Legacy installation without EFI

[egabosh]

Moin,

we would like to have the option of installing Mint without EFI, using the legacy method.
At least on two older notebooks on which we tested and set legacy boot (the default) in the BIOS, Mint installed EFI with gpt instead of msdos partition+bootable flag+MBR and the systems did not boot in legacy mode after installation.
Then after the Installation the BIOS hangs here:

Invalid partition table
No boot device found.

After reactivating EFI in the BIOS the installations boot. So setting the BIOS to EFI seems to be necessarily forced and mint forces the EFI installation.

Would it be possible to add the option somewhere in the partitioning settings in the Mint Installer that Mint should be installed in legacy mode?

I was able to do this legacy method manually from the bootable stick - so Mint seems to have everything necessary on board:

• I did the partitioning manually via gparted before the installation and created a new “msdos” partition table.
• then I created a primary partition with 1GB and ext4 file system and a partition with the remaining available size also formatted with ext4.
• next I started the Mint installation and defined "/boot" for the 1GB partition and "/" for the other partition under (Installation type -> Something else).
• After the installation I did not reboot but installed the bootloader manually with the following commands (sdX in this case my disk).

sudo mount /dev/sdX2 /mnt
sudo mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt/boot
sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
sudo chroot /mnt /bin/bash
grub-install /dev/sdX
sync

Then reboot and it runs without EFI.

Tested with Mint 22 (Cinnamon) USB Stick.

Maybe there is a way to autodetect whether the BIOS stands on legacy or EFI boot and install mint automatically on the right path?

Thanks and regards
olli

[cbv-wizzdom]

I would like to see an option to install on an "msdos" partition.

Older motherboards that do not support UEFI can still run Linux Mint but the installer creates a GPT partition that the motherboard does not support (there are even some motherboards that support UEFI booting but do not support GPT).

I used the live system to create an "msdos" partition table with a swap partition and an ext4 partition mounting on /.

On continuing with the install, I was warned that as there was no EFI partition, the system might not boot. I continued with the installation and allowed the installer to reboot the system. No errors - booted satisfactorily.