slax-efi

EFI configuration for slax

Preparation

Download slax from https://slax.org I've tested this with http://ftp.sh.cvut.cz/slax/Slax-9.x/slax-64bit-9.9.1.iso

Usage

Either copy the contents of EFI to your thumb drive or boot slax and copy the files from Debian yourself.

thumbdrive=/dev/sdb
d=`mktemp -d`
cd $d
wget http://ftp.sh.cvut.cz/slax/Slax-9.x/slax-64bit-9.9.1.iso
test -f slax-64bit-9.9.1.iso
apt install -y parted syslinux-common syslinux-efi
dd if=/dev/zero of=${thumbdrive} bs=1M count=5
sync
/sbin/parted ${thumbdrive} mklabel msdos --script
/sbin/parted ${thumbdrive} mkpart primary 0% 100% --script
mkfs.vfat ${thumbdrive}1
mkdir /media/{source,target}
mount -o loop -t iso9660 slax-64bit-9.9.1.iso /media/source
mount -t vfat ${thumbdrive}1 /media/target
cp -axv /media/source/slax /media/target/slax
bash -x /media/target/slax/boot/bootinst.sh
mkdir -p /media/target/EFI/Boot/
cp /usr/lib/SYSLINUX.EFI/efi64/syslinux.efi /media/target/EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi
cd /usr/lib/syslinux/modules/efi64/
cp ldlinux.e64 menu.c32 libcom32.c32 libutil.c32 vesamenu.c32 /media/target/EFI/Boot
cat > /media/target/EFI/Boot/syslinux.cfg <<"SYSLINUXCFG"
TIMEOUT 30
ONTIMEOUT slax

UI vesamenu.c32
MENU TITLE Boot (EFI)

LABEL slax
      MENU LABEL Run Slax (Persistent changes)
      LINUX /slax/boot/vmlinuz
      INITRD /slax/boot/initrfs.img
      APPEND vga=normal load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 rw printk.time=0 slax.flags=perch,automount
SYSLINUXCFG

Please Note (1): efibootmgr can only configure EFI boot entries when you have already booted from EFI. Because of that, the boot files have to reside in hardcoded directories according to UEFI standard. One possibility is /EFI/Boot

Please Note (2): It suffices to format your thumb drive with fat32. No need to change the partition type to EF.

Please Note (3): The thumb drive uses regular MBR partitioning!

Files on Thumbdrive

Thumbdrive should now have the following files:

# find /media/target/
/media/target/
/media/target/slax
/media/target/slax/01-core.sb
/media/target/slax/01-firmware.sb
/media/target/slax/02-xorg.sb
/media/target/slax/03-desktop.sb
/media/target/slax/04-apps.sb
/media/target/slax/05-chromium.sb
/media/target/slax/changes
/media/target/slax/boot
/media/target/slax/boot/bootinst.bat
/media/target/slax/boot/bootinst.sh
/media/target/slax/boot/bootlogo.png
/media/target/slax/boot/extlinux.x32
/media/target/slax/boot/extlinux.x64
/media/target/slax/boot/help.txt
/media/target/slax/boot/initrfs.img
/media/target/slax/boot/isolinux.bin
/media/target/slax/boot/isolinux.boot
/media/target/slax/boot/ldlinux.c32
/media/target/slax/boot/libcom32.c32
/media/target/slax/boot/libutil.c32
/media/target/slax/boot/mbr.bin
/media/target/slax/boot/pxelinux.0
/media/target/slax/boot/runadmin.vbs
/media/target/slax/boot/samedisk.vbs
/media/target/slax/boot/syslinux.cfg
/media/target/slax/boot/syslinux.com
/media/target/slax/boot/syslinux.exe
/media/target/slax/boot/vesamenu.c32
/media/target/slax/boot/vmlinuz
/media/target/slax/boot/zblack.png
/media/target/slax/boot/ldlinux.sys
/media/target/slax/modules
/media/target/EFI
/media/target/EFI/Boot
/media/target/EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi
/media/target/EFI/Boot/ldlinux.e64
/media/target/EFI/Boot/menu.c32
/media/target/EFI/Boot/libcom32.c32
/media/target/EFI/Boot/libutil.c32
/media/target/EFI/Boot/vesamenu.c32
/media/target/EFI/Boot/syslinux.cfg

Did it work?

Boot from the thumbdrive using EFI and check whether it worked with:

# ls -l /sys/firmware/efi/
total 0
-r--r--r--  1 root root 4096 Feb 24 21:03 config_table
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    0 Feb 24  2020 efivars
-r--r--r--  1 root root 4096 Feb 24 21:03 fw_platform_size
-r--r--r--  1 root root 4096 Feb 24 21:03 fw_vendor
-r--r--r--  1 root root 4096 Feb 24 21:03 runtime
drwxr-xr-x  6 root root    0 Feb 24 21:03 runtime-map
-r--------  1 root root 4096 Feb 24 21:03 systab
drwxr-xr-x 27 root root    0 Feb 24  2020 vars

This directory only exists, when booting in EFI mode.