UEFI - Install Guide

Introduction

At this stage of the game, installing a Linux distro on a UEFI can be the trickiest part of the installation.

UEFI is the commonly agreed on name for both the EFI & UEFI 
standards which merged. It does not include the old EFI v1, 
or Apple's own non-standard version of EFI.

So the following guide can be a huge time & frustration saver for some users.

Target computer:

The following guide will install Manjaro as the sole installation on a machine with UEFI enabled, Secure boot disabled using GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk(s).

The Simple steps:

• 1. Download your preferred Manjaro version (XFCE, Openbox, Cinnamon, KDE, ...), must be 64-bits.

• 2. Burn the .iso to USB or DVD. For Windows users using USB media, Rufus [1] is highly recommended.

• 2.1. Rufus (Windows) users should use the following settings:

* Click on the DVD icon and load your .iso
* Device: "choose your USB" (Attention: choose correctly,
  the device selected here will be formatted!!!)
* Partition scheme: GPT partition scheme for UEFI computer
* File system: FAT32
* Cluster size: "Don't modify"
* Volume label: "Don't modify"
* Click Start, and you are done (takes 2~5 min to complete).

• 3. Check your BIOS, UEFI must be ON and Secure boot OFF.

• 4. Boot with your USB or DVD & use the rEFInd - Main Menu... to choose which GPU drivers you want to have installed, the open-source or proprietary:

* Boot Manjaro Linux ... (default) - 
  This chooses the open-source - free GPU drivers.
* Boot Manjaro Linux ... (nonfree) - 
  This option chooses the proprietary GPU drivers
  from Nvidia or ATI.

• 5. Open terminal & enter:

$ sudo setup

In rare cases you might need to update the installer first. You can do that by using the followed command - only when it is requested:

$ sudo update-setup

• 6. Now, we are in the CLI Installer (the graphical installer doesn't support UEFI yet).

Choose 2. Use testing installer (EFI support).

• 7. Choose 1. Set date and time - an easy intuitive configuration.

• 8. Now, Choose 2. Disk(s) preparation.

Go to 2. Partition Hard Drives or follow the instruction in the next point 8.1 to automatically partition the entire disk.

• 8.1 If you want to use the entire disk, and don't want to manually configure your partitions, you can choose 1. Auto-Prepare.

Attention: I don't know for sure if using the 
Auto-Prepare option of the installation will be 
successful as I always prefer to manually configure 
my partitions. Give it a try, if you have problems
then please post here: [2]

So, if 8.1 (Auto-Prepare) is chosen, you skip the process below and go to 9...

* When you click 2. Partition Hard Drives, 
  you get a dialog saying "Do you want to use GUID
  Partition Table (GPT)", choose Yes.
* Partition your disk(s) as you want (Instructions on
  manually partitioning are beyond the scope of this
  guide.)
* Important Step: Create a 50~250MB EFI Partition,
  mine is 100MB (code: ef00)
* When you are done, go to 4. Set Filesystem
  Mountpoints. (Again, instructions on manually
  partitioning are beyond the scope of this guide.
* Important Step: Format the EFI Partition you
  created as VFAT and mount on /boot/efi

• 9. Choose 3. Install system and wait...

• 10. Now, go to 4. Configure System and configure it the way you like (username, password, mirrorlist, system-name, ...).

• 11. When you are done, go to 5. Install bootloader. Choose EFI_x86_64 > GRUB (2) UEFI x86_64, or something like that, I don't remember precisely, but it's very, very intuitive, just DON'T select BIOS GRUB.

• 11.1 It will ask to format the EFI Partition you created earlier as FAT32, just mark Yes.

• 12. If it gives a error in the final stages saying "efivars kernel module was not properly loaded", don't worry, the system will work fine!

• 13. If the installer asks you about copying grub/efi files to another folder in order to maintain compatibility in some systems, choose Yes.

• 14. Click 6. Quit

• 15. Shutdown, remove the DVD or USB, and boot. Your system should appear now!

DONE, SYSTEM INSTALLED!

Feedback:

Questions, suggestions, critics? Please post here: [3]