Ubuntu 12.04 using UEFI

Question

I want to upgrade my machine with a new Motherboard, RAM and Processor. I am planning on doing a clean install of Ubuntu 12.04.

The Motherboard I want to use is an Asrock 970 Extreme4 which uses an AMI 32 MBit UEFI BIOS.

My Question is, is there anything I have to watch out for during the installation process? Cause I have read that some people have trouble booting into ubuntu using a UEFI BIOS. Any advice? I don't want to spend all that money for the different parts only to find out that I can only use windows properly.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

IMHO, Ubuntu creates an EFI System Partition (ESP) that's a fraction of its proper size. I recommend creating an ESP in the range of 100-500 MiB, depending on various factors; but Ubuntu tends to make them under 50 MiB, IIRC. Ubuntu also creates FAT-16 ESPs, but the Windows installer flakes out when presented with FAT-16 ESPs -- it wants to see a FAT-32 ESP. These problems can be overcome by pre-partitioning (or at least creating the ESP ahead of time). Be aware, though, that Ubuntu 11.10 and earlier always erase the ESP, which wipes out other OSes' boot loaders. This problem has been fixed with Ubuntu 12.04. Thus, for an EFI install, I strongly recommend Ubuntu 12.04 over earlier versions.

Answer 2

None that I ran into. The only issue I had was when I first installed, it crapped out because the uefi system picked up the dvdrw that it booted off of. Once I went in and told it that it was the main boot device, it worked fine.

Answer 3

I just got an ASUS K55a laptop with win7 home premium on it.

I unplugged the hard drive, plugged in a flash drive and proceeded to install Linux Mint (Ubuntu Derivative).

The flash drive worked. I plugged the HD back in and started the computer.

Windows crashed and forced me to reformat and reinstall, leaving linux inoperable.

The laptop has uefi on it.

I wanted to select which drive I wanted to boot from during computer startup but apparently this only works with an older computer.

I don't want or need a boot manager when I can select which to boot from on my own.

Is there a way for me to do this without windows crashing?

I have to keep win7 until the warranty runs out in a year. But I can run Linux all I want as long as I don't fool with the hard drive.

I don't want to run from CD/DD as it is too slow.

And I am scared to access the hard drive from Linux let alone try to save anything to it.

I suggest that you Pull the windows drive out and put in an ssd drive for linux. Switch when needed.

A hassle yes, but at least you don't have to worry about windows getting sick.