Dual boot: booting EOS only possible with F12

chips · August 18, 2024, 10:28am

Hi everybody,
could need some help with the unsatisfactory boot behavior on my laptop. Just installed EOS alongside Win10 and during installation created a new boot partition:

/dev/sda9: 1 GiB, fat 32, mount point /efi, flag: boot esp

There is also the windows thing:

/dev/sda1: 100 MiB, fat 32, flag: boot esp

I had before tried with GRUB but this time chose the default bootloader option (system.d or so?)

I can only get a boot menu, listing EOS, by pressing F12 at startup. If I don’t or if I’m not quick enough, Windows is booted right away. In the BIOS there are only two entries, both showing “Windows”. I would love to get a boot menu at startup that lists all available options, instead of having to press F12 before Windows is booted automatically.

thefrog · August 18, 2024, 12:16pm

Even though I now use Systemd-boot it was a while back that I read about it and what it is opposed to Grub. Memory is fuzzy so here is my understanding

Systemd-boot will find the esp flag and will boot to that so having more than one device will result in Systemd-boot choosing the first found esp device. Hopefully @pebcak or @dalto can explain it. So I think with Systemd-boot its best to have one boot partition for all instead of one for each of the OS’s

winnyace · August 18, 2024, 12:24pm

You say in the BIOS, only two entries are possible? That seems very weird. There should be other options, like simply booting from a particular drive. Mind sharing a screenshot of the BIOS boot order settings?

lorebett · August 18, 2024, 12:43pm

You could check whether EOS is the first boot option in the bios, otherwise, you can change the boot order from there

dalto · August 18, 2024, 12:50pm

Can you boot into your EOS install and share the output of sudo efibootmgr

chips · August 18, 2024, 1:13pm

So this is what I get when I’m in BIOS:

This is what I get after F12, I choose 6. for booting EOS (the others obviously were some older installations, that have been replaced):

Finally sudo efibootmgr gives me this output:

BootCurrent: 0006
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0002,0007,0003,0004,0001,0006,0005,2001,2002,2003
Boot0001* endeavouros HD(1,GPT,b7fcdb1c-7234-42ad-8de7-e760be2b2a54,0x800,0x32000)/\EFI\endeavouros\grubx64.efi
Boot0002* Windows Boot Manager HD(1,GPT,b7fcdb1c-7234-42ad-8de7-e760be2b2a54,0x800,0x32000)/\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi57494e444f5753000100000088000000780000004200430044004f0042004a004500430054003d007b00390064006500610038003600320063002d0035006300640064002d0034006500370030002d0061006300630031002d006600330032006200330034003400640034003700390035007d00000000000100000010000000040000007fff0400
Boot0003* antergos_grub_jtsw HD(1,GPT,b7fcdb1c-7234-42ad-8de7-e760be2b2a54,0x800,0x32000)/\EFI\antergos_grub_jtsw\grubx64.efi
Boot0004* RebornOS HD(1,GPT,b7fcdb1c-7234-42ad-8de7-e760be2b2a54,0x800,0x32000)/\EFI\RebornOS\grubx64.efi
Boot0005* Linux Boot Manager HD(1,GPT,b7fcdb1c-7234-42ad-8de7-e760be2b2a54,0x800,0x32000)/\EFI\systemd\systemd-bootx64.efi
Boot0006* Linux Boot Manager HD(9,GPT,802b2972-5008-466b-81dd-a9962bd618f8,0x3b5de000,0x203000)/\EFI\systemd\systemd-bootx64.efi
Boot0007* Windows Boot Manager HD(9,GPT,802b2972-5008-466b-81dd-a9962bd618f8,0x3b5de000,0x203000)/\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efiRC
Boot2001* EFI USB Device RC
Boot2002* EFI DVD/CDROM RC
Boot2003* EFI Network RC

dalto · August 18, 2024, 1:17pm

Run this command:

sudo efibootmgr -o 0006,0002

Then reboot.

