EFI Bootloader Control Driver, Core EFI Capsule Ready For Linux 4.7

[phoronix]

Phoronix: EFI Bootloader Control Driver, Core EFU Capsule Ready For Linux 4.7

Ingo Molnar sent in the EFI changes for Linux 4.7 and they contain a number of exciting improvements for modern x86 and ARM systems...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-4.7-EFI-Changes

[starshipeleven]

But there's currently a lack of standardization in this area and bootloaders also need to support reading this information.

I suspect that only Intel boards will consistenlty get this thing right for a long time. Any other feedback about boards/brands that do?

[GreatEmerald]

This reminds me: 4 years ago KDE Plasma used to have the option to reboot into another OS or to reboot with different kernel parameters (just a one-shot setting for GRUB). It had disappeared ever since the transition to GRUB2. I take it that it hasn't been readded yet? If so, I should probably file a wish...

[cj.wijtmans]

who needs grub with efibootmgr, though i wish efibootmgr would scan kernels in /boot like grub does.

[plonoma]

The EFI changes for Linux 4.7 also have the core EFI capsule support as needed for the complete UEFI capsule update usage.

Does this mean Linux 4.7 will support EFI updates/capsules according to the standard or is there more work necessary to complete support for this EFI update part of the EFI standard?

[starshipeleven]

who needs grub with efibootmgr, though i wish efibootmgr would scan kernels in /boot like grub does.

You're doing it wrong. Use rEFInd, it does that an much more (also there is a gorgeous third-party theme with icons for more or less all linux distros around).

[cj.wijtmans]

You're doing it wrong. Use rEFInd, it does that an much more (also there is a gorgeous third-party theme with icons for more or less all linux distros around).

My board already has a good boot manager. It is just a pain to use efibootmgr, i just want it to scan kernels and add/remove them.

Gave it a shot, it takes forever to show up "scanning for new bootloaders". No thanks.

[pcxmac]

who needs grub with efibootmgr, though i wish efibootmgr would scan kernels in /boot like grub does.

What I do is organize my kernels /boot/LINUX/$DISTRO/$INIT/X.X.X* and just throw them in to grub or refind. trim the vmlinuz and initramfs to those values, and it makes it pretty easy to point to a new kernel/image. Grub is nice in some ways, but it's too much of a swiss army knife, and it does way too much to the point where you almost have to run full verbose just to make sure its doing what you want.

bash is a great alternative, perform some string and sed operations and you can do it yourself. I am surprised there isn't a popular means to organizing kernels that is distro agnostic.

[pcxmac]

My board already has a good boot manager. It is just a pain to use efibootmgr, i just want it to scan kernels and add/remove them.

Gave it a shot, it takes forever to show up "scanning for new bootloaders". No thanks.

yeah, unfortunately UEFI is not so universal. Really sucks too, I split the difference between a grubx64.efi image and a refind image, and just make grub the default (/boot/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi) efi image, if refind works on it then I use efibootmgr to point to it in a refind folder.

[starshipeleven]

bash is a great alternative, perform some string and sed operations and you can do it yourself. I am surprised there isn't a popular means to organizing kernels that is distro agnostic.

Because it is mostly niche, people don't usually keep 3 different OSs on their system.
Still, if you want to make a script with your commands and you post it on github/lab/whatever it might spark some interest in that.