I read in the archwiki(efi system partition) that /efi is the new recommended location for what is now still mostly /boot/efi. I’m running my own Arch installation and have everything under /boot. I installed and EndeavourOS vm and saw that all the systemd-boot loader files, initramfs and linux kernel are stored under /efi. I thought the whole advantage was of splitting the efi directory to a separate location not under /boot is that it would allow you to encrypt your /boot if you wanted to and your efi files still being accessible to boot from. So why does EndeavourOS mount and store all those files under /efi instead of under /boot if the files aren’t actually split?
When you use systemd-boot. The kernel and initrds are stored under /efi in alignment with the Boot Loader Specification(BLS).
Not really. That is true even when mounted under /boot/efi. Where you mount files has no bearing on encryption.
Where can I read about BLS in the archwiki? So it’s better to just use /efi than /boot since it’s a specification for bootloaders which would also then be a recommendation/standard?
On my installation I have everything including efi files on one partition, so under /boot. So I guess it all comes down to BLS what you are talking about and that in reality it doesn’t really matter if you have a separate efi and separate boot partition and that the location doesn’t matter since they can still be on separate partitions no matter the mount location.
I think this is what you are talking about?
You know not all Linux information is contained in the Arch wiki…right? 
Your EFI files always need to be in a vfat partition. It makes no different if you mount the partition in /boot/efi or /efi. That won’t make it encrypted even if /boot is encrypted.
That isn’t really related to the BLS, that is simply how it works. The ESP is read by the BIOS/firmware before it is mounted. You don’t even need to mount it at all. It only needs to be mounted when you update the files on it.
OMG, really ? 
I thought Debian was well documented there!
Yes I know, I always try to find my information in the Archwiki first, if I can’t find it there I look elsewhere.
So it’s a choice that EndeavourOS made to put everything under /efi with systemd-boot because of BLS even though you could also mount everything under /boot?
I thought if you made your /boot partition encrypted you would need Grub to be able to support booting from an encrypted partition? Would it be possible to have your entire root partition encrypted with /boot falling under there and then with Grub as your bootloader to boot from that encrypted partition, if so does btrfs support that?
There is no value in putting it under /boot in our case, that would just be confusing since the file layout is different than what people would expect in /boot.
That is true but if you put the ESP at /boot/efi, /boot can still be encrypted.
Yes, that is our default layout when you choose grub in the installer.
/ is encrypted and contains /boot and the ESP is mounted at /boot/efi
I had noticed that it was different to what I’m used to, that make sense then.
Yeah only when they are on separate partitions.
I was trying to figure out if it’s possible to do so if I ever want to since I keep reading how it could have advantages to have /boot encrypted in case someone were to want to mess with your /boot files. However to do that I would have to use Grub and I actually really have gotten to like systemd-boot since it’s just so simplistic compared to Grub.
I’ll just move mount /boot to /efi since it’s in alignment with the Boot Loader Specification(BLS). Thanks for taking the time to reply and explain that parts about /boot(/efi) vs /efi which I didn’t know yet.
They must be. The ESP must always be a separate partition. It can never be part of another partition.