[ltp] Dual-boot with Windows 10

[Marius Gedminas]

On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 08:54:40PM +1200, cr wrote:
> Okay, update:   I decided it was getting too messy to leave Windows in
> place, if I need it in future I'll try the VM method.    (I do have a
> L440 which is dual-boot, but Win10 seems to want to mess with the boot
> order any time I run it).

FWIW that's not the case on my X390.  Win 10 + Ubuntu dual-boot,
friendly-like.

The only boot-related problem happens when I try to upgrade the system
firmware + ME firmware from Ubuntu with fwupdmgr, and something
(possibly the firmware, but maybe fwupd) removes the ubuntu entry from
the EFI boot variables.

Oh, and one other dual-boot related issue is Bluetooth, because the
Bluetooth headset can't tell which OS I've booted just from the
Bluetooth MAC address and wants to use the same link key with either
one.  I have to play with chntpw (the Windows registry editor) and
/var/lib/bluetooth to synchronize the link keys manually, once, after
pairing the headset with both OSes.

> This all works *except* there's a problem with the screen and
> keyboard/mouse freezing after a while, I suspect because I'm getting an
> error 'Firmware bug:  IOAPIC not in IVRS table'   which is related to
> IOMMU.   There's no way to disable IOMMU in the BIOS settings so I may
> just have to do it in Grub.   But I don't think that has any relation to
> BIOS vs UEFI.

Arent IOAPIC and IOMMU rather different things?

When mouse/keyboard freeze, is the system otherwise alive?  E.g. do
things change on screen (blinking cursors, seconds in a clock, values
shown by top)?  Does it respond to network packets?  Can you ssh in?

How deeply is the keyboard frozen?  Any reaction to Caps Lock?
Ctrl+Alt+F3?  Alt+SysRq+S,U,B?  Would an external USB keyboard work if
plugged in?

Is the freeze temporary or permanent?

> (I tried Linux Mint Debian Ed (LMDE4) for comparison which runs ok (but
> slowly) off a live USB, I'd install it in the spare partition but its
> installer demands a bootable partition to install it in so I'm not sure
> if it's UEFI-aware.   I'm starting to think I should have stuck with
> 'Legacy' BIOS boot.)

UEFI boot is great!  But yeah, if the installer doesn't support it,
then, uh, life becomes less fun.

Marius Gedminas
-- 
The reason computer chips are so small is that computers don't eat much.
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