Re: Testing On Macbook on enbug.org

[Chris Murphy]

On Mar 31, 2011, at 3:46 AM, KESHAV P.R. wrote:
> 
> I do not know who started the page and wrote most of it, but i merged
> http://grub.fsij.org/TestingOnEFI with
> http://grub.fsij.org/TestingOnMacbook (since the latter had more info,
> but the page itself is appplicable to both Apple and non-Apple
> systems). Most of the troubleshooting part was written by
> http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=1121774 (nickname metatech). He
> is active in http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=328 sub-forum.

Something is lost because the Macbook Pro 4,1 is an explicitly mentioned test 
configuration and yet I can't get it to EFI boot with any of the information on 
the page.

Whether I use loadbios, fakebios, or delete that line entirely leaving only a 
linux and initrd line, I first get:

error: no suitable mode found
Booting however

This is not logged in dmesg or messages. I do not get this message if I use 
GRUB Legacy EFI. So it seems like a GRUB message. 

In all GRUB2 instances, with or without loadbios or fakebios, I get this in 
dmesg:

[    0.158510] [Firmware Bug]: ACPI: BIOS _OSI(Linux) query ignored

and in all cases: GRUB Legacy EFI, GRUB2 EFI with and without loadbios and/or 
fakebios I get:

[    5.690193] fb: conflicting fb hw usage nouveaufb vs EFI VGA - removing 
generic driver
[    5.757942] usb 3-1.1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
[    6.028093] Console: switching to colour dummy device 80x25
[    6.047930] [drm] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: Attempting to load BIOS image from 
PRAMIN
[    6.047944] [drm] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: ... BIOS signature not found
[    6.047948] [drm] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: Attempting to load BIOS image from 
PROM
[    6.047958] [drm] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: ... BIOS signature not found
[    6.047962] [drm] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: Attempting to load BIOS image from 
PCIROM
[    6.048060] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: Invalid ROM contents
[    6.048104] [drm] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: ... BIOS signature not found
[    6.048107] [drm] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: Attempting to load BIOS image from 
ACPI
[    6.048111] [drm] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: ... BIOS signature not found
[    6.048115] [drm] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: No valid BIOS image found

At which point the display console text has frozen and I can't see what I'm 
doing (text or graphics) even though the booting continues. So either the dd 
instructions to extract vbios.bin aren't valid for this machine. Or loadbios in 
GRUB2 isn't working. I don't see either fakebios or loadbios documented 
anywhere so I'm not sure I'm using them correctly.


> 
> You can try these instructions
> http://www.rodsbooks.com/ubuntu-efi/index.html written by the author
> of GPT fdisk (aka gdisk).

Yeah I'm able to boot fine, it's just 1/2 way through the screen update ends, 
and I'm flying blind. Nouveau is just not getting the right BIOS info to 
activate nvidea graphics on this hardware.


Chris Murphy