boot salix from external USB with EFI

[pindar]

Hi all,

this is my first post; I'm new to Salix, but not to linux. My setup: mac mini intel, several linux distributions on external usb disk which has grub-efi installed. I have Salix on one partition, installation worked without problems. But I can't boot into the partition; I assume because the initrd I created by chrooting into the installation is missing some modules. From stuff I found in obscure corners of the internet, I created an intrd like this

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mkinitrd -c -k 2.6.37.6-smp -m ehci_hcd:uhci_hcd:ohci_hcd:usb-storage:hid:usbhid:btusb
-f ext4 -r /dev/sdb4 -o /boot/initrd.gz

This creates initrd.gz. But when I try to boot from this system, absolutely nothing happens; I don't even get an error message. Other linux distributions boot without problems from the same disk. Does anyone have experience with a similar setup?

Thanks
pindar

[Shador]

Is this grub2? Try disabling gfxpayload if it is.
How exactly are you trying to boot Salix anyway (i.e. what's the content of your grub.cfg/menu.lst)?

If you get absolutely nothing, this indicates that the kernel does not even get to the initrd. Probably it's not loading at all.

What's the architecture of the processor?

[pindar]

Thanks for your reply. I'll try to provide more information:

processor is an intel core2 duo

This is indeed grub2.

For the time being, I don't boot via a grub.cfg, but manually. There are more linux distributions on the same disk, and all of them boot via this method. When grub on the USB disk comes up, I switch to a shell by typing "c" and issue these commands:

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fakebios
set root=(hd0,gpt2)
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.37.6-smp noefi root=/dev/sdb2
initrd /boot/initrd.gz
boot

Other linux distributions take a few seconds and then begin the boot sequence, but in salix, absolutely nothing happens, so you may be right that it doesn't even get to the initrd. But why? I know I'm loading the right partition because I can see the files in /boot.

[Shador]

I guess you need to install Salix 64bit with a 64bit kernel instead of a 32bit one. You can also try the linux16/initrd16 commands first. Maybe you also find some information on the net from other users trying Slackware on x86_64 EFI Hardware.