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opinion_no9
Asked: 2019-07-06 12:28:04 +0800 CST

How to avoid UEFI? Installation without UEFI? How to have Ubuntu 19, 20, 21, 22 w/o UEFI? Just no more EFI/UEFI problems?

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I need to install Ubuntu 19 o. 20 o. 21 o. 22 on a quite recent machine.
I enabled all compatibility and legacy modes in BIOS to avoid UEFI. (DO THAT FIRST!!!)

I do not want to use UEFI.

The installation media (Ubuntu - ISO put on a USB-stick using dd) wants to force UEFI boot mode.
I want simple mbr and grub boot (although Lilo was so much better than grub). I totally decline to use UEFI.

How can I install Ubuntu without UEFI?

boot compatibility uefi mbr

6 Answers

  1. Force non- UEFI installation

    a completely different way to avoid UEFI when installing Ubuntu

    works for Ubuntu 18.04 (subsequent upgrade to 20.04 .... 22.04 without issues):

    Install via MinimalCD !

    https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD

    Quote from the Ubuntu Official Documentation:

    The minimal iso image isn't useful for installing on UEFI-based systems that you want to run in UEFI mode. The mini iso lacks the proper files for booting the computer in UEFI mode.
    Thus, the computer will boot in BIOS compatibility mode, and the installation will be in BIOS mode.

    • the installation will be in BIOS mode

    • this has proven to work.

    • you can choose your Display (XFCE4, Unity, Gnome, ...) during
      installation

    • choosing server flavour during installation is provided by tasksel

    • no UEFI :-) Ubuntu without UEFI

    UPDATE-REMARK:
    unfortunately the installer-iso was removed April 2022 by Ubuntu.
    w/o proper replacement, of course
    The name is "ubuntu_netinstaller_mini.iso" - good luck finding it on some mirror



    punk not dead

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  2. There is a simple way to install Ubuntu w/o EFI:

    (caveat: this way does not always work)

    After you dd the ISO file on the USB memory stick there are 2 partitions on your USB mem stick. One of them is EFI / UEFI.

    Insert the stick in your operational Linux machine and invoke fdisk (sudo required).

    Lets assume your stick is /dev/sdf. You see sdf1 linux and sdf2 EFI on the stick.

    Use fdisk to delete partiton 2 on /dev/sdf. "Write" and end fdisk. Remove USB-stick.

    Now use the stick for your installation machine.

    The nuisance is gone! No more questions for a missing UEFI partition on the target disk. Smooth and simple installation.

    No more additional problems and complications by UEFI!!

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  3. Yet another answer ...

    one more way to

    avoid UEFI in a fresh & recent installation w/o upgrading:

    Goal: Have a fresh install of the latest Version (currently U21 and counting) on your hard disk without UEFI.

    First install some old Ubuntu 12 or 14.04 version in some free space. This is definitely free of UEFI.

    Make sure you can boot this stone-age version! If necessary create a boot record on USB memory stick (!) to be absolutely sure. This can be done easy:

    sudo update-grub && sudo grub-install -v /dev/sdk    (adapt USB-media name!!)

    Test it. Make sure you can boot the stone-age version!

    Then install the recent version like U21 Hirsute Hippo without(!) a boot option.

    This option can be chosen in the installer GUI where the device for the boot record is chosen.

    Boot U12 (or 14) and run update-grub, install grub. Just like

    sudo update-grub && sudo grub-install -v /dev/nvme0n1    (adapt disk name!!)

    Now you can boot the new Ubuntu version without UEFI :-)

    In the recent version do install grub, then run update-grub, install grub like before.

    Later you may delete the temp U12 partition. Use gparted (safe and capable). If its in on extended partition you need to boot from external memory stick or DVD because of the mount and swapoff issues.

    You are right if you think this is a kind of change root for dummies process. Very pimitive, not much risk, proven to work.

    If you like it please consider to upvote the entry :-) Thanks!

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  4. I had to enable Legacy OS boot in my BIOS (tries BIOS before UEFI?) which enabled me to install Server 20.04 LTS. I had an old Samsung RF710 from 2010 on hand.

    What helped me out: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2444248&s=0b4d6c9ac0681ba7acff9495e8e1bee1&p=13960694#post13960694

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  5. Do the installation in a Qemu virtual machine guest where you have disabled UEFI booting. The following is what I did. Some of the steps might be redundant.

    • I connected the target hard disk (as /dev/sdc) into another computer where I had Ubuntu installed.
    • Working with Gparted I removed all previously existing partitions from the hd and recreated the partition table as "msdos" (in contrast with "gpt").
    • I rewrote the MBR Code on the first sector using Testdisk.
    • I set up some required partitions on the hd with Gparted: /dev/sdc1 as ext4 for boot, /dev/sdc2 as ext4 for root, /dev/sdc3 as 3GB unformatted space for the installation image, /dev/sdc4 as swap.
    • I copied the Ubuntu 21.10 iso onto /dev/sdc3 using dd: dd if=ubuntu-21.10-desktop-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdc3 bs=1M status=progress
    • I launched the installer in Qemu: /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 -drive file=/dev/sdc,format=raw -smbios type=0,uefi=off -cdrom /dev/sdc3 -boot once=d -m 2400

    (I also had a custom network bridging setup for Qemu but I'm leaving that out. The installer runs okay without network.)

    You can check if the system did (or did not) boot with UEFI by checking /sys/firmware/efi for existence.

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  6. Yet another answer ...

    Force non- UEFI installation

    In the good old times ;-) there was no UEFI when you did an Ubuntu 14.04 installation. We still can leverage this.

    Install your Ubuntu from an old 14.04 installation media (the usual USB-media thing does the job; download the old iso file; then just something like sudo dd of=/dev/sdj if=/mnt/datayard/iso/xubuntu-16.04.6-desktop-amd64.iso bs=1M )

    Then upGRADE to recent version.

    Do NOT install or optimize any stuff. No new user creation (only you have the elevated rights as lone user independent from manually assigned sudo rights).

    Do upgrade iteration by iteration.

    Do plenty of reboots! Some files need to be written after "first-boot".

    Upgrade via GUI or just invoking

    do-release-upgrade

    until you reach the target release level.

    With do-release-upgrade -d you can even enter the latest beta ;-)

    Why all the fuss??

    Normally the upgrade from very old versions is not possible. Accidentially I found out it IS possible, as long as there is a vanilla installation.

    Brute force:

    You CAN force the upGRade by updating the Ubuntu version name in the entire /etc/apt/sources.list
    Actually Debian recomends this way.
    Ubuntu does not.
    Both for "good" reason!
    This is NOT smooth with Ubuntu and does cause a lot of issues on the way. However, this can force non-vanilla installations to do the upGRADE process when it is not supported by the "developers" ... ;-)
    It is the only way I am aware of to circumvent the "too old to upgrade" restrictions. I warned you!

    Under the hood there are differences between updated and initial versions. I never found any disadvantages in taking the update / upgrade path.

    Published this article now because this works for me on different machines. So I asume this info might be helpful for some old people out there having a no-UEFI preference.

    If you liked the tips please consider to upvote the answer. Thanks!

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