Bug 759303

Summary:	Allow multiple installs via EFI
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Adam Williamson <awilliam>
Component:	anaconda	Assignee:	Anaconda Maintenance Team <anaconda-maint-list>
Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	rawhide	CC:	anaconda-maint-list, dcantrell, jonathan, mads, mattdm, the.ridikulus.rat, vanmeeuwen+fedora
Target Milestone:	---
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Hardware:	Unspecified
OS:	Unspecified
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Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
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Last Closed:	2012-07-19 21:25:19 UTC	Type:	---
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oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Adam Williamson 2011-12-01 23:22:51 UTC

Anaconda's current logic for dealing with EFI installs effectively precludes you from installing more than one copy of Fedora to a single system via EFI unless you fiddle things manually.

Anaconda wants to create an EFI boot manager entry named 'Fedora' when you install by EFI. If it finds a pre-existing 'Fedora' entry it just silently wipes it and creates a new one pointing to the Fedora installation that's now going on. There's no option to have two entries in the EFI boot manager, one for each Fedora install, or anything like this. The only way to do it would be to manually rename the existing entry (via efibootmgr) before doing the second Fedora install.

Comment 1 Jesse Keating 2012-07-19 21:25:19 UTC

Not a scenario we're going to support.

Comment 2 Adam Williamson 2012-07-20 22:57:13 UTC

I predict some complaints from people once they realize they won't be able to dual-boot a stable and a Rawhide install on an EFI system...

Comment 3 Mads Kiilerich 2012-08-03 17:35:22 UTC

People can still use the grub menu to load other OS's ... unless the new EFI "security" mechanism prevents it.

Comment 4 Clyde E. Kunkel 2012-11-04 14:32:44 UTC

Is EFI an option we can choose not to use?  If our machines do not use EFI will anaconda use grub2 (I think it would have to)?

Comment 5 Mads Kiilerich 2012-11-04 14:49:35 UTC

(In reply to comment #4)
anaconda will use efi if it was booted with efi - and bios if it was booted with bios.

grub2 will be used in both cases ... but the hardcoded efi paths are obviously only used for efi.

Note also that grub2 upstream support custom bootloader ids - it is fedoras own decision to ship pre-built (and signed) boot loaders with hardcoded bootloader ids.