Hello I tried to follow https://docs.01.org/clearlinux/latest/tutorials/multi-boot/dual-boot-linux.html
and renamed my “EFI System Partition” (/dev/sda1) to CLR_BOOT
The installer claimed to complete successfully but the system did not boot.
Now I have not yet followed the final steps to set up GRUB via the other linux, however I am concerned by the appearance of /dev/sda1 following the install.
Rather than making (as it did a year ago) a directory named something like
EFI/org.clearlinux
(which I believe the GRUB tools would pick up straightforwardly)
it scattered the following files in the root of /dev/sda1:
-rwx------. 1 root root 4800512 Nov 11 13:45 freestanding-00-intel-ucode.cpio
-rwx------. 1 root root 33016 Nov 11 13:45 freestanding-i915-firmware.cpio.xz
-rwx------. 1 root root 11154624 Nov 11 13:45 org.clearlinux.native.5.13.13-1070
-rwx------. 1 root root 530 Nov 11 13:45 syslinux.cfg
In particular I do not find the file that the BIOS used to use to boot
(something with 64 and x in the name, maybe bootx64.efi? Do I need to use the one in EFI/Boot/ ? )
Is this the new normal or did something go wrong and it is straightforward to fix or should I start all over again?
Clear Linux has a mechanism to only mount /boot when it is needed to avoid corruption. By default, nothing should be in /boot. In rare cases, I’ve seen where files end up on the root partition underneath. When this happens even though they appear under /boot they aren’t on the correct partition and this can cause problems.
Check the contents of /boot.
Make sure mount | grep boot shows the sda1 partition is actually mounted to /boot
If not, run systemctl start boot.mount
Check /boot again
Please note, the problem is not that an old kernel was booting. The problem was that the boot process failed.
Therefore running mount and systemctl would not help.
I was viewing the common EFI partition from another OS.
Which installer file are you using? The presence of syslinux.cfg in your first post has me suspicious. I think some of the cloud images use syslinux as the bootloader but the default for Clear Linux is systemd-boot.
For the regular installers, systemd-boot is used which reads /boot has the EFI partlabel denoting ESP partition. The convention is a difference between systemd-boot and GRUB bootloaders.
It would still be worth verifying /dev/sda1 is actually mounted to /boot before looking.
Here is layout of a boot partition from a Clear Linux systems for reference:
$ sudo systemctl start boot.mount
$ mount | grep boot
/dev/sda1 on /boot type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0077,dmask=0077,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)
$ sudo ls -lR /boot
/boot:
total 55731
drwx------ 4 root root 512 Jan 7 2020 EFI
-rwx------ 1 root root 57067107 Mar 2 2020 initramfs-5.5.6-914.native.img
drwx------ 3 root root 512 Aug 18 17:43 loader
/boot/EFI:
total 3
drwx------ 2 root root 512 Jan 7 2020 BOOT
drwx------ 2 root root 2048 Aug 18 17:43 org.clearlinux
/boot/EFI/BOOT:
total 104
-rwx------ 1 root root 105830 Jan 7 2020 BOOTX64.EFI
/boot/EFI/org.clearlinux:
total 57803
-rwx------ 1 root root 1196031 Aug 18 17:43 bootloaderx64.efi
-rwx------ 1 root root 4800512 Aug 18 17:43 freestanding-00-intel-ucode.cpio
-rwx------ 1 root root 26812315 Aug 18 17:43 freestanding-clr-init.cpio.gz
-rwx------ 1 root root 30044 Aug 18 17:43 freestanding-i915-firmware.cpio.xz
-rwx------ 1 root root 85844 Aug 18 17:43 initrd-org.clearlinux.native.5.13.11-1068
-rwx------ 1 root root 84156 Jan 5 2021 initrd-org.clearlinux.native.5.9.16-1009
-rwx------ 1 root root 11155424 Aug 18 17:43 kernel-org.clearlinux.native.5.13.11-1068
-rwx------ 1 root root 14927616 Jan 5 2021 kernel-org.clearlinux.native.5.9.16-1009
-rwx------ 1 root root 97040 Aug 18 17:43 loaderx64.efi
/boot/loader:
total 2
drwx------ 2 root root 1024 Aug 18 17:43 entries
-rwx------ 1 root root 45 Aug 18 17:43 loader.conf
/boot/loader/entries:
total 2
-rwx------ 1 root root 780 Aug 18 17:43 Clear-linux-native-5.13.11-1068.conf
-rwx------ 1 root root 778 Jan 5 2021 Clear-linux-native-5.9.16-1009.conf
Another thought: make sure the /boot partition you’re looking at is that of the target disk and not the ISO installer itself. The ISO installer also uses syslinux to boot itself and has a layout similar to your first post: