On 22/11/2022 20:50, Theo wrote:
>
> You have roughly two choices:
>
> 1. Work out how to boot a 32 bit OS on a 64 bit UEFI. It might be possible
> to use a 64 bit GRUB to boot a 32 bit kernel, for example. Some tinkering
> is likely to be required.
>
> 2. Install a 64 bit OS. Then just install whatever 32-bit libraries are
> needed for your 32-bit compiler and apps. You can still run your compiler
> and 32-bit binaries on a 64 bit OS and they will work fine.
> https://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch
> https://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch/HOWTO
>
> #2 is the most preferable becaues you're running a 64 bit kernel so you can
> take advantage of the hardware you have, and just your specific apps are 32
> #bit.
>
Theo

Thanks, your assessment of the situation is similar to mine. I need to
experiment and see what works. I haven't got time to do it for a few
days as I have wasted too much time getting to the point where I
properly understand the situation.

[Andy Burns]

Martin Liddle wrote:

> I am trying to install a 32bit version of Debian alongside a 64 bit version of
> Windows;

Dual booting felt old-hat to me as soon as hypervisors appeared letting you run
windows within linux or vice-versa ...

[Aragorn]

On 22.11.2022 at 22:45, Andy Burns scribbled:

You can run them side by side, even, on top of a bare-metal hypervisor
like Xen. No host and no guests in the traditional sense, although
one of the GNU/Linux [*] guests will then be the virtual machine from
within which you control the other ones.


[*] The only operating systems supported in this role are GNU/Linux,
NetBSD and OpenIndiana (formerly OpenSolaris/Nexenta). Windows
cannot be used in this role.

--
With respect,
= Aragorn =

[Steve McIntyre]

While I'd also recommend dd for better performance, cp will work just
fine here. If you're using dd, you also want to add "oflag=sync" so
that the dd command won't finish until the data is written properly.

[Steve McIntyre]

In article <tlj66g$3912$1...@dont-email.me>,

Martin Liddle <new...@tynecomp.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Thank you, that is very helpful. However I do have a good reason to run
>a 32 bit version for the time being. I have finally discovered a BIOS
>setting that with secure boot off, allows me to give legacy devices
>priority over UEFI; this has allowed me to do a basic 32 bit install
>from a DVD drive with one issue; the grub installation failed. I have
>reset the BIOS back to Secure boot and Windows stills boots. How would
>I install grub in this situation (assuming that I can)?

Your system will no doubt be using a GPT partition table now, and that
means that GRUB won't be able to embed its second stage binary as
normal. If so, you *can* make this work by adding a bios_grub
partition in the right place (sectors 34 to 2047). However, depending
on the firmware you'll struggle to make this dual-boot easily in
future.

As others have suggested, do an amd64 installation and work from
there. Multi-arch may be an option on a Debian system, or
alternatively use an i386 installation in a chroot to deal with
settings things up. debootstrap and schroot [1] are your friends
there.

[1] https://wiki.debian.org/Schroot

[Theo]

Martin Liddle <new...@tynecomp.co.uk> wrote:
> Thanks, your assessment of the situation is similar to mine. I need to
> experiment and see what works. I haven't got time to do it for a few
> days as I have wasted too much time getting to the point where I
> properly understand the situation.

Another option #3 would be to run a 32-bit VM or container. Steve has
mentioned a chroot (which is a basic form of container), but a VM might use
something like KVM (running a full 32-bit kernel).

Or you could have a 32-bit world inside a container like Docker (generally
designed to be throwaway after each use, with control over which state
persists) or LXC/LXD (persistent, more like a VM but without the 32 bit
kernel).

Really depends on what you're trying to achieve. Docker is a good way to
wrap up toolchains so you don't need to worry about fulfilling all the
dependencies on every machine - the container is a bundle that contains
everything and you can install it with a single command. Then you can use
it to run the tools on local files, rather than having to copy files in and
out as you might with a VM.

Theo

[Martin Liddle]

On 22/11/2022 20:50, Theo wrote:
>

> 2. Install a 64 bit OS. Then just install whatever 32-bit libraries are
> needed for your 32-bit compiler and apps. You can still run your compiler
> and 32-bit binaries on a 64 bit OS and they will work fine.
> https://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch
> https://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch/HOWTO
>

Sorry for the delay in coming back to this topic but more pressing
issues took priority. Having experimented with various options I have
decided that the advice to use a 64 bit OS and Multiarch is the way to
go; thanks to the several people who suggested this was the route to use.

