Hello, Arsen. On Wed, Dec 18, 2024 at 13:50:09 +0100, Arsen Arsenović wrote: > Hi Alan,
> Alan Mackenzie <a...@muc.de> writes: > > Hello, Gentoo. > > I've been having fun with systemd-boot. > > On my new (2024-08) machine, on Friday 2024-12-06, I suddenly noticed > > that my /boot partition was empty, I can't remember why I looked at it. > > I am quite sure I didn't empty it myself. There then followed a couple > > of hours where I restored the boot manager, kernels, and the boot > > configuration. Thankfully, it booted again the next time I tried. > > On my old machine, I've been noticing over the past weeks that only two > > older kernels have been offered for booting, despite me installing later > > kernels to /boot/EFI/gentoo, and configuring them in /boot/loader. > You don't need to do that manually, installkernel should handle it for > you. You should get installkernel[systemd,systemd-boot]. No, I don't need to learn a new abstruse command (which might do anything apart from its prime function) when cp works 100%. > > It all became clear yesterday and today. bootctl install had > > installed itself to /dev/nvme1n1p1 rather than /boot (which I have > > mounted on /dev/nvme0n1p1). > This would mean you mounted /dev/nvme1n1p1 on /efi: > --esp-path= > Path to the EFI System Partition (ESP). If not specified, > /efi/, /boot/, and /boot/efi/ are checked in turn. It is > recommended to mount the ESP to /efi/, if possible. I have never knowingly mounted anything on /efi. Even if it was by accident, somehow, I certainly wouldn't have done it on both my old and new machines. And why the partition on nvme1? > You should have one ESP mounted at any time, and mounted at /efi. The > rest should work fine. I've got /dev/nvme0n1p1 mounted on /boot. That should work. > > Both of these partitions are EFI system partitions. It also clogged > > up my UEFI boot sequence with lots of extra entries, leaving nvme1 > > rather than nvme0 the prime EFI system partition for booting with. > UEFI boot order entries are only created as part of 'bootctl install' so > this would mean you ran it many times. That's possible, though I don't remember now. > It only needs to be ran once. To update the bootloader, you'd use > 'bootctl update', to add/remove entries you'd use kernel-install. > > I've had a look at the manual page for bootctrl. It doesn't mention any > > way of specifying which EFI partition will get written to, and doesn't > > seem to mention that it changes the UEFI BIOS settings. Or maybe it > > does. It's a vague, poor quality manual. > That'd be --esp-path. Thanks! Though just /boot should work. > WRT changing UEFI settings, this is a necessity for UEFI boot - > grub-install does the same thing. I've always set the boot devices in the BIOS settings - including an entry for my DVD device, enabling me to install Gentoo. :-) > > I don't need all this. Booting should not be fun. It should be boring, > > boring, boring. Boring and dependable. > > Could somebody perhaps suggest a better boot loader to me? I need to be > > able to chose between several kernels at booting time, but I certainly > > don't want something "refined" like grub - I just need what I thought > > systemd-boot actually was before yesterday. > I suspect your problem lies elsewhere. What partitions are you > mounting? How are you installing kernels? I mount an EFI partition on /boot, along with several LVM partitions on / and subdirectories. I install kernels with cp from /usr/src/linux-x.y.z-gentoo/arch/x86/boot/bzImage to /boot/EFI/gentoo/, with a suitable new name. Then I add a new configuration file for the new kernel in /boot/loader/Entries. > Have a lovely day! Thanks! > -- > Arsen Arsenović -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
