On 5/28/19 7:31 PM, stan wrote:
On Tue, 28 May 2019 13:46:11 -0700 Samuel Sieb samuel@sieb.net wrote:
The /boot partition can be anywhere. I generally don't even create a separate partition, it's just included in /. But if you're wanting to share it, it would need to be separate.
I just got into the habit when that was the recommended configuration, and haven't changed.
My understanding, after some reading, is that there has to be a separate /boot/efi partition, and that was where the BLS information resided. Except for people using systemd-boot, as described here, https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1714007 and here, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd-boot
The /boot/efi partition is a FAT-formatted partition that is specially marked for the firmware to find. It is possible for the grub configs to be there, but Fedora doesn't put them there. That's how it has been until now. I don't know for sure where the BLS files go.
So, couldn't there be a utility, which when the user points it at an alternate installation, it creates a link in the boot volume with priority. The way grub(1) used to do with the configfile entry.
You can still do that. Even with BLS I would expect you could add an entry in the static part of the grub.cfg to point to the other installation.
But aren't all these BLS scriptlets in the same partition for Fedora? I thought that under BLS the grub.cfg was just a dummy place holder, and all the heavy lifting was done by the scriptlets.
The BLS files are probably in the /boot partition, same as the grub.cfg now. My understanding is that the grub.cfg file is still the initial file loaded and it points to where the BLS files are. (I really need to install a system to see how this really works.) You can still add your own entries to the grub.cfg to do other things. Or you could probably make a BLS file to point to the other OS grub.cfg.
For a single large boot directory for all OSs on the system, couldn't there be a directory for each OS, allowing for both update and a boot selection screen (a menu of available OSs).
Probably, but you would somehow have to convince each OS install to update its own part.
Wouldn't that just be a symbolic link from the /boot(/efi) partiition to wherever the BLS scriptlets reside?
If both installs are using BLS, then you could add something to the main grub.cfg to point to the other set of BLS files as well. In the end, you either have to have separate EFI boot entries for the installs or one of the installs has to have the master config.
I'm not familiar with the term ESP. From context, some kind of partition? Is the boot volume you refer to where the Fedora menu entries are stored /boot? Or a separate partition?
It's the EFI boot partition where the firmware knows to find the boot loaders. It's not /boot, it's normally mounted at /boot/efi.
And I don't have one. I think this is why my attempt to install as UEFI failed, because I used a custom configuration and didn't create a /boot/efi partition. But isn't the /boot/efi partition where the BLS scriptlets reside?
A UEFI install without the ESP will definitely fail, since there will be no place to put the bootloader.