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I have a new Asus Zenbook here, and honestly I don't know exactly the model and if it has BIOS or UEFI. When I go into BIOS before booting, I see nothing that says UEFI, and it looks pretty much like my BIOS on my old PCs. There is already a Windows 7 installed.

How can I find out if I need to install Grub / Grub2 in BIOS or UEFI mode?

Braiam
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Droids
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  • If you have options in your BIOS in reference to secure boot, or legacy boot. Then you probably have an UEFI bios. If not, you will need to read my question at http://askubuntu.com/questions/795675/is-there-any-way-to-force-ubuntu-to-install-in-bios-boot-mode/795709#795709 To understand how to install a modern debian distro onto it. – Frank Barcenas Jul 07 '16 at 14:07
  • Please read the ubuntu wiki about uefi, especially: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI#Case_when_Ubuntu_must_be_installed_in_EFI_mode if any doubt, please indicate your Boot-Info url ( https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Info ) – LovinBuntu Dec 07 '13 at 16:48

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The main question is do you need UEFI? If you don't or don't plan too or just don't know, either, install it as is or deactivate it. There isn't a real "reason" why you should select one or another that goes beyond of what you prefer. Each method has advantage and disadvantages but either way the decision is yours at the end and since you are not interested in dual boot, may as well not do it.

Personally, I don't use UEFI as I don't have a UEFI capable system, if you have one and you don't foresee any troubles, maybe do the jump and use UEFI all the way.

Braiam
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  • This advice is wrong, as there is already Windows installed. If you mix non-UEFI Windows with UEFI Ubuntu or the other way around, one OS will simply not be visible and the installation corrupted. – jmiserez Jun 22 '14 at 20:18
  • @jmiserez Windows installed doesn't mean that OP is using UEFI, check again. Also I'm not saying that OP should mix non-UEFI with UEFI installation, really, where are you pulling that from? – Braiam Jun 22 '14 at 20:29
  • I asssumed that dual-boot was the goal, although I see that maybe this was wrong. I'll take my downvote back (Edit: It seems that I can't, until the answer is edited again. Sorry). – jmiserez Jun 23 '14 at 00:19
  • @jmiserez I edited it for you. – Braiam Jun 23 '14 at 00:23
  • Done. Got to rake in that precious rep... – jmiserez Jun 23 '14 at 00:25
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    @jmiserez nah, there isn't life after 20k's – Braiam Jun 23 '14 at 00:39
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See this page for information on determining your hardware's capabilities and your Windows boot mode. (In brief, if your disk uses MBR partitions, Windows is booting in BIOS/CSM/legacy mode; if the disk uses GPT, then Windows is booting in EFI mode.) You should match your Linux boot mode to your Windows boot mode; if you don't, you risk creating complications for yourself. For more on EFI-mode Linux installation, see my page on the topic and the Ubuntu wiki on EFI.

Rod Smith
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