I now have a 64 bit Debian 11 installation with Multiarch and I have got
the 32 bit compiler working and first test suggest it is producing code
that runs properly. However I am now stuck because the code includes
our own interface to mariadb. I can see that both i386 and amd64
versions of mariadb are installed but I can't find where the header
files (particularly mysql.h) are to be found. As I read the
documentation the headers should be provided by libmariadb-dev which is
installed. On an actual i386 install they are in /usr/include/mariadb
but I don't know where they would be under multiarch. All suggestions
welcome.

[Martin Gregorie]

'locate' works for finding files whose names are known:

Run 'updatedb' to make sure the filename database is up to date (it should
be run automatically every day as a cron job) and then run

locate thefilename

to get its full pathname.



--

Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

[Martin Liddle]

On 04/12/2022 19:00, Martin Gregorie wrote:
>
> 'locate' works for finding files whose names are known:
>
> Run 'updatedb' to make sure the filename database is up to date (it should
> be run automatically every day as a cron job) and then run
>
> locate thefilename
>
> to get its full pathname.
>

Thanks but that was the first thing I tried.

With both a 64 bit and 32 bit of mariadb appearing in the list of
installed packages; do I have to do something to make one or the other
active?

[Richard Kettlewell]

Martin Liddle <new...@tynecomp.co.uk> writes:
> I now have a 64 bit Debian 11 installation with Multiarch and I have
> got the 32 bit compiler working and first test suggest it is producing
> code that runs properly. However I am now stuck because the code
> includes our own interface to mariadb. I can see that both i386 and
> amd64 versions of mariadb are installed but I can't find where the
> header files (particularly mysql.h) are to be found. As I read the
> documentation the headers should be provided by libmariadb-dev which
> is installed. On an actual i386 install they are in
> /usr/include/mariadb but I don't know where they would be under
> multiarch. All suggestions welcome.

There’s a mariadb.pc file, so you should be able to call
pkg-config --cflags mariadb
from your makefile to find the headers.

--
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[Martin Liddle]

On 04/12/2022 20:29, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>
> There’s a mariadb.pc file, so you should be able to call
> pkg-config --cflags mariadb
> from your makefile to find the headers.
>

Thanks, on a 32 bit server that does indeed return the location of the
headers. On the 64 bit server with multiarch I get an error message:
"Package mariadb was not found in the pkg-config search path." As far
as I can see there is no mariadb.pc file anywhere.

Obviously something is wrong with the mariadb installation. Is the best
fix to uninstall and try again or is there something else I could try?

[Martin Liddle]

On 04/12/2022 19:55, Martin Liddle wrote:
>
> With both a 64 bit and 32 bit of mariadb appearing in the list of

> installed packages.
>
Ah, this statement is inaccurate. I was listing the available packages
when I thought I was looking at the installed packages.

I did have the 64 bit version of mariadb-server and mariadb-client
installed. I uninstalled them and tried to install the i386 version but
was getting into a world of pain so I backed out and reinstalled the 64
bit versions again. This time I added libmariadb-dev and now the
pkg-config command returns a sensible result. My own code will still
not build so I think it is time to stop for the night and have another
look tomorrow.

[Theo]

Martin Liddle <new...@tynecomp.co.uk> wrote:
> On 04/12/2022 20:29, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
> >
> > There’s a mariadb.pc file, so you should be able to call
> > pkg-config --cflags mariadb
> > from your makefile to find the headers.
> >
> Thanks, on a 32 bit server that does indeed return the location of the
> headers. On the 64 bit server with multiarch I get an error message:
> "Package mariadb was not found in the pkg-config search path." As far
> as I can see there is no mariadb.pc file anywhere.

Did you install libmariadb-dev:i386 which is the 32 bit version of the
package? According to packages.debian.org you should then find it in
/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/pkgconfig/mariadb.pc

Theo

[Martin Liddle]

I am pleased to say that I now have this working with 64 bit Debian 11
and using multiarch to run the 32 bit compiler. I decided that all the
fiddling I had done last night had broken too many things and I did a
fresh install using the knowledge that I had gained and it worked first
time. Thank you to everyone who took the time to offer suggestions.