First of all superwow, very nice job getting it installed! That is an achievment, no matter how you ended up doing so. Kudos on a great job, and way to stick with it. No wonder your IT dept. likes you so well! After 30 years in the industry, I wish all my users had been just like you!
This was found in my notes from quite a while back. (maybe a year?)
The choice basically boils down to this:
If using GRUB legacy as the bootloader, one must use MBR.
To dual-boot with Windows (both 32-bit and 64-bit) using Legacy BIOS, one must use MBR.
To dual-boot Windows 64-bit using UEFI instead of BIOS, one must use GPT.
If none of the above apply, choose freely between GPT and MBR. Since GPT is more modern, it is recommended in this case.
It is recommended to always use GPT for UEFI boot as some UEFI firmwares do not allow UEFI-MBR boot. This is critical to take note of!
I believe this was something I found on the Arch-Wiki site...
@ew! If you bothered to read any of the posts in their entirety, you would have observed the following;
snip;
Also, before everyone jumps on my back and starts pummeling me, I know that Debian does indeed now have a working EFI installer. VSIDO does not. While I have done it, I believe it to be beyond the scope of these forums for me to tell you to "do it my way"!
snip;
By the way, in all the reading I've done and from personal experience, GPT is the best partitioning scheme Linux will boot to a GPT partition, I've done it, however looking at your logs above, they clearly state that both /dev/sda and /dev/sdb are GPT disks, and not only that, but /dev/sda is housing an EFI boot area in the MBR.
snip;
Linux should have no problems dual booting with Windows, so this is indeed puzzling.
snip;
After the user stated his aprx. knowledge level with Linux, I decided the best course of action was to do as I posted. I stand by those posts. This is not the first time you've "trolled" here, (ew) and as a Moderator on this site I will not tolerate any more of it! It is absurd and not the place for it. If you want to point out errors in a post, be courteous and PM whoever is making the error so it can be cleared up without trying to sound like your the "end all, be all" guru of Linux. Your not! None of us here claim to be...
Calling someone out as a liar,
Not true. I have no issues installing VSIDO on gpt-disks.
helps no one and is insulting to the extreme.
As to Grub2 installing to an EFI partition, maybe so, maybe not, depending on your level of expertise and resolve. Definitely not for the faint of heart, or the inexperienced user, which is why this statement was also in one of the above posts;
Ubuntu and Debian (Ubuntu is Debian based) both indeed have UEFI enabled installers. However, these do not include Grub2. They both use what is called 'grub-efi-amd64' (or 32 I assume for 32bit systems) to boot the system utilizing a FAT32 EFI partition just like Windows. The grub-efi-amd64 has a "signing" feature which allows for the EFI boot process as well as even being able to take advantage of the "Secure Boot" feature.
Typically this EFI partition is "hidden" from the user, and even with the 'right' tools, can be difficult to work with. For the record, I've never heard of Grub(2) even knowing what EFI is, much less booting a hidden FAT32 partition! I'm no guru so I'll admit I'm not familiar with this. For it to boot an EFI partition it has to be grub-efi-amd64. That has always been my understanding, and until shown otherwise, I'd not tell someone differently. Grub-pc and Grub-efi-amd64 are two different beasts all together. Apples and Oranges. As to installing "swap" to a GPT partitioned disk, never happen! Period. Indeed, Grub-Legacy will not even see a GPT partitioned drive.
Again, in the future should you decide to be so good as to help a user here, that would be great! Don't come in contradicting posts after they've been resolved. As I said, if one of us makes a mistake trying to help someone, or our information is patently wrong, a simple PM to the user (the one trying to help) to help them correct their information, would be a kindness to the one giving their time to help someone troubleshoot an issue. It is not our policy to try to purposefully hose someones computer.
Thank-you,
jedi