Bug#1002670: grub2-common: Unable to force MBR/embedding installation

[Elliott Mitchell]

Package: grub2-common
Version: 2.04-20
Severity: important

Hopefully the subject tells the tale.  Due to some odd hardware, I need
to force `grub-install` to install the EFI version of GRUB into the
MBR/boot area gap.  Unfortunately the documentation suggest none of
`grub-install`'s options can get this result.  As a result I've got a
problem.

The background:  I'm trying to get GRUB installed on a very popular ARM64
device which has a full Tianocore/UEFI image available.  Unfortunately
while it is full Tianocore, the device lacks any private NVRAM and thus
is unable to store EFI variables.

`grub-install` tries to do a "normal" UEFI installation, which fails due
to lack of EFI variables.  As a result I need GRUB to install in the
MBR/GPT gap, but none of `grub-install`'s options appear to cause this.

Plan B might be to remove the EFI System UUID from the boot area, but
this solution seems wrong.


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