Re: [gentoo-user] Boot and EFI partitions

[Marco Rebhan <me@dblsaiko.net>]

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On Wednesday, 6 December 2023 17:49:43 CET Victor Ivanov wrote:
> So, without knowing much about systemd-boot from the guide linked it
> seems to me that its implementation doesn't differ too much from this
> reasonably well established model, except for a few additional
> constraints which, based on my understanding, are:
> 1. You _must_ have an XBOOTLDR partition (functionally equivalent to
> "boot" above) _in addition to_ the ESP and cannot simply use "/boot"
> under your rootfs partition
> 2. XBOOTLDR partition _must_ be of GPT type 0xEA00
> 3. XBOOTLDR partition _must_ have GUID set to
> "bc13c2ff-59e6-4262-a352-b275fd6f7172"
> 4. XBOOTLDR partition _must_ be formatted with a filesystem supported
> by your EFI BIOS with FAT32 being universally supported, though your
> particular EFI BIOS _might_ support others
> 
> I say "must" as it appears to be from the guide like this is the
> requirement for systemd-boot, the actual Boot Loader Specification
> page appears to suggest that an XBOOTLDR partition is optional. So
> there may be a viable configuration without it.

No, you do not need an XBOOTLDR partition with systemd-boot and in fact I have 
never used one, and I'm not sure why the guide advertises it so prominently.

There seems to be a lot of cargo cult around boot partitions (probably left 
over from the BIOS days), you really only need the ESP. The set up I have used 
for years is ESP at /boot, containing systemd-boot, kernel, initramfs and so 
on, and that's it (excluding of course / and other actual system partitions).

-Marco

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