• db2@lemmy.world
      313·
      11 months ago

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

      • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.me
        26·
        11 months ago

        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.

        • taladar@sh.itjust.works
          6·
          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.

    • 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      22·
      11 months ago

      Not in my experience… and apparently a lot of people that dual boot 🤷.

      My main boot partitions are far from the 2TB threshold of MBR, I’m not that rich.

      • pryre@lemmy.world
        92·
        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).

    • BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca
      82·
      11 months ago

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

      • Vash63@lemmy.world
        13·
        11 months ago

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

        • 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          3·
          11 months ago

          Yeah, but Windows 11 needs it.

          Can be disabled though. Easiest way - use Rufus when burning the USB.

          Fun fact, you can also install Win11 in MBR mode, no UEFI needed whatsoever.

  • krnl386@lemmy.ca
    181·
    10 months ago

    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.

    • 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      7·
      10 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.

    • rab@lemmy.ca
      6·
      10 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

    • Tommi Nieminen@lemm.ee
      3·
      10 months ago

      True, but… When MBR Grub drops to rescue or doesn’t appear at all, it’s not only difficult (at least for newbies) but somewhat random if you can actually boot a given OS. With EFI Grub, I’ve often managed to boot using BIOS boot override to launch a usable Grub configuration.

      • krnl386@lemmy.ca
        1·
        10 months ago

        Actually grub 0.x series had much more useful rescue shell tab completion than the latest release. You could easily list all boot devices, partitions, and even filesystems and their contents. All from the rescue shell. Consequently, you could boot into Linux and reinstall grub in the MBR to fix it. All that without using a boot CD/USB! Good luck doing that with the latest version of grub and UEFI.

        Also getting into the BIOS on legacy firmware was also very simple. On most machines it’s the three finger salute followed by either F1, Delete or rarely F11 or F12.

        The boot process was simple, and the BIOS had just one simple task: load and execute the first 512 bytes of the disk that was designated as the boot device. That’s it.

        • 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          3·
          10 months ago

          Asus --> Del - Enter BIOS, F8 - Boot menu (very confusing since Windows also uses F8 for the recovery mode boot menu, so you have to press F8, then when the boot menu appears, chose the boot device, then have one hand on Enter and the other on F8 again, so that you hit Enter and start tapping like crazy on F8 to enter the rescue mode menu… annoying as hell)

          GigaByte --> Del or F2 - Enter BIOS, F12 - Boot menu, Alt + F10 - Copy main BIOS to backup BIOS

          MSI --> Del or F2 - Enter BIOS, F11 - Boot menu

          ASRock --> Del or F2 - Enter BIOS, F11 or F10 - Boot menu

          Biostar --> Del - Enter BIOS, F9 - Boot menu

          Intel --> F2 - Enter BIOS, F10 or F12 - Boot menu

          I used to remember some of the brand name PCs as well, but time has gotten the best of me 🤷.

          The boot process was simple, and the BIOS had just one simple task: load and execute the first 512 bytes of the disk that was designated as the boot device. That’s it.

          This is actually what I love about MBR nowadays. It’s simple enough so no one wants to mess with it and render the rig unbootable and obscure enough so no one (MS) actually checks if there is anything there that might trigger warnings (non-MS code).

    • 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      5·
      10 months ago

      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.

      • prettydarknwild@lemmy.world
        1·
        10 months ago

        at least i wasnt able to install windows in my old computer again because the windows bootloarder keeped overwriting grub, and grub overwrited the windows bootloader, and os-prober didnt worked at all

        • 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          You install Windows first, then Linux. Or install Windows, make an image, repartition, install Linux, whatever, then bring back the Windows image, just not the EFI partition or the MBR.

    • pete_the_cat@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Unless you have two EFI partitions on different disks, the same breakage happens with EFI. I’ve had Windows wipe out Grub on multiple occasions.

  • BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca
    131·
    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.

  • onlinepersona@programming.devEnglish
    7·
    10 months ago

    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.

    • cley_faye@lemmy.world
      11·
      10 months ago
      • 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.

      • 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        Things just work

        Yeah, if you have only one OS. Or when you have more than one, but the other one doesn’t constantly try to fuck up the first one.

        MBR is easy in this regard. Windows never touches the MBR magic, even when updating, so it’s all good. GRUB keeps the MBR in check, Windows doesn’t meddle, everything’s hunky dory in MBR boot land.

  • Classy@sh.itjust.works
    6·
    10 months ago

    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.

  • zaart@lemmy.tedomum.netEnglish
    5·
    11 months ago

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

  • not_again@lemmy.world
    4·
    10 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.

  • rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee
    2·
    10 months ago

    I had used Arch for years before and never once messed up my bootloader. What are yinz doing over there?

    • pete_the_cat@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      My problems are usually during the installation, not necessarily related to Arch, but more so that EFI requires its own partition. I’ll partition my disk, forget that I need a FAT32 partition and then have to destroy a partition so I can add in the EFS . The other problem I’ve had is that the bootloader entry sometimes doesn’t get written after installation, so you reboot and then nothing, so you have to boot back into the ISO, remount everything, reinstall the bootloader (in my case, Grub), and reboot again.

    • 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      You probably had it installed in MBR mode. UEFI boot is why there are so many problems of this kind nowadays. Switch to MBR, the problems go away.