Why is the kernel in /boot?

laughingblue · October 23, 2025, 2:59am

I just installed Endeavour without a bootloader, intending to boot it using my existing OpenCore bootloader. However, OpenCore is having issues seeing it because the kernel, initramfs, etc. are located on the main partition in /boot, rather than being placed on the ESP (which mounts by default to /efi).

I believe I should be able to get around this by configuring a custom boot entry and installing the Linux filesystem drivers from rEFInd. However, I was under the impression that the reason the installer defaults to a 2GB ESP is to better enable installation and use of multiple kernels. Why, then, is the kernel not installed to the ESP by default? Can I make the ESP the kernel install location, and are there any risks to doing so?

dalto · October 23, 2025, 3:34am

There a bunch of ways to change this but one easy way is to simply mount the ESP on /boot.

Alternatively, if you want it to work using our kernel-install automation, remove eos-dracut and install kernel-install-for-dracut. Then run sudo reinstall-kernels.

laughingblue · October 23, 2025, 3:46am

Okay, thanks. Is the placement of the generated initrds the only difference between eos-dracut and kernel-install-for-dracut? I’m having difficulty finding documentation for either one.

Edit: I just did as you said—pacman -R eos-dracut, then pacman -S kernel-install-for-dracut—making no other changes, and after running sudo reinstall-kernels, the kernel image was still installed to /boot, and /efi remained empty.

Berta · October 23, 2025, 5:23am

Then kernel is placed in /boot due to LSB.

A good idea would be to move initrd to /boot.

laughingblue · October 23, 2025, 5:39am

The initrds are already in /boot, that’s the problem. I don’t see how LSB has anything to do with it.

Berta · October 23, 2025, 5:43am

I meant the kernel modules move to /boot.

laughingblue · October 23, 2025, 5:47am

But I want the kernel on /efi, not /boot—unless you’re suggesting that I change the EFI mountpoint to /boot?

Berta · October 23, 2025, 5:51am

In my installation, he kernel is placed in /boot.

laughingblue · October 23, 2025, 5:57am

What is the actual default when no bootloader is selected?

Berta · October 23, 2025, 8:31am

SystemD - post education.

laughingblue · October 23, 2025, 12:08pm

I don’t know what you mean by “post education.”

dalto · October 23, 2025, 12:45pm

Not only the placement. It is also the naming of the initrds and kernels. kernel-install-for-dracut also creates entries for systemd-boot.

When no bootloader is selected, you get eos-dracut which puts everything in /boot and uses naming similar to what Arch uses by default with mkinitcpio.

laughingblue · October 23, 2025, 8:09pm

Okay, that is useful information, thank you. It should probably be stated explicitly somewhere, but maybe I’m just bad at searching the documentation.

Okay, that makes sense. Two questions:

Is this explicitly documented anywhere? I cannot find anything on either of the packages’ Github pages, or on dracut’s page on Discovery (which merely says that systemd-boot uses one and GRUB uses the other, and links to the same Github pages just containing the packages). I know that they’re relatively simple, but I still feel that their functionality should be explicitly laid out somewhere. If the documentation does not exist, I would be more than happy to write it.
Do you have any idea why, in my case, switching to kernel-install-for-dracut and running reinstall-kernels did not actually build the initrds in /efi?

Also, what, if anything, would changing the ESP mount point to /boot break in the automation?

dalto · October 23, 2025, 8:25pm

Not really. There is some info on the kernel-install-for-dracut gitlab page but not a ton of detail. eos-dracut isn’t really documented outside of the PKGBUILD which isn’t much at all.

That would be very helpful.

No, can you share the full output from the command so I can see what is happening?

Probably nothing, it would just be kind of pointless to use kernel-install-for-dracut with your ESP mounted at /boot. If you are using your own bootloader, it seems like it would be easier for it detect the files if you used eos-dracut instead for that setup. That being said, I have never used opencore so I have no idea what it actually does.

laughingblue · October 24, 2025, 1:16am

The full output from sudo reinstall-kernels is as follows:

Installing kernel 6.17.4-arch2-1
dracut[I]: Detected container-other container.
dracut[I]: Executing: /usr/bin/dracut --no-hostonly --force /boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img 6.17.4-arch2-1
dracut[I]: *** Including module: bash ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-ask-password ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-battery-check ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-cryptsetup ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-initrd ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-journald ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-modules-load ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-pcrphase ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-sysctl ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-tmpfiles ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-udevd ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: modsign ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: i18n ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-sysusers ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: btrfs ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: crypt ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: dm ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: fs-lib ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: kernel-modules ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: kernel-modules-extra ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: lvm ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: mdraid ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: nvdimm ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: qemu ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: qemu-net ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: fido2 ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: pkcs11 ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: hwdb ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: lunmask ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: resume ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: rootfs-block ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: terminfo ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: udev-rules ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: virtiofs ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: dracut-systemd ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: initqueue ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: usrmount ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: base ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: shell-interpreter ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: shutdown ***
dracut[I]: *** Including modules done ***
dracut[I]: *** Installing kernel module dependencies ***
dracut[I]: *** Installing kernel module dependencies done ***
dracut[I]: *** Resolving executable dependencies ***
dracut[I]: *** Resolving executable dependencies done ***
dracut[I]: *** Generating early-microcode cpio image ***
dracut[I]: *** Constructing GenuineIntel.bin ***
dracut[I]: *** Store current command line parameters ***
dracut[I]: *** Stripping files ***
dracut[I]: *** Stripping files done ***
dracut[I]: *** Creating image file '/boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img.tmp' ***
dracut[I]: *** Hardlinking files ***
dracut[I]: *** Hardlinking files done ***
dracut[I]: *** Creating initramfs image file '/boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img.tmp' done ***
dracut[I]: *** Moving image file '/boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img.tmp' to '/boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img' ***
dracut[I]: *** Moving image file '/boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img.tmp' to '/boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img' done ***
dracut[I]: Detected container-other container.
dracut[I]: Executing: /usr/bin/dracut --hostonly --no-hostonly-cmdline -f /boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img 6.17.4-arch2-1
dracut[I]: *** Including module: bash ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-ask-password ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-battery-check ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-cryptsetup ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-initrd ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-journald ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-modules-load ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-pcrphase ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-sysctl ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-tmpfiles ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-udevd ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: i18n ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: systemd-sysusers ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: btrfs ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: crypt ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: dm ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: fs-lib ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: kernel-modules ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: kernel-modules-extra ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: lvm ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: mdraid ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: qemu ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: qemu-net ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: hwdb ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: lunmask ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: resume ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: rootfs-block ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: terminfo ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: udev-rules ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: virtiofs ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: dracut-systemd ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: initqueue ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: usrmount ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: base ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: shell-interpreter ***
dracut[I]: *** Including module: shutdown ***
dracut[I]: *** Including modules done ***
dracut[I]: *** Installing kernel module dependencies ***
dracut[I]: *** Installing kernel module dependencies done ***
dracut[I]: *** Resolving executable dependencies ***
dracut[I]: *** Resolving executable dependencies done ***
dracut[I]: *** Generating early-microcode cpio image ***
dracut[I]: *** Constructing GenuineIntel.bin ***
dracut[I]: *** Store current command line parameters ***
dracut[I]: *** Stripping files ***
dracut[I]: *** Stripping files done ***
dracut[I]: *** Creating image file '/boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img.tmp' ***
dracut[I]: *** Hardlinking files ***
dracut[I]: *** Hardlinking files done ***
dracut[I]: *** Creating initramfs image file '/boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img.tmp' done ***
dracut[I]: *** Moving image file '/boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img.tmp' to '/boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img' ***
dracut[I]: *** Moving image file '/boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img.tmp' to '/boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img' done ***

dalto · October 24, 2025, 10:12am

So, to be clear, the kernels don’t get written to /efi, they get written to the ESP. If you mount the ESP somewhere else, they will get written there instead.

laughingblue · October 25, 2025, 1:02am

Okay, that’s what I thought—but that output ends with

dracut[I]: *** Moving image file '/boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img.tmp' to '/boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img' ***
dracut[I]: *** Moving image file '/boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img.tmp' to '/boot/initramfs-6.17.4-arch2-1.img' done ***

which seems to say that they’re being installed in /boot rather than the ESP, no?

Additionally, I just reinstalled Endeavour with systemd-boot selected as the bootloader and the same thing happened: the bootloader installed on the ESP, but the kernel images, etc. installed in /boot.

dalto · October 25, 2025, 1:08am

Can you share the output of findmnt --real

laughingblue · October 27, 2025, 2:33am

Output of findmnt --real:

/            /dev/sda2[/@]      btrfs  rw,noatime,compress=zstd:3,ssd,space_cache=v2,subvolid=256,subvol=/@
├─/home      /dev/sda2[/@home]  btrfs  rw,noatime,compress=zstd:3,ssd,space_cache=v2,subvolid=257,subvol=/@home
├─/var/cache /dev/sda2[/@cache] btrfs  rw,noatime,compress=zstd:3,ssd,space_cache=v2,subvolid=258,subvol=/@cache
├─/var/log   /dev/sda2[/@log]   btrfs  rw,noatime,compress=zstd:3,ssd,space_cache=v2,subvolid=259,subvol=/@log
└─/efi       /dev/sda1          vfat   rw,relatime,fmask=0137,dmask=0027,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro

Interestingly, on my last pacman -Syu, which included a kernel update, the initrds were built in the ESP (mounted at /efi) like they were supposed to.
However, there have been no microcode updates since install, and intel-ucode.img is still located in /boot rather than /efi. This must mean that the ESP was not mounted to /boot during the original install, since if it was, then intel-ucode.img would be on the ESP.

dalto · October 27, 2025, 2:39am

We don’t mount the ESP to /boot. It would have been at /efi at the time of install.