Ever since installing siduction on my main computer, which has a UEFI motherboard, I wanted to write up a How-To to share what I learned. Hopefully, I be able to add some of the instructions to the appropriate parts of the manual. So, if anyone sees a way I can expand this little tutorial, or make it simpler, please make a post. I hope to add screenshots and some examples of efibootmgr on my next day off.
How to install "siduction" to a computer with UEFI firmware.
CREATING THE UEFI ENABLED USB STICK (Some of this was found in the manual, link below.)
The first thing you need, after downloading the iso, is a usb stick 2GB or larger, formatted with fat32 or fat16. Most of the usb sticks you buy these days are already formatted fat32. If it's a new stick, you're ready to go. If you've used it before this, just make sure that the partition is marked bootable an doesn't have any weird flags attached to it. You can check this by using "parted" and then the print option in a root terminal. (Don't forget to quit parted.)
The reason I mentioned the flags, was because, the first time I tried using the method below, I was using an empty "used" 4GB stick, and, although I had the boot flag on, it failed. After doing a quick format on it, I noticed that the only flag left was the boot flag, and, after that, the second attempt succeeded. Just an observation to pass along.
Now, extract the iso (I just use dolphin, right click on the iso file, and, click "Extract" and use the Autodetect sub-folder option). Then copy the "contents" of the extracted sub-folder to the usb stick. There should be a total of 5 folders and 2 files to copy over.
Now unmount the usb stick using kwikdisk or by using "umount" in a root terminal. Using "df -h" in a terminal, you can find out where the usb stick is mounted. Mine looks like this:
/dev/sdc1 3.8G 1.2G 2.7G 30% /media/Patriot
I would use "umount /media/Patriot" to unmount the stick. You would replace "Patriot" with whatever your usb stick is mounted as.
After unmounting the stick, use "df -h" again, to make sure the media is indeed unmounted.
Then, from a root terminal, first do:
# syslinux -i -d /boot/isolinux /dev/sdXN (i=install, -d=directory)
# Where "X" and "N" correspond to your usb device. As you can see above, my stick was at /dev/sdc1.
At this point, you are ready to use your UEFI bootable usb stick.
If you like, you can read the "siduction-manual" explanation of the commands here:
http://manual.siduction.org/hd-install-opts#usb-hd (Go to the bottom of the page.)
BOOTING THE USB STICK
Next, we move on to booting live siduction from the usb stick, and, what additional changes are needed when installing in UEFI.
UEFI based computers don't need an adjustment in bios as to boot order. Well, you can adjust the default boot, but, you can also just choose what to boot without setting it as default. If you hit the specific key to your motherboard while booting (Mine is "Del" on an ASUS mobo), you will probably see 2 choices for booting the usb stick (amongst other devices). Choose the line for the usb stick that is preceded by UEFI, and, the boot should proceed normally, until the siduction desktop appears.
If you would like to check if you have booted into UEFI mode, open a root terminal, then type "efibootmgr -v" (also without quotes), then enter. If you successfully booted into UEFI mode, you will see a listing of devices/OS's. If you didn't, you'll see an error message that looks like this:
Fatal: Couldn't open either sysfs or procfs directories for accessing EFI variables.
Try 'modprobe efivars' as root.
MOUNTING THE ROOT PARTITION
After exiting the screen where you used gparted to create/edit partitions, the sidu-installer allows you to select the mount for the chosen root partition on a separate screen, so, when reaching the mounting screen, there's no need to add it to mounts. The next screen in the sidu-installer allows additional mount points.
MOUNTING THE ESP (/boot/efi) AND HOME (/home)
Here you want to mount the ESP and /home partitions (if you choose to make a separate /home partition). The dropdown menu contains a choice for /home, so as long as you choose /home and match it to the correct partition on the left, and, then hit "ADD", your /home will be mounted at boot.
Since there is no choice for /boot/efi in the dropdown menu, click the button below the mountpoint window and manually enter /boot/efi. Now, make sure it's matched to the partition where the ESP resides, (You jotted that down earlier, right? If not, you can always go back and look.), and, don't forget to click "Add".
On new disks or for fresh installs that use the whole disk, that partition should be sda1. If you're adding siduction to a UEFI machine that already contains other OS's, it's probably sda1 also. Then again, the ESP doesn't need to be on the first disk partition. For example, if you converted an old mbr install to UEFI, you could place the ESP anywhere on the disk (restricted possibly by being on a primary partition).
So, once /boot/efi is mounted correctly, the install precedes normally, placing all of the UEFI components in their correct locations, and, adds a choice for siduction in the motherboards NVRAM. It takes over the first spot, so on a reboot it will be default. If you wish, you can change that using the motherboards UEFI bios menu screen, or, by using efibootmgr.
There you have it. You now have siduction running on UEFI. Have fun.
To be continued.........