On 11/04/2026 7:23 pm, Joe wrote:
efibootmgr -v:
Assuming that firmware really overrides your attempts to change Boot*
variables, I see nothing suspicious.
lsblk (sdb is a USB stick):
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 0 223.6G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 97.7G 0 part
└─sda2 8:2 0 125.9G 0 part
Guessing from partition sizes, there is no ESP on SSD ("lsblk --fs"
would add FS type).
mmcblk0 179:0 0 29.1G 0 disk
├─mmcblk0p1 179:1 0 100M 0 part /boot/efi
Is there EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI on this partition? It may get priority.
Grub package has a configuration parameter to install a copy of shim or
grub to "removable" path. It might explain why some Debian releases
could boot.
You may try to copy EFI/debian to EFI/BOOT and to rename shimx64.efi to
bootx64.efi.
On Sat, 11 Apr 2026 10:16:30 +0700 Max Nikulin wrote:>> Is there an option in
the firmware to select EFI file to boot from?
Yes, but it only shows the Windows Boot Manager from a cold start.
At least HP firmware, besides configured Boot* entries, allowed to pick
an arbitrary .efi file using a kind of file browser. There was even an
option to create a custom boot entry by typing device and file type.
I won't be buying another Acer
computer, but I suppose most brands do that kind of thing.
Maybe firmware has been improved over 8 years. At least comparing HP
firmware versions, I should say that 2021 variant is more sane that one
from 2014. Discussions of specific models may be more relevant.
My experience is that boot configuration in firmware setup menu may
override variables available to efibootmgr in some nontrivial way.
Firmware may have an options whether to boot from specific "devices". I
would not be surprised if it affects whether EFI/Boot removable paths
are considered.
You may try to inspect variables from grub command line
echo $prefix
echo $cmdpath
echo $fw_path
Last one added by a patch for 2.12.
I have seen messages suggesting that installing shim (or grub) as
EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi is the only workaround for some laptops.
