[WORKAROUND]"No kernel modules were found" when booting UEFI

[growly]

I've run into the same installation problem ("No kernel modules were found", so no network drivers, no disk controller drivers, nothing) as in this post but using the bullseye_di_alpha3 and even 10.7 images doesn't help. In fact, I ran into "No kernel modules were found" with all of these images:

• https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/cu ... etinst.iso (2020-12-05)
• https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/cu ... -DVD-1.iso (2020-12-05)
• https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/week ... -DVD-1.iso (2021-01-11)
• https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/week ... etinst.iso (2021-01-11)
• https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/bull ... etinst.iso (2020-12-03)
• https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/bull ... -DVD-1.iso (2020-12-03)

I tried booting with two different flash drives, writing the image from two different machines (one an existing bullseye installation and another a mac), using both cp and dd and making sure to sync before removing the drive. I verified md5sums of most of the images as a sanity check, but they were fine. In all cases, I hit the same problem.

The problem went away when I booted the installer using the purely legacy interface (i.e. booting without UEFI enabled). However, this meant that my installation didn't support UEFI, which is not ok. So it seems I can't do a UEFI-based run of the installer.

Is this a known problem or is it my machine somehow? Any idea on a possible cause?

Pertinent specs: Asus Prime X299-Deluxe II, i7 9940x, 128GB RAM, 970 Pro NVMe SSD as main disk and an LSI SAS RAID card that requires me to keep legacy boot ROM support

Thanks in advance!

/edit: fixed confusing wording

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I am confused:

The problem went away when I booted the installer not using the legacy boot (not UEFI) interface. However, this meant that my installation didn't support UEFI, which is not ok. So it seems I can't do a UEFI-based run of the installer.

That statement is contradictory. Do you mean that you can only boot the installer with "Legacy" mode (CSM) enabled (ie, in non-UEFI mode)?

an LSI SAS RAID card that requires me to keep legacy boot ROM support

If the card requires non-UEFI booting then why do you want to install in UEFI mode? And how do you know that card requires non-UEFI booting?

It is fairly simple to convert a non-UEFI system to UEFI booting if that's what you want but I cannot reproduce your issue with the Debian 10.7 netinstall ISO image.

[p.H]

If the card requires non-UEFI booting then why do you want to install in UEFI mode?

The OP did not write that the card requires "non UEFI booting" but "legacy boot ROM support". I think this is an option in the UEFI firmware setup, also named "legacy option ROM" support which allows the firmware to use option ROM which contain legacy code.

[growly]

Sorry, I've clarified what I meant: it worked with the legacy boot mode, when I turned UEFI off.

However, I now have a workaround. I removed the LSI SAS card and disabled CSM in the BIOS, so that the system booted UEFI purely. With this configuration debian installer worked as intended and I successfully completed installation. I then re-installed the LSI SAS card and re-enabled CSM in the BIOS. The UEFI installation of debian boots normally. I suspect I could've skipped physically removing the card and just disabled CSM in the BIOS to achieve the same effect.

I noticed that the installer menu when booting pure UEFI was different to pure legacy, and different again under the CSM mixed-mode boot, which tells me there's clearly a different code path. Mixed-mode boot is probably something that debian installer doesn't want to support since it seems that UEFI is a bit of a sh!t show, but there should be some explicit warning about not booting in this mode at least.

Thanks for your replies!

[growly]

If the card requires non-UEFI booting then why do you want to install in UEFI mode? And how do you know that card requires non-UEFI booting?

It is fairly simple to convert a non-UEFI system to UEFI booting if that's what you want but I cannot reproduce your issue with the Debian 10.7 netinstall ISO image.

This card pre-dates UEFI, its firmware is from 2011. When booted under UEFI the card initialises but there is no way to enter the RAID configuration utility, which as you can imagine is annoying. In my BIOS I had set the default boot mode for storage cards to be legacy ROMs and for everything else to be UEFI, which enabled me to configure the drives and continue to boot UEFI normally.

Why use UEFI at all? Because I wanted to dual-boot with Windows 10, which AFAIK forces UEFI.

[p.H]

Do you mean that Window 10 forces UEFI or dual boot with Windows 10 forces UEFI ?
AFAIK, Windows 10 does not force UEFI, it can be installed in legacy mode.
Of course dual boot through GRUB or Windows boot manager with Windows 10 that was installed in UEFI mode forces UEFI.
Dual boot through the machine firwmare boot menu does not force UEFI.