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No more boot loader: Please use the kernel instead

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Re: No more boot loader: Please use the kernel instead

#281

Post by messe »

prmoustache wrote: post #280
alerighi wrote: post #45

It's something you can do since a lot of years. I used to do so 10 years ago, when I've got the first motherboard with UEFI. But is it useful? It saves a minimal time in the boot sequence, but at what cost? The bootloader (being it grub, or something more simple as systemd-boot) is useful to me for a couple of reasons: - it allows to dual-boot with Windows easily: motherboard boot menu is often not easy to access, yo…

> - it allows to dual-boot with Windows easily: motherboard boot menu is often not easy to access, you need to perform some key combination in a short window, also modern bootloader save the last boot option such that if Windows reboots for an update Linux does not start Do people really dual boot a lot in 2024? It was a good use case when virtualization was slow but decades after the CPU started shipping with virtua…

> Do people really dual boot a lot in 2024?

Yes, there are still use cases for it.

The state of GPU virtualisation, for example, is a spectrum from doesn't exist/sucks to only affordable for enterprise customers.

So unless you have a second graphics card to do pass through with, if you want to use your GPU under both OSes then you almost always have to dual boot (yes, there are other options like running Linux headless, but it's not even remotely easier to set up than dual boot)

Re: No more boot loader: Please use the kernel instead

#282

Post by the_duke »

aaronmdjones wrote: post #18
drewg123 wrote: post #2

I personally think they're moving in the wrong direction. I'd rather have "NMIRFS" (no more initramfs). Eg, a smarter bootloader that understands all bootable filesystems and cooperates with the kernel to pre-load modules needed for boot and obviates the need for initramfs. FreeBSD's loader does this, and its so much easier to deal with. Eg, it understands ZFS, and can pre-load storage driver modules and zfs.ko for t…

As other sibling comments have explained, an initramfs is usually optional for booting Linux. If you build the drivers for your storage media and filesystem into the kernel (not as a module), and the filesystem is visible to the kernel without any userland setup required beforehand (e.g. the filesystem is not in an LVM volume, not on