this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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    [–] [email protected] 68 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (9 children)
    [–] [email protected] 31 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    GPT you mean. Linux can boot in a non-EFI machine that has GPT disk partitions.. Windows can't because it's dumb.

    [–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago (1 children)

    Yes but by doing so you're using the same principles as MBR boot. There's still this coveted boot sector Windows will attempt to take back every time.

    What's nice about EFI in particular is that the motherboard loads the file from the ESP, and can load multiple of them and add them to its boot menu. Depending on the motherboard, even browse the ESP and manually go execute a .efi from it.

    Which in turn makes it a lot less likely to have bootloader fuckups because you basically press F12 and pick GRUB/sd-boot and you're back in. Previously the only fix would be boot USB and reinstall syslinux/GRUB.

    [–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

    I just had a bug on both of my EFI computers where they wouldn't boot any more and a grub-install fixed it, apparently the regular update processes do not update the version on the ESP for some reason and my assumption is that it became incompatible with the modules in /boot

    Adding an EFI Boot Entry for netboot.xyz after it happened on the first one really helped fix the second one though.

    [–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago

    I’m not having an AI boot my computer!

    [–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    GPT is a partitioning table. EFI is a bootloader firmware interface.

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    [–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

    No I mean EFI. It is a much simpler than MBR.

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    [–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Start using and efistub and never worry about boot loaders again!

    [–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago (1 children)

    systemd-boot is a reasonable compromise. i like it

    [–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

    The reality is that a bootloader will seemingly always be needed to account for difficult BIOS' and legacy setups (I'm looking at you, dual-booted Ubuntu 20.04).

    [–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

    Naah I just disable secure boot altogether, then you don't have to worry about all that TPM security theatre.

    [–] [email protected] 21 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    You don't need secure boot to use EFI. It's better all around regardless of SB.

    [–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

    Fair enough I don't miss the old BIOS.

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    [–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (8 children)

    Ah yes, simplicity. MBR, with all its limitations had one killer feature: it was extremely simple.

    UEFI, as powerful as it is, is the opposite of simple. Many moving parts, so many potential failure points. Unfortunately, it seems like modern software is just that: more complex and prone to failure.

    [–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

    Exactly why old devices are so hard to break - they're incredibly simple.

    To be honest, I see nothing wrong with MBR boot, it does the job, I'll use it till I can or till it doesn't do the job I want/need.

    [–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

    I work in IT for many years and I think your last sentence is very true. And is also why the industry is so lucrative haha

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    [–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago

    Do we really ever fix the bootstrap, or does the bootstrap fix us?

    [–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    I once fucked up my grub.cfg, wrote over the part needed to unencrypt. Had no idea what had happened. Was a fun night :)

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    [–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

    Was upgrading Devuan and something happened with grub-update, could be my btrfs subvol setup?

    Anyway a rescue boot, chroot and grub-update later, and it's running great again.

    [–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Nuke the boot loader and burn your compiled code directly onto the bare metal the way the designers intended.

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    [–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    i prefer EFI, MBR breaks easily and dual booting with it is horrible

    [–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

    I have litelarly never broken MBR boot while dual booting and I have done it for at least a decade now. Windows updates and everything, not once has MBR boot been broken for me.

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    [–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

    I've been struggling with the boot loader for four days now and now my laptop boot loops and I can't even access my primary OS (still windows) and can only access Ubuntu via flash drive. So yeah this meme is too fucking on.

    [–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

    Chroot into the main Ubuntu partition from the live USB and update GRUB.

    [–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

    Honestly can't remember the last time I had a bootoader issue. Don't get me wrong, I've broken plenty of other things.

    [–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    Windows 7 used to thunderfuck grub at random every few updates just to keep everyone on their toes.

    [–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

    Nice new verb you got there. Thunderfuck, indeed!

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

    Did it stop after W7? I feel like it still does this at every opportunity, be that W10 or W11

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    [–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    MBR is so easy to understand. UEFI, has so many things to understand EFI, ESP, MOK, signing procedures and signing chains, ... it's just so darn complicated.

    [–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (3 children)
    • Disable secureboot
    • Things just work

    And in the end you just remove the need for a physical attacker to use whatever vulnerability there is in your EFI implementation anyway.

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    [–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

    I cant be the only person who noticed the Arch user dating a fury!?

    I wouldnt go to bed either…oh yes “bootloader”.

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    [–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

    Can't relate to be honest, I have a life and use Fedora

    [–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

    Started using UEFI booting with secure boot. Much easier to fix and work with.

    [–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

    I feel this.

    Although my last bootloader is adventure was pretty easy...installed a completely separate drive for Linux and wanted to boot off of that drive (sdb). A bug in the Linux mint installer put the bootloader on my the windows drive instead (sda).

    Was fairly straightforward to switch over though (change in fstab then installing grub). I use the bios boot selector (F11) for me to select either the win loader or my Linux mint efi.

    Am switching over to Linux as primary driver. So tired of nags, ads, "switch to Edge", long updates, etc. love being able to ssh+x onto that (relatively beefy) box from my laptop and run ides and such.

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