Is there a decent guide for converting from Grub to Limine?

[croweland]

As the title states, is there a decent guide someone can direct me to for converting my working Grub boot loader to limine?

[drunkenvicar]

Guide: How to install and configure EndeavourOS for bootable BTRFS snapshots using limine and limine-snapper-sync

This is a write-up for installing EndeavourOS to utilize limine, dracut, snapper, limine-snapper-sync, and pac-snap packages to do a few things: Create bootable BTRFS snapshots for quick and easy system-restore, in case an update or change has caused problems for your system. Create bootable BTRFS snapshots even for kernel updates Utilize limine bootloader, dracut, snapper, and snap-pac functionality for automatically creating both pre and post snapshots when updating your system with yay or p…

Bootloader Limine

Point taken, and it’s correct. To be honest, I never tried Limine but read the cited article lately, so I thought a warning would be alright.

while both these threads don’t answer your question directly, they do talk about this so there might be some valuable clues in there.

also I saw:

good luck

[croweland]

At the end I’ve installed another distro that give the possibility to install Limine during the installation with snapper support without any headtache.

And I like that distro.

[drunkenvicar]

@croweland

I’ve installed another distro that give the possibility to install Limine during the installation

that’s novel. congrats you got what you wanted,

[croweland]

I can’t stay so far from Eos this is my first love

On Cachyos forum, I’ve found this solution for convert from grub to limine:

paru -S limine-mkinitcpio-hook limine-snapper-sync

systemctl enable --now limine-snapper-sync

or I should install limine-dracut-support instead of limine-mkinitcpio-hook?

I would like to know if this may be valid also with EOS.

[BluishHumility]

One “gotcha” you will run into with a GRUB installation is the EFI partition is probably too small. The ESP should be at least a GB or two when using Limine because all the kernels and initrds will be stored there (same as systemd-boot). This is especially true if you are planning to use limine-snapper-sync, because the backup kernels and initrds (for booting into older snapshots) are stored on the ESP as well.

It would be easier to convert a systemd-boot installation, or complete the installation with no bootloader and set up Limine from a chroot afterward.

@croweland

limine-dracut-support

You would need to remove eos-dracut before you install this package because limine-dracut-support ships with different versions of some of the same scripts (dracut-install, dracut-remove, dracut-rebuild, a bunch of the related hooks, etc).

You could use limine-mkinitcpio-hook instead, but that means you will need to completely switch to mkinitcpio. So you will still need to remove eos-dracut, or at least go through the hooks it provides so you don’t introduce failures or conflicts every time you update (see pacman -Qql eos-dracut). Also don’t forget you will need to configure /etc/mkinitcpio.conf with the modules and hooks that are relevant for your specific setup.

[croweland]

Thank you, all is clear now.
I will try

[croweland]

ok let’s start the drama:

procedure tested on two of my laptop with Mercury btrfs and grub installed.

1st increased boot partition from 1 gb to 3 gb

2nd followed procedure of Dalto (God bless and safe him ) for return back to systemd

[Tutorial] Convert to systemd-boot

Updated 12/22/2022 to match the method used for installing systemd-boot in Cassini and later ISOs Several people have asked me for a tutorial on how to convert an existing EndeavourOS install to systemd-boot, an alternative to grub. The first question is who should install systemd-boot. From my perspective, here are the reasons to install systemd-boot systemd-boot is less complicated than grub. It uses simple text based config files which only contain a few lines It is less prone to breaka…

Next we need to remove grub:

sudo pacman -Rc grub

Next, we can cleanup /boot to prepare for the changes

sudo rm -r /boot/efi /boot/grub /boot/initramfs* /boot/vmlinuz*

Now we remount the EFI partition to /efi.

sudo mkdir /efi
efidevice=$(findmnt /boot/efi -no SOURCE) # save the efi partition location
sudo umount /boot/efi
sudo mount ${efidevice} /efi

# To make the mount change permanent, edit `/etc/fstab` and change where it reads `/boot/efi` to `/efi`

Next we can install systemd-boot

sudo bootctl install

# Edit the file `/efi/loader/loader.conf` and uncomment the "timeout" line.

Technically speaking, you have now successfully installed systemd-boot. Congrats!
sudo pacman -R eos-dracut

sudo pacman -S kernel-install-for-dracut

after reboot and all ok with systemd

I’ve followed this other tutorial just for the limine installation and configuration:

Guide: How to install and configure EndeavourOS for bootable BTRFS snapshots using limine and limine-snapper-sync

This is a write-up for installing EndeavourOS to utilize limine, dracut, snapper, limine-snapper-sync, and pac-snap packages to do a few things: Create bootable BTRFS snapshots for quick and easy system-restore, in case an update or change has caused problems for your system. Create bootable BTRFS snapshots even for kernel updates Utilize limine bootloader, dracut, snapper, and snap-pac functionality for automatically creating both pre and post snapshots when updating your system with yay or p…

sudo pacman -S limine
yay -S snapper-support btrfs-assistant  inotify-tools btrfsmaintenance snapper-tools btrfs-progs jdk-openjdk


sudo pacman -Rns kernel-install-for-dracut

When you press enter, you will be prompted a question by the terminal:
:: HoldPkg was found in target list. Do you want to continue? [y/N]
Make sure you enter y or yes at this prompt, then proceed to the next step.

yay -S limine-dracut-support limine-snapper-sync
sudo systemctl enable --now limine-snapper-sync.service
sudo systemctl enable --now snapper-cleanup.timer

That’s all
What do you think?
There’s samething that should be changed?

[Schlaefer]

mkinitcpio limine conversion here, so can’t comment on the dracut stuff.

Make sure Limine/limine_x64.efi exists. Definitely reinstall a kernel and check that it is placed in the right spot, and that /efi/limine.conf look OK. After that: Good luck on reboot!