current latest download of LinuxCNC V2.9.8 will not install GRUB on several PC's

Tried that same results as with rufus

I also just tried using Rufus in ISOhybrid mode, and DD mode, and Etcher. Even used three brand new USB drives (I have loads of these things where I bought out a local retailer and use them for students)

None of the liveUSB systems were able to completely install the system, and all of them failed at the "installing grub" step. Sometimes they would fail halfway through the "installing system" step.

CSM boot is disabled to force EFI boot, and I've even tried accepting all the defaults during the installer. No luck, and no matter what i do I can not get the installer to accept the realtek-firmware.deb package so I can get network access during the install.

I'm even using a recommended motherboard/CPU combination, the ASrock J3455-itx, and a Sandisk 140GB SSD.

CSM enabled does not make any difference for my install when using the LinuxCNC live USB image.

I downloaded the official Debian installer image (not the LinuxCNC specific one) and it ran and installed absolutely fine, didn't even complain about missing firmware, grub installed fine, and it didn't even hiccup once.

From here, I'll follow the normal install instructions for installing the preempt-RT kernel and linuxCNC from packages.

The Linuxcnc installer uses Bookworm (V12)
The Debian installer is currently Trixie (V1 3)
Trixie has better uefi support at boot

Linuxcnc installer uses Debian's Live Build which is the same as what Debian uses so its odd
so install Debian Trixie and type sudo apt install linuxcnc-uspace linuxcnc-uspace-dev to get v 2.94 (missing a few minor bug fixes)
Install Debian Sid (aka testing) do the same and get v 2.97 (missing one minor bug fix)
Follow this process  on Trixie or Bookworm and then follow the steps in the docs here to get 2.98 (current version)
linuxcnc.org/docs/stable/html/getting-st...th_preempt_rt_kernel

This is the plan. Keep in mind, all who follow, that if you finish the installation completely offline-no internet access-your Debian package sources files will be empty. You will have to create the .sources file, or when you do sudo apt install you will get "could not find" and when you do sudo apt unpdate it will run through the updates and say there is nothing to update.

Its not possible to install Debian without an internet connection (hardwired is best) The Linuxcnc installer depends on internet (It uses the Debian Live INstaller). Try offline at your own risk

Hello,

I had a similar issue where I had to skip the grub boot installer step.

I found a solution is to install like normal and skip that step, then launch the usb boot drive live. From there, I had to mount the efi drive partition (/dev/sda1 I think it was). Then I went and renamed the Debian directory in EFI to boot and the grubx64.efi file to bootx64.efi and then everything booted fine.

I was doing this on an old Mac so it could have been a little different.

Rod, I literally just did exactly that. It booted and worked perfectly fine, with the caveat that the .sources list for Aptitude is empty, and you need to manually populate it.

Once manually populated, the system was able to be connected to the internet and it worked exactly as you'd expect with regard to installing new packages.