Calamares has no option to respect NVRAM/boot order during install (running EOS on external hd)?

General system EndeavourOS installation
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Just installed EndeavourOS with the installer. Everything went smoothly and I don’t need support now, but figured I’d post here as a bug(?) report or otherwise get someone’s attention to fix this.

Problem/Bug/Missing feature:

In the bootloader section of the GUI installer, there is no option (that I saw?) to respect the existing NVRAM/UEFI boot device order.

My configuration

I was trying to get the following configuration:
—> Main machine: Windows and other OS’s, with own bootloader. Should not be touched, including boot order.
—> External SSD: EndeavorOS with its own GRUB bootloader.

Why, you might ask? If the SSD is not connected, boot to the main machine bootloader with no prompt, no waiting, and no grub. If the SSD is connected, allow for EndeavourOS to be booted; I don’t care about pressing F12 in this case to just manually select the boot device. I am aware there are ways to configure the bootloader install on the main machine to accomplish an equivalent result, but in this case I explicitly wanted to leave the main machine, including bootloader and NVRAM, completely untouched.

What happened

The installer correctly put the GRUB bootloader on the ext. SSD when I was selecting disks and did not change the existing main disk bootloader (yay!) but then changed the NVRAM BIOS boot order without prompt, warning, or option not to. Of course this is easily fixed in 5 minutes or less by just going into the BIOS and changing the boot order back to whatever you want. My install was otherwise totally functional.

But in my opinion, the user should have the ability to prevent auto-changing the UEFI boot order and it should be made clear to them in the GUI installer. Why? Because users should have control over all changes made to their machine.

Related comment here: Need advice: Should I install a bootloader for my external SSD? - #9 by petsam

Disclaimer: I am new to EOS/Calamares and it’s just my 2 cents.

Thank you,
DBM

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It is common practice for the operating system you install to set itself as the highest priority during an install. As far as I know, virtually all operating systems do this.

If you want to reset the boot order afterwards, simply change it back in the bios or using efibootmgr

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@dalto thanks for the reply.

My point is not that the boot order changes by default. My point is that there is no option in the GUI installer to respect the existing boot order, like with a simple small checkbox.

I only bring this up because with a lot of new people wanting to try arch-based installs out on removable media (like ext. SSD with own bootloader) with a nice GUI installer, they’re bound to think their existing system somehow got changed. Maybe this is too niche of a concern, but just a thought.

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Does Calamares even support such a “feature” ?

If it doesn’t, the place to post a feature request should reasonably be

I doubt that this is the way “a lot” of new people try out a new distro. At best they use a virtual machine or just try the live usb.

People installing the whole OS on a removable device have mostly, already quite an specific usecase in mind and have relatively quite a good grips on how this works.

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In addition to the posts above, there’s the possibility to install EndeavourOS without installing a bootloader.

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and there is user-commands-before.bash and user_commands.bash implementation on the ISO to customize installer/install process to your needs.
https://discovery.endeavouros.com/installation/customizing-the-endeavouros-install-process/2022/03/