uefi shell

B

balanga

I'm hoping to run FreeBSD on an Intel Compute stick, but first I need to get past the UEFI shell. The only command I'm familiar with is exit :).

I'd try one of the many available if I could properly see what is available so the first thing I want to do is change the size of the display - there's only 25 lines. I can change this by running mode 240 56 but I'd like to make that permanent - is that possible?

On booting it comes up with an option to skip startup.nsh but I don't know how to access that.

devices does actually show the attached show the disk I'd like to try and boot, but I'm not sure how.

Any pointers would be appreciated.
 
Phishfry said:
What happened? Gave up on GoFlex, Wireless Access Point and Kodi and decided to start another project?
Click to expand...

Not given up, just trying to make progress with an old project Thread 53355. Got a nice new monitor this week and thought it would be nice and discrete to use an Intel Compute stick with it, but I'd prefer to use FreeBSD rather than Windows. But can't seem to get into the BIOS and have no idea where this startup.nsh lives...

As far as Kodi goes, I found that the UPnP function appears not to work on FreeBSD 12.0, whereas it worked on 11.2.

Thread 70136
 
T-Daemon said:
Try the following: (according to the Technical Product Specifications)

"The BIOS Setup program is accessed by pressing the <F2> key after the Power-On Self-Test (POST) memory test begins and before the operating system boot begins."
Click to expand...

Spent ages trying to get that to work but by chance found that <F7> was the magic key.

If I go

Setup -> Boot

I have
Code: 
Boot Option #1
Boot Option #2

and both offer the same three options

Windows Boot Manager
UEFI: Built-in EFI Shell
Disabled

I guess I'll see what I can do with the UEFI shell...
 
balanga said:
and have no idea where this startup.nsh lives...
Click to expand...
This will reside on the media you are trying to boot from. Like a USB stick.

For instance to flash the firmware on LSI SAS cards you must send many long commands.
To make it easy I created a startup.nsh to flash the firmware after erasing it.
Code: 
sas2flash.efi -o -e 6
sas2flash.efi -f 2008T204.ROM
sas2flash.efi -b x64sas2.rom

Coming from DOS you could compare startup.nsh to autoexec.bat
It auto launches a batch file. Running several EFI commands.
 
Phishfry said:
This will reside on the media you are trying to boot from. Like a USB stick.
Click to expand...
In this case it is the eMMC storage of the Intel Compute stick.
For instance to flash the firmware on LSI SAS cards you must send many long commands.
To make it easy I created a startup.nsh to flash the firmware after erasing it.
Code: 
sas2flash.efi -o -e 6
sas2flash.efi -f 2008T204.ROM
sas2flash.efi -b x64sas2.rom

Coming from DOS you could compare startup.nsh to autoexec.bat
It auto launches a batch file. Running several EFI commands.
Click to expand...

I still don't know how to access it. Maybe there is a Windows utility...

Under Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Storage

I see the 32GB eMMC storage has three partitions which include a 100MB EFI and a 450MB Recovery partition, so my guess is that startup.nsh exists in the EFI partition, but I'm not sure how I can see what is on it.

I've found that if I attach a USB stick with a FreeBSD installation which includes an EFI partition it does show up in the BIOS boot selection menu but selecting it only starts Windows.
 
I think you are putting too much emphasis on startup.nsh. It is optional for bootup, just like autoexec.bat.
I was trying to show you how it works.
That is simply a BIOS message.
Have you tried flashing a FreeBSD UEFI image onto the eMMC?
What size is the eMMC flash drive?
 
I've just managed to boot from a Rescatux USB stick so it is possible to bypass Windows.

Don't know what's so special about Rescatux but it appeared on the boot menu and I was actually able to boot from it - even have Internet access.
 
Phishfry said:
I think you are putting too much emphasis on startup.nsh. It is optional for bootup, just like autoexec.bat.
I was trying to show you how it works.
That is simply a BIOS message.
Have you tried flashing a FreeBSD UEFI image onto the eMMC?
What size is the eMMC flash drive?
Click to expand...

It's 32GB, but I don't know how I would flash it.
 
