I have a Thinkpad X230 laptop and I want to install Linux Mint Debian Edition along side Windows 7 on my GPT formatted SSD with the BIOS in UEFI mode. The problem is that I don't understand how EFI booting works. There seems to be an EFI partition involved with some folders and binary files in it. GRUB 2 seems to be able to make more folders in it (I followed this guide http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/UEFI_Firmware), but it appears that the only file that does anything is the bootx64.efi file in the /efi/boot folder of the EFI partition (I am not sure if this is always the case, but it appears to be the case for my laptop http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:X220).

Here is what I have been able to do: I can install Linux Mint Debian Edition x86 with the BIOS in BIOS mode on my SSD. I can then install grub-efi and follow the guide linked above. The problem is that I don't get a GRUB prompt when I switch the BIOS to UEFI mode. It just boots Windows. It appears that I can either boot from the SSD or something called "Windows Boot Manager". If I replace the bootx64.efi with the file created by GRUB, I can no longer boot directly from the SSD. Booting from "Windows Boot Manager" still works fine. I realize that the guide says to use x64 Linux, but Linux Mint Debian Edition x64 hangs during the install process.

I am really confused. What should I do? Can anyone explain how the EFI boot partition works? Can a bootx64.efi boot an x86 OS? Should I just give up with using UEFI? I haven't been able to find very much useful information about using Debian based operating systems with UEFI.

Thanks,
Ian