Hello everyone. This is my first post, though I've been lurking on the
mailing list for awhile. Until now I've been content to shut up and let
more knowledgeable folks discuss the technical details, but today I
encountered an issue which hasn't been discussed here yet: support for UEFI
boot (as opposed to BIOS) and a hard disk partitioned as GPT (as opposed to
MBR).

I have two computers, one desktop and one laptop, and before today I kept
them both partitioned MBR style. Both are set up for multi-booting
different Linux distros, particularly important now that I'm looking to
experiment with alternatives to Debian since it got infected with systemd.

Anyway, today I decided that it was about time I switched from MBR to GPT,
so I went ahead and did that (for the laptop only). Took me most of the day
to get that working since I've had no previous experience with GPT. I
discovered that in order to do this, I had to turn off CSM/legacy options
to prevent accidentally booting in BIOS - getting GPT to work seems to
require using UEFI to boot. Note that I did NOT turn on secure boot - it is
disabled.

Another thing I discovered is that I couldn't get Debian to install (or
even boot from a USB stick) once I had configured the hard drive with GPT.
I wound up installing Ubuntu successfully. I learned that it was necessary
to add a boot manager (aside from Grub2, which acts as a boot loader) - I
chose to use "rEFInd." If you're not already familiar with rEFInd, you can
find out all about it here: http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/

Anyway, the important point is that Debian with UEFI/GPT was a disaster.
Since I was setting up for multi-booting, I tried a number of other
distros, and found that the problem is not limited to Debian. PCLinuxOS
also failed to boot, even from a memory stick. Slackware Linux installed
just fine. However, Salix (which is a Slackware derivative boasting a fancy
live CD interface) had problems - it booted, but couldn't start Xorg.

So the purpose of my post today is to plead with the developers to make
sure that Devuan will work fine on UEFI/GPT, unlike Debian which seems to
choke on it.

Thank you for this mailing list, and the great work you are doing on Devuan.

best regards,
Robert Storey