Also, you might want to clean up all those unused entries you have at some point.

chips · August 18, 2024, 1:34pm

Thanks for the suggestion. Did so but still Windows is booted right away, unless I interfere by using F12. After F12, there are now only three entries:

Windows Boot Manager
Windows Boot Manager
Linux Boot Manager

sudo efibootmgr

BootCurrent: 0006
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0002,0006,2001,2002,2003
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager HD(9,GPT,802b2972-5008-466b-81dd-a9962bd618f8,0x3b5de000,0x203000)/\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efiRC
Boot0001* endeavouros HD(1,GPT,b7fcdb1c-7234-42ad-8de7-e760be2b2a54,0x800,0x32000)/\EFI\endeavouros\grubx64.efi
Boot0002* Windows Boot Manager HD(1,GPT,b7fcdb1c-7234-42ad-8de7-e760be2b2a54,0x800,0x32000)/\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi57494e444f5753000100000088000000780000004200430044004f0042004a004500430054003d007b00390064006500610038003600320063002d0035006300640064002d0034006500370030002d0061006300630031002d006600330032006200330034003400640034003700390035007d00000000000100000010000000040000007fff0400
Boot0003* antergos_grub_jtsw HD(1,GPT,b7fcdb1c-7234-42ad-8de7-e760be2b2a54,0x800,0x32000)/\EFI\antergos_grub_jtsw\grubx64.efi
Boot0004* RebornOS HD(1,GPT,b7fcdb1c-7234-42ad-8de7-e760be2b2a54,0x800,0x32000)/\EFI\RebornOS\grubx64.efi
Boot0005* Linux Boot Manager HD(1,GPT,b7fcdb1c-7234-42ad-8de7-e760be2b2a54,0x800,0x32000)/\EFI\systemd\systemd-bootx64.efi
Boot0006* Linux Boot Manager HD(9,GPT,802b2972-5008-466b-81dd-a9962bd618f8,0x3b5de000,0x203000)/\EFI\systemd\systemd-bootx64.efi
Boot0007* Windows Boot Manager HD(9,GPT,802b2972-5008-466b-81dd-a9962bd618f8,0x3b5de000,0x203000)/\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efiRC
Boot2001* EFI USB Device RC
Boot2002* EFI DVD/CDROM RC
Boot2003* EFI Network RC

dalto · August 18, 2024, 1:52pm

It looks like the order is being reset. Also, another Windows entry was added that wasn’t there before. This is potentially a BIOS/firmware issue.

Try deleting all the unused entries and see if that helps. You can delete 0001, 0003, 0004, 0005 and the extra Windows entries.

chips · August 18, 2024, 1:57pm

Um never done that before. Like so for 0001 e. g.?

sudo efibootmgr -b 0001 -B

dalto · August 18, 2024, 2:31pm

Yes. Like that.

I usually use:

sudo efibootmgr -Bb 0001

It should work either way though.

chips · August 18, 2024, 5:33pm

Okay I deleted those, but again, Windows will boot first, unless I interfere with F12.

sudo efibootmgr

BootCurrent: 0006
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0002,0006,2001,2002,2003
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager HD(9,GPT,802b2972-5008-466b-81dd-a9962bd618f8,0x3b5de000,0x203000)/\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efiRC
Boot0002* Windows Boot Manager HD(1,GPT,b7fcdb1c-7234-42ad-8de7-e760be2b2a54,0x800,0x32000)/\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi57494e444f5753000100000088000000780000004200430044004f0042004a004500430054003d007b00390064006500610038003600320063002d0035006300640064002d0034006500370030002d0061006300630031002d006600330032006200330034003400640034003700390035007d00000000000100000010000000040000007fff0400
Boot0006* Linux Boot Manager HD(9,GPT,802b2972-5008-466b-81dd-a9962bd618f8,0x3b5de000,0x203000)/\EFI\systemd\systemd-bootx64.efi
Boot0007* Windows Boot Manager HD(9,GPT,802b2972-5008-466b-81dd-a9962bd618f8,0x3b5de000,0x203000)/\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efiRC
Boot2001* EFI USB Device RC
Boot2002* EFI DVD/CDROM RC
Boot2003* EFI Network RC

Should I do sudo efibootmgr -o 0006,0002 once more or is all hope lost here?

dalto · August 18, 2024, 5:34pm

Have you checked to see if there any bios updates available? It isn’t normal that the BIOS would reorder and add additional entries.

chips · August 19, 2024, 4:04pm

Meanwhile I checked and indeed it looks like there is a slightly newer BIOS version available. Have never updated a BIOS though and wonder how risky it is to break “everything”. Is it risky or should I rather learn to live with the F12 method?