Macbook pro 2011 efi problems

Question

Hello there, i've had archlinux working on bios mode but due to delays in boot etc i decided to try to switch archlinux to efi.
I had to boot into bios mode since efi gave an error about no controller found but it's something that can be later fixed on mkinitcpio.
I booted into macos, installed refind, rebooted, picked the bios option of archlinux and did the usual stuff installing gruib-efi into /mnt, i mount /dev/sda1 (the efi boot partition of macos) into /mnt/boot , sda4 into /mnt and sda5 into /mnt/home.
Then i did the normal install steps up until the grub part and then i did :
# modprobe dm-mod
# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=arch_grub --boot-directory=/boot/efi/EFI --recheck --debug
It complained about not being able to hook the efi things (i guess due to booting in bios mode), then did the grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Then i set the password and rebooted and nothing shows up on the refind menu, only the vmlinuz if i set it to search for all kernels, but not the grub entry, the kernel one doesn't help me much since it just puts me on a recovery shell right away.
Spent all day yesterday and a big part of today googling all around but still no luck.
Thanks in advance.
I changed vmlinuz-linux to vmlinuz-linux.efi as well, and it does show up but i get a
ERROR: DEVICE '' not found. Skipping fsck.
ERROR: Unable to find root device''
and then recovery shell.
But if i go into /dev in the recovery shell i see the sda1 sda2 etc in there, i guess it's because i'm missing some options in the real place to boot directly into kernel mode.
Anyway no matter what there should also be the grub option present no?
Edit: well to make some progress i created the refind_linux.conf and at least is mount the devices.
Problem now is [drm:intel_dsm_platform_mux_info] *ERROR* MUX INFO call failed
time to chroot into the install and install packer and install linux_mainline to see if it helps as i've seen people with it hanging there too and saying that fixed it.
Well i didn't have to do that crazy move, just had to  add a nomodeset entry, tried installing the ati drivers but if i boot normally i still get the same intel error and hangs.
Can i use X etc normally with nomodeset or what can i do here? blacklist the intel module?
Thanks
Well getting no screens found so guess not, it seems the answer lies within a linux-mainline.
Theres a patched one at https://github.com/fooblahblah/linux-ma … deon-patch , how can i use packer to compile that? or do i need to use abs?
EDIT:
Well compiled the linux-mainline and linux-mainline-radeon-patch and not much luck, booting hangs on waiting for udev uevents to be processed
Also managed to get grub to work, turns out it should be only /efi/cookies not /efi/efi/cookies
How can i start X with nomodeset?
Ok fixed with linux-mainline, can at least boot with the intel graphics card now, a cooler macbook pro at last!
Thanks Jeff for the help.
Last edited by cpxy (2012-08-10 01:10:23)

Answer 1

OK, this is not "downgrade", this is new installation into new partition. Downgrade would mean that you started Snow Leopard and it reverts everything from Lion to Snow Leopard leaving intact all (or majority) installed applications, settings etc.