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I’m surprised that most people even bother with bootloaders like grub... On all the machines I’ve used recently, the UEFI boot manager works fine, and you can j
by noodlesUK 7y ago
I’m surprised that most people even bother with bootloaders like grub... On all the machines I’ve used recently, the UEFI boot manager works fine, and you can just use a kernel with an EFI stub and initramfs built in. It’s obviously a bit much for most users, but you’d think Linux distros could just package it all up.
- akvadrako 7y agoI don't see how it's easier or better for the user. It's not a very nice dual booting UI, like a menu with a timeout. And no way to set passwords on certain items or enter kernel boot parameters.
- parston_michel 7y ago>how it's easier or better for the user It really depends who "the user" is. It's faster, and accidentally hitting a hotkey for grub or whatever on boot is just one more problem. These are both material advantages, for a certain cohort. "the user" varies from highly technical people like you or i to low income people with laptops wiped to install ubuntu by foundations that can't afford windows licenses. And, if I'm dual booting, I'm probably confident enough to configure UEFI to support dual booting.
- ghostpepper 7y ago> And, if I'm dual booting, I'm probably confident enough to configure UEFI to support dual booting. This doesn't really fit with the oft-repeated advice to windows user looking to try out linux that you can start with a dual boot.
- parston_michel 7y agoAFAIK, the recommended way to do it now is to use a live usb/cd.
- noodlesUK 7y agoIt has one extremely big advantage: secure boot. It’s an easy and nice thing to set up when it’s all just one EFI executable.
- throwaway2048 7y agodirectly booting an ever changing kernel (due to security updates etc) is way more annoying in secure boot terms than a relatively static bootloader
- yrro 7y agoIs there a way to sign & verify initramfs images yet?
- dTal 7y agoDo you even need an initramfs image at all?
- yrro 7y agoHow else can I unlock my encrypted disk partitions?
- akvadrako 7y agoI have not tried it but the dm-mod.create kernel parameter should help: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-8439822.html?sid=b07b8102ca69755ed1b4c3dbe2a7b0e7 https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-8439822.html?sid=b07b8...
- TomJansen 7y agoI do this on my laptop. Press F9 while booting and just select Windows or Linux, just like you would boot from an USB stick. No more chances of something breaking (on that front atleast)
- thaumaturgy 7y agogrub provides a nice interface for adjusting kernel parameters before booting, which is essential for some installs on twitchy hardware. I don't know of a way to do this in the UEFI boot manager.
- krferriter 7y agoI've found it even easier to manage kernel parameters and boot entries in systemd-boot. You can just create another boot entry by making a copy of a text file, and changing the `title` line of the file. Grub is much more complex to manage. systemd-boot entries are very simple text files, so editing kernel parameters is far easier than grub.
- kelnos 7y agoWhat's the recovery situation? Say my machine is unbootable and I need to tweak the kernel commandline or something to get things working again? Can I do that from the systemd-boot menu like I can with grub?
- Nullabillity 7y agoYes, just press E. Just like in GRUB.
- maccam94 7y agoYou can edit the kernel entry at boot time in grub, which can be useful when you need to troubleshoot a non-booting system.
- inshadows 7y ago> systemd-boot entries are very simple text files, So are GRUB 2 configuration files but for some reason a "framework" was built around it to generate the final configuration file from parts.
- jaclaz 7y agoI would add "without properly documenting how to use the framework".
- dpbriggs 7y agoI am fairly sure most people are using whatever bootloader is installed for them during distro install.
- johnchristopher 7y agoI consider myself an advanced user. I used to play with refitsomething loader to boot win7/10 on an older imac, I still have shivers about the dreaded LI... of my youth so I tend to stick to whatever Ubuntu installs and then make sure I can boot stea... windows easily. Anything else is madness I don't need nor want to fiddle with.
- exikyut 7y ago(For fellow dense people: LILO; Steam)