USE AT YOUR OWN RISK:
Here is what I would do.
The compute stick is meant to be plugged into a HDMI device correct.
So I would plug it into a TV and attach a externally powered USB hub to it.
On the USB hub I would have an keyboard and FreeBSD Memstick Installer.
Now tune the TV to the correct HDMI port and plug in your compute stick.
It should show the bootup sequence on the TV.
From there you should be able to figure this out.
You might want to confirm with the Memstick installer that every device you need is supported.
Do this by dropping to LiveCD mode of the Memstick installer and look at dmesg output.
 
I think booting from ANY UEFI enabled OS installation disk should be possible. Just plug-in the USB installation medium and goto BIOS to enable it in the boot order.
The compute stick does have a USB port, at least I see on the pictures in the web.
 
balanga said:
It's 32GB, but I don't know how I would flash it.
Click to expand...
Well, you can just plug it in the card reader of a FreeBSD or GNU/Linux PC and then edit, format and partition it just like any other medium.
And you can use dd to burn an image on it.
 
The real kicker here is Wifi only networking.
I have to wonder if there is Wifi driver in FreeBSD for this device. Something tells me no.
 
How would I DD the eMMC storage on the Compute Stick

lsblk:-

Code: 
NAME         MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda            8:0    1   7.4G  0 disk.
�..�..sda1         8:1    1   640M  0 part /lib/live/mount/medium
�..�..sda2         8:2    1   704K  0 part.
loop0          7:0    0 570.3M  1 loop /lib/live/mount/rootfs/filesystem.squashf
mmcblk0boot0 179:256  0     4M  1 disk.
mmcblk0boot1 179:512  0     4M  1 disk.
mmcblk0      179:0    0  29.1G  0 disk.
�..�..mmcblk0p1  179:1    0   100M  0 part.
�..�..mmcblk0p2  179:2    0    16M  0 part.
�..�..mmcblk0p3  179:3    0  28.6G  0 part.
�..�..mmcblk0p4  179:4    0   450M  0 part.
 
balanga said:
How would I DD the eMMC storage on the Compute Stick
Click to expand...
Your memory card is mmcblk0, right?
If it is not soldered to the device and is removeable, I would just stick it in my notebook and take an image.
If it IS soldered, then it's a bit more complicated. Then just boot as you described above and then plug in a USB stick, then use dd to take an image from the memory card. Make sure to get the device names right!! Otherwise you could overwrite your memory card irreversibly!!!

I would first take an image of the standard Intel installation with Windows. Then I could play with the card and other OS-es and if I'm not happy, I could always burn the Intel original and be back to where I started.
The command should be something like:
dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 of=....path/to/your/mounted/USB/stick..../intel_compute_memcard.img status=progress

Then save the .img file in a safe location and play around.

Also another advice: Try not to overwrite the EFI system partition on the memory card. If you do so, you might not be able to boot into the EFI shell and load anything. In my opinion it should be bootable from a USB stick, but this is just a hypothesis, I can't validate it.
 
roccobaroccoSC said:
Your memory card is mmcblk0, right?
Click to expand...

No, mmcblk0 is the 32GB (29.1G) of eMMC storage on the Compute Stick. SDA is the 8GB (7.4G)USB stick I've booted from.
I would first take an image of the standard Intel installation with Windows. Then I could play with the card and other OS-es and if I'm not happy, I could always burn the Intel original and be back to where I started.
The command should be something like:
dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 of=....path/to/your/mounted/USB/stick..../intel_compute_memcard.img status=progress
Click to expand...
I'm just a little concerned that I won't be able to restore using DD.

I have no idea what these two partitions are, but I guess DD would handle them correctly

mmcblk0boot0 179:256 0 4M 1 disk.
mmcblk0boot1 179:512 0 4M 1 disk.

In my opinion it should be bootable from a USB stick, but this is just a hypothesis, I can't validate it.
Click to expand...

Believe me, it is not an easy process. I tried booting from ArchLinux, Mint, Ubuntu, TrueOS and even Debian, and only Rescatux which is actually based on Debian managed to boot. It sounds as though the Compute Stick has a very specific EFI requirement to be able to boot, unless there is some BIOS setting I need to make to accommodate the other OSes.
 
You do see your problem right?
Writing a 32GB image file to your 8GB sda0 that you booted from?
dd writes every sector even if empty.
 
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