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> As for why one would prefer this over just using EFI itself to manage boot entries If you dual boot then you can't effectively use the EFI. Doing so would in

> As for why one would prefer this over just using EFI itself to manage boot entries If you dual boot then you can't effectively use the EFI. Doing so would involve spamming a Fx key to go into the bios and then going through all the menu options to choose a manual boot override. Instead I have the EFI configured to use systemd-boot as the default, and systemd-boot presents a menu with the OS options, with Linux as the default choice. This still involves spamming the down arrow to select Windows before the auto-boot-default-choice timeout (configurable) finished, but is a lot easier than using the EFI. The nice thing about systemd-boot is that is is simple, lightweight, fast, and easy to configure. The first time I installed it in Arch it took about 5 minutes to get it working with entries for linux, linux-lts, and linux-zen kernels, with Windows being autodetected at boot time. However, if you are booted into an OS, then using the EFI to configure boot is much easier. On Linux you can do `sudo efibootmgr --bootnext 0001` to boot EFI entry 0001 only on the next boot (list entries with just `efibootmgr`; in my case 0001 was Windows). And on Windows there's a "WinToLinux" program on GitHub which will graphically let you set a oneshot EFI boot override to reboot into Windows instead of systemd-boot.

Hello71 7y ago
most modern firmwares ("go into the bios", ugh) provide a key to directly enter the boot option selection screen. this is one of the core functions of the firmware, and although I have pretty low expectations of AMI/Insyde/Phoenix, I'm pretty sure they can at least get that part right.
- akvadrako 7y ago
  Yes but at least on my new high end Lenovo, it’s not ergonomic. You don’t see a menu or a prompt, you just need to hit the magic key during a short window. Then you need a password, because I don’t want to allow booting usb thumbdrives.

Hello71 7y ago

most modern firmwares ("go into the bios", ugh) provide a key to directly enter the boot option selection screen. this is one of the core functions of the firmware, and although I have pretty low expectations of AMI/Insyde/Phoenix, I'm pretty sure they can at least get that part right.

akvadrako 7y ago
Yes but at least on my new high end Lenovo, it’s not ergonomic. You don’t see a menu or a prompt, you just need to hit the magic key during a short window. Then you need a password, because I don’t want to allow booting usb thumbdrives.