I attempted to install my preferred Linux distro the traditional way onto the NVMe drive without any EFI boot stuff, but upon reboot instead of GRUB the laptop gave a “no bootable device found” error.
So, is EFI required to boot or did I just mess up during the installation process?
Yes. New laptops (and desktops and servers) since around 2016-2018ish have been switching over to UEFI-only boot. Prior to that, BIOSes were supporting UEFI and Legacy boot during the transitional period. Legacy boot (MBR) is no longer supported going forward…and has been phasing out … phased out now in new hardware.
Things just get phased out over time…EDO RAM, IDE, SCA 80…it’s just the norm to move forward…
…and here’s the official response from awhile back:
Thanks for the link. Guess I won’t be able to put off figuring out this EFI stuff, never seemed necessary with full-disk encryption so I didn’t ever get around to learning it.