Further questions about the standard boot entry of systemd-boot

[Darius]

I have set my default boot entry in systemd-boot according to the instructions here:

https://discovery.endeavouros.com/installation/systemd-boot/2022/12/

How to change the default entry to boot
There is a default entry inside /efi/loader/loader.conf that determine the default boot entry.

On a new install, it will look something like this:

default 665eca4ae83246df8ec17d1cbc6a1763*

That first string of characters is you entry token which identifies the install. That is important if you are dual-booting with another Linux, otherwise it can be replaced with *. That line supports wildcards and so if you want to boot the LTS kernel by default you could use something like this:

default 665eca4ae83246df8ec17d1cbc6a1763*lts.conf

Alternatively, if you want to boot the mainline kernel by default, something like this should work:

default 665eca4ae83246df8ec17d1cbc6a1763-*-arch?-?.conf

My /efi/loader/loader.conf now looks like this:

default 97d361490a2d45f29ccbff367b3d2b09**-arch?-?.conf
timeout 5
console-mode auto
reboot-for-bitlocker 1

Now there is a tip further down on this page:

Set default boot entry from command:

sudo bootctl set-default ID

So, in addition to the entry in /efi/loader/loader.conf, I also executed 97d361490a2d45f29ccbff367b3d2b09-6.11.4-arch2-1.conf.

Is the command 97d361490a2d45f29ccbff367b3d2b09-6.11.4-arch2-1.conf actually still necessary? It seems redundant to me. Please, bring some order to this chaos in my head!

Also: Aren’t these configurations overwritten with every kernel update anyway?

[dalto]

@Darius

default 97d361490a2d45f29ccbff367b3d2b09**-arch?-?.conf

This is all you need to do. It will work consistently even after updates because it contains a wildcard to match.

@Darius

sudo bootctl set-default ID

This is pointless in most cases. The entry shifts with each kernel update so this is not only redundant with the above, it is less effective.

[Darius]

thx @dalto