I’m currently using Ubuntu and I want try a different distro because I have an older computer and Ubuntu is pretty slow. So far the only one I’ve tried was Porteus and while it does boot and load apps very quickly I had an issue where Porteus wouldn’t boot if it was installed on top of ext4 but would boot fine if it was installed on top of fat32, which is also another potential problem because Porteus requires a save file for persistence when using Windows filesystems. If there is a problem where my computer can’t boot with an ext4 filesystem, Ubuntu doesn’t have this problem because sda1/2/3 all use a different filesystem.
If I’m correct on this, would I be better off trying Porteus on ext3/2 and hoping it works or just use it with fat32 and have a separate partition formatted for ext4 to serve the same purpose as sda3 in Ubuntu and possibly store the save file (if I have the correct understanding of how save files work).
Also, I would just use NTFS but not only have I heard that it has issues with Linux, I’ve had issues using it with Linux, so I’m using fat32 for stability.
If you can’t list
/sys/firmware/efi/efivars, then you have somehow booted up in MBR (aka BIOS) mode. The Arch wiki has a good page on the differences.This could be a small problem with your laptop’s BIOS settings. You should be able to enter the BIOS settings by hitting Delete, Escape, or one of the F-keys when the laptop is just starting up. You should google your laptop make, model, and “enter bios settings” to find out what you need to press. (I just press it repeatedly right after pressing power)
Once in your BIOS settings, you can poke around at the boot options to see if you can let it boot the USB as UEFI (right now it’s only booting it as MBR; the CD supports both so that it works with more systems). There might also be an option in the BIOS settings to boot a specific device. If so, you might see 2 entries for the USB listed. You can try each one, checking the ls command after booting up. One of them should boot UEFI and then the ls will work.
My best guess as to what’s happening: your computer can boot UEFI from your HDDs, but it only wants to boot the live USB as MBR (either it sees that first or can’t see UEFI because of a setting). Your disks are using GPT tables, so the installer is assuming it’s UEFI. When the installer installs the bootloader, it can’t copy your EFI firmware to the new install, because you’re not booted UEFI, so you’re ending up with a broken bootloader. Until you figure out how to resolve this, you’re gonna have a bad time with almost any distro (possibly even reinstalling Ubuntu).
I tried booting the live CD from a USB on an old MacBook Air I have, but it only sees 2 different UEFI options, both of which run the ls command successfully.
I’m commenting from my phone now because I can’t boot into either distros now and I’m trying a solution that someone else mentioned but for some reason, everything is extremely slow and nothing in the LiveCD is working properly. My computer is probably dying and I don’t have another computer that I can run Linux properly on, so I’ll probably have to switch back to Windows until I can afford a new computer.
Anyways, in the bios there is only UEFI and legacy. That’s what I thought you meant when you said there were two boot options. The LiveCD only gives me one boot option.
It’s too late for this, I’m just going to go to bed and hope for a miracle.