EFI boot on non Mac hardware.

[Cedric Lejeune]

Hello list,

I have bought a EFI capable notebook (ASUS G73GH, x86_64, MegaTrend 
BIOS) and I am trying to fully boot Linux (Debian) using EFI. I first 
partitioned my disk using GPT and allocated some space to the ESP. Then 
I installed Debian package grub-efi-amd64, used grub-install and 
grub-mkconfig to generate grub.efi and grub.cfg config file and check 
everything was on the ESP, including *.mod, *.lst and the like. I added 
a new entry in my boot menu pointing to grub.efi, saved changes and 
choose the newly added entry. The screen resolution changed and a prompt 
appeared at the top left corner of the screen and tada! Epic fail... 
Blank screen. So I tried using grub-efi-ia32, same result. Next, I tried 
with grub-1.98 sources using grub wiki and 
http://blog.fpmurphy.com/2010/03/grub2-efi-support.html as references 
and once again, blank screen.

So I give a try using Windows 7: EFI boot install DVD, wipe GPT from the 
install disk and let Windows 7 installer manage everything. At the end 
of the installation, a new boot entry was added to my boot menu and I 
could fully boot Windows 7 using it. So, I guess that means my notebook 
is really EFI capacble, right?

I then tried to install and use Shell_Full.efi from EDK, added a new 
entry to my boot menu and everything worked fine. I have tried rEFIt too 
and it kinda worked (it complain about vollabel?). But at least, I was 
seeing something one my screen. Manually added entry to boot Windows 7 
worked too.

So here come the questions:
1. Is there some way to precisely know which modules I have to include 
when I generate grub.efi?
2. Is there a way to make grub more verbose? Or a debug mode? Something 
that would let me know at which step the boot sequence is? Or a way to 
use EFI shell to run grub in verbose mode? To sum up, I would like some 
log to track down what is wrong with my current setup.
3. How could I check the problem is not due to my BIOS?

I have already took a look at the mailing list, but a lot of (all?) EFI 
issues are Mac related (no 'bless' command on Linux for instance).

Thank you for your help.

Kind regards,

cedric.

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