[Tutorial] Convert to systemd-boot

[dalto]

@zoli62

other installed ones (e.g. Linux distributions) also appear automatically after system boot

Other Linux distros will automatically appear if they also use systemd-boot. If the don’t you can easily add entries to chainload them.

@anthony93

However, I’m not sure if you need to copy the Bootmgfw.efi from your windows partition into your EFI partition for it to work. Other more experienced users might be able to answer this.

It reads the Windows files from the EFI partition. That is where Windows puts them in the first place.

@anthony93

Gparted has never failed me before.

Changing partition boundaries and moving filsystems has a small chance failure regardless of which tool you use.

@HMS_Endeavour

What size should the partition be?

Unless you are extremely tight on space, I would recommend using 1GB. That way you don’t have to worry about it.

@anthony93

Here are a few things that I observed. If you use dracut, the size of the initrd files are typically as follows:

1. normal hostonly initrd ~16 to 20MB
2. fallback initrd ~75 to 85MB

This is highly install dependent. The actual size ranges are much larger. I would each kernel/ucode/initrd set ranges from about 80MB per kernel to about 300MB per kernel.

[anthony93]

@HMS_Endeavour There you have it. The master has spoken.

[zoli62]

It’s great that no os-prober is required, although the Arch Wiki article you’re referring to specifically mentions only Windows in this regard. The only question is how systemd-gpt-auto-generator can work without systemd-boot. (for me, the swap partition is active without being automatically mounted in the fstab file, so I think it’s because of systemd-gpt-auto-generator, but I use EFI grub, not systemd-boot)

[dalto]

@zoli62

The only question is how systemd-gpt-auto-generator can work without systemd-boot.

Because that is dependent on systemd not systemd-boot.

Your grub install still uses systemd

[anthony93]

@zoli62

the Arch Wiki article you’re referring to specifically mentions only Windows in this regard

Actually, the article contains information on setting up Arch/Windows dual boot, so I assumed it is relevant.

[HMS_Endeavour]

@anthony93

So you already made the switch?

On a second machine, yeah!
Somewhere in the this thread I saw @ricklinux had it set to 538M so I just followed that.

[zoli62]

@dalto

Other Linux distros will automatically appear if they also use systemd-boot. If the don’t you can easily add entries to chainload them

Then, among other things, this is also a limitation that you mentioned in your opening comment. For example, Ubuntu is quite conservative in this matter. I also asked on their forum whether systemd-boot is used in Ubuntu. The answer was that it could be used, but not implemented, this feature is for guinea pigs, i.e. Fedora and Arch.

How can you easily, based on a kind of template, insert the entries of other Linux distributions into the chainload?

[HMS_Endeavour]

@dalto

Unless you are extremely tight on space, I would recommend using 1GB. That way you don’t have to worry about it.

Can I resize it easily? I have it at 538M

[anthony93]

@HMS_Endeavour

Can I resize it easily? I have it at 538M

There are many tools for that. You can do it with Gparted from a Live USB.

[dalto]

@zoli62

How can you easily, based on a kind of template, insert the entries of other Linux distributions into the chainload?

You can just look inside EFI and add a very simple entry like this:

title  Ubuntu
efi    /EFI/Ubuntu/ubuntu_x64.efi

Keep in mind, I don’t know what Ubuntu’s EFI file is actually named but it will be obvious if you look.

@zoli62

The answer was that it could be used

I have done it. It is a bit of work but it can be done.

@HMS_Endeavour

Can I resize it easily?

It depends what it is next to. Usually it is pretty easy to do.

[zoli62]

@dalto

Because that is dependent on systemd not systemd-boot.

Your grub install still uses systemd

So systemd-gpt-auto-generator works as a systemd service. We talked about this before in other topics. I just confused this with systemd-boot, sorry.

[zoli62]

@anthony93

Actually, the article contains information on setting up Arch/Windows dual boot, so I assumed it is relevant.

You’re right about that, see @dalto’s answer to me below.

[anon13373109]

@dalto

This is highly install dependent. The actual size ranges are much larger. I would each kernel/ucode/initrd set ranges from about 80MB per kernel to about 300MB per kernel.

I was wondering why there is such a huge range in the size since mine is about 300MB for a single kernel and with grub it was below 100MB.

If I would use hostonly=“yes” (if that is the correct syntax) in a conf file in /etc/dracut.conf.d is the only downside that I would not be able to boot this drive in another machine?

Where is the bootctl update hook located, the service is disabled and it is not in /etc/pacman.d/hooks as the arch wiki suggests.

[pebcak]

@dalto

@zoli62

How can you easily, based on a kind of template, insert the entries of other Linux distributions into the chainload?

You can just look inside EFI and add a very simple entry like this:

title  Ubuntu
efi    /EFI/Ubuntu/ubuntu_x64.efi

If Ubuntu (or some other distro) is installed on another disk and has its own ESP, should it be mounted under some directory via fstab for chainloading, as you have described above, to work?

[dalto]

@anon13373109

I was wondering why there is such a huge range in the size since mine is about 300MB for a single kernel and with grub it was below 100MB.

That is very large. It is usually bigger because it is detecting a lot of installed files or hardware. You can look inside it with lsinitrd to see what is using the space.

@anon13373109

If I would use hostonly=“yes”

It already uses hostonly yes. You could set:

hostonly_mode=strict

I do this, but I wasn’t comfortable doing it in the last release until I tested it more.

@pebcak

If Ubuntu (or some other distro) is installed on another disk and has its own ESP, should it be mounted under some directory via fstab for chainloading, as you have described above, to work?

No, they have to share an EFI partition. You could copy the EFI files over though.

[pebcak]

Thanks!

[anon13373109]

Thanks.
There is a small typo in the discovery wiki for dracut:

Customizing dracut

Dracut is configured via drop-in conf files in the /etc/dracut.conf/d

[HMS_Endeavour]

@dalto

It depends what it is next to. Usually it is pretty easy to do.

It wasn’t easy at all. Gparted did not let me increase the ESP size, as it was next to the btrfs partition, which takes up the remaining space.

Since I am still setting this thing set up to become my daily driver, I will do another clean install, adding more to my knowledge as I go.

[anon13373109]

I tried the option hostonly_mode=strict but it didn’t change the size whatsoever after running sudo reinstall-kernels. I also can’t find that option in man dracut.conf, could it be deprecated?

There is no mention of the drop-in conf file in the output of reinstall-kernels:

EndeavourOS➜  ~  ᐅ  sudo reinstall-kernels
Installing kernel 6.1.1-arch1-1
dracut: Executing: /usr/bin/dracut --hostonly --no-hostonly-cmdline -f /efi/a463d5e357b443a18f592fa89825f7ee/6.1.1-arch1-1/initrd 6.1.1-arch1-1
dracut: dracut module 'dash' will not be installed, because command 'dash' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'mksh' will not be installed, because command 'mksh' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'busybox' will not be installed, because command 'busybox' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'dbus-broker' will not be installed, because command 'dbus-broker' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'rngd' will not be installed, because command 'rngd' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'network-wicked' will not be installed, because command 'wicked' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'dmraid' will not be installed, because command 'kpartx' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'dmsquash-live-ntfs' will not be installed, because command 'ntfs-3g' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'pcsc' will not be installed, because command 'pcscd' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'tpm2-tss' will not be installed, because command 'tpm2' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'cifs' will not be installed, because command 'mount.cifs' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'iscsi' will not be installed, because command 'iscsi-iname' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'iscsi' will not be installed, because command 'iscsiadm' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'iscsi' will not be installed, because command 'iscsid' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'nvmf' will not be installed, because command 'nvme' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'biosdevname' will not be installed, because command 'biosdevname' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'memstrack' will not be installed, because command 'memstrack' could not be found!
dracut: memstrack is not available
dracut: If you need to use rd.memdebug>=4, please install memstrack and procps-ng
dracut: dracut module 'squash' will not be installed, because command 'mksquashfs' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'squash' will not be installed, because command 'unsquashfs' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'dash' will not be installed, because command 'dash' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'mksh' will not be installed, because command 'mksh' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'busybox' will not be installed, because command 'busybox' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'dbus-broker' will not be installed, because command 'dbus-broker' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'rngd' will not be installed, because command 'rngd' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'network-wicked' will not be installed, because command 'wicked' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'dmraid' will not be installed, because command 'kpartx' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'dmsquash-live-ntfs' will not be installed, because command 'ntfs-3g' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'pcsc' will not be installed, because command 'pcscd' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'tpm2-tss' will not be installed, because command 'tpm2' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'cifs' will not be installed, because command 'mount.cifs' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'iscsi' will not be installed, because command 'iscsi-iname' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'iscsi' will not be installed, because command 'iscsiadm' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'iscsi' will not be installed, because command 'iscsid' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'nvmf' will not be installed, because command 'nvme' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'memstrack' will not be installed, because command 'memstrack' could not be found!
dracut: memstrack is not available
dracut: If you need to use rd.memdebug>=4, please install memstrack and procps-ng
dracut: dracut module 'squash' will not be installed, because command 'mksquashfs' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'squash' will not be installed, because command 'unsquashfs' could not be found!
dracut: *** Including module: systemd ***
dracut: *** Including module: systemd-initrd ***
dracut: *** Including module: dbus-daemon ***
dracut: *** Including module: dbus ***
dracut: *** Including module: i18n ***
dracut: *** Including module: bluetooth ***
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 69-btattach-bcm.rules
dracut: *** Including module: kernel-modules ***
dracut: *** Including module: kernel-modules-extra ***
dracut: *** Including module: rootfs-block ***
dracut: *** Including module: terminfo ***
dracut: *** Including module: udev-rules ***
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 40-redhat.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 50-firmware.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 50-udev.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 91-permissions.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 80-drivers-modprobe.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 70-persistent-net.rules
dracut: *** Including module: dracut-systemd ***
dracut: *** Including module: usrmount ***
dracut: *** Including module: base ***
dracut: *** Including module: fs-lib ***
dracut: *** Including module: shutdown ***
dracut: *** Including modules done ***
dracut: *** Installing kernel module dependencies ***
dracut: *** Installing kernel module dependencies done ***
dracut: *** Resolving executable dependencies ***
dracut: *** Resolving executable dependencies done ***
dracut: *** Hardlinking files ***
dracut: Mode:                     real
dracut: Method:                   sha256
dracut: Files:                    680
dracut: Linked:                   60 files
dracut: Compared:                 0 xattrs
dracut: Compared:                 131 files
dracut: Saved:                    6.33 MiB
dracut: Duration:                 0.060976 seconds
dracut: *** Hardlinking files done ***
dracut: *** Generating early-microcode cpio image ***
dracut: *** Using microcode found in '/boot/intel-ucode.img' ***
dracut: *** Store current command line parameters ***
dracut: *** Stripping files ***
dracut: *** Stripping files done ***
dracut: *** Creating image file '/efi/a463d5e357b443a18f592fa89825f7ee/6.1.1-arch1-1/initrd' ***
dracut: dracut: using auto-determined compression method 'gzip'
dracut: *** Creating initramfs image file '/efi/a463d5e357b443a18f592fa89825f7ee/6.1.1-arch1-1/initrd' done ***
dracut: Executing: /usr/bin/dracut -f /efi/a463d5e357b443a18f592fa89825f7ee/6.1.1-arch1-1/initrd-fallback 6.1.1-arch1-1
dracut: dracut module 'dash' will not be installed, because command 'dash' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'mksh' will not be installed, because command 'mksh' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'busybox' will not be installed, because command 'busybox' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'dbus-broker' will not be installed, because command 'dbus-broker' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'rngd' will not be installed, because command 'rngd' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'network-wicked' will not be installed, because command 'wicked' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'dmraid' will not be installed, because command 'kpartx' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'dmsquash-live-ntfs' will not be installed, because command 'ntfs-3g' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'multipath' will not be installed, because command 'multipath' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'pcsc' will not be installed, because command 'pcscd' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'tpm2-tss' will not be installed, because command 'tpm2' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'cifs' will not be installed, because command 'mount.cifs' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'fcoe' will not be installed, because command 'dcbtool' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'fcoe' will not be installed, because command 'fipvlan' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'fcoe' will not be installed, because command 'lldpad' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'fcoe' will not be installed, because command 'fcoemon' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'fcoe' will not be installed, because command 'fcoeadm' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'fcoe-uefi' will not be installed, because command 'dcbtool' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'fcoe-uefi' will not be installed, because command 'fipvlan' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'fcoe-uefi' will not be installed, because command 'lldpad' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'iscsi' will not be installed, because command 'iscsi-iname' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'iscsi' will not be installed, because command 'iscsiadm' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'iscsi' will not be installed, because command 'iscsid' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'nvmf' will not be installed, because command 'nvme' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'biosdevname' will not be installed, because command 'biosdevname' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'memstrack' will not be installed, because command 'memstrack' could not be found!
dracut: memstrack is not available
dracut: If you need to use rd.memdebug>=4, please install memstrack and procps-ng
dracut: dracut module 'squash' will not be installed, because command 'mksquashfs' could not be found!
dracut: dracut module 'squash' will not be installed, because command 'unsquashfs' could not be found!
dracut: *** Including module: bash ***
dracut: *** Including module: systemd ***
dracut: *** Including module: systemd-initrd ***
dracut: *** Including module: modsign ***
dracut: *** Including module: dbus-daemon ***
dracut: *** Including module: dbus ***
dracut: *** Including module: i18n ***
dracut: *** Including module: network-manager ***
dracut: *** Including module: network ***
dracut: *** Including module: btrfs ***
dracut: *** Including module: crypt ***
dracut: *** Including module: dm ***
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 64-device-mapper.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 60-persistent-storage-dm.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 55-dm.rules
dracut: *** Including module: kernel-modules ***
dracut: *** Including module: kernel-modules-extra ***
dracut: *** Including module: kernel-network-modules ***
dracut: *** Including module: lvm ***
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 64-device-mapper.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 56-lvm.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 60-persistent-storage-lvm.rules
dracut: *** Including module: mdraid ***
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 64-md-raid.rules
dracut: *** Including module: nvdimm ***
dracut: *** Including module: qemu ***
dracut: *** Including module: qemu-net ***
dracut: *** Including module: lunmask ***
dracut: *** Including module: nbd ***
dracut: *** Including module: nfs ***
dracut: *** Including module: resume ***
dracut: *** Including module: rootfs-block ***
dracut: *** Including module: terminfo ***
dracut: *** Including module: udev-rules ***
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 40-redhat.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 50-firmware.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 50-udev.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 91-permissions.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 80-drivers-modprobe.rules
dracut: *** Including module: dracut-systemd ***
dracut: *** Including module: usrmount ***
dracut: *** Including module: base ***
dracut: *** Including module: fs-lib ***
dracut: *** Including module: shutdown ***
dracut: *** Including modules done ***
dracut: *** Installing kernel module dependencies ***
dracut: *** Installing kernel module dependencies done ***
dracut: *** Resolving executable dependencies ***
dracut: *** Resolving executable dependencies done ***
dracut: *** Hardlinking files ***
dracut: Mode:                     real
dracut: Method:                   sha256
dracut: Files:                    2474
dracut: Linked:                   9 files
dracut: Compared:                 0 xattrs
dracut: Compared:                 457 files
dracut: Saved:                    1.4 MiB
dracut: Duration:                 0.036443 seconds
dracut: *** Hardlinking files done ***
dracut: *** Generating early-microcode cpio image ***
dracut: *** Constructing AuthenticAMD.bin ***
dracut: *** Using microcode found in '/boot/intel-ucode.img' ***
dracut: *** Store current command line parameters ***
dracut: *** Stripping files ***
dracut: *** Stripping files done ***
dracut: *** Creating image file '/efi/a463d5e357b443a18f592fa89825f7ee/6.1.1-arch1-1/initrd-fallback' ***
dracut: dracut: using auto-determined compression method 'gzip'
dracut: *** Creating initramfs image file '/efi/a463d5e357b443a18f592fa89825f7ee/6.1.1-arch1-1/initrd-fallback' done ***

[HMS_Endeavour]

@HMS_Endeavour

@dalto

Unless you are extremely tight on space, I would recommend using 1GB. That way you don’t have to worry about it.

I took all your advice Dalto. The ESP is 1G, no linuxswap partition and the rest is btrfs for / . Zramd is my goto, so I will use that. Then I will be ready to install Btrfs Assistant, but as this is for grub-btrfs, how does that install work with systemd-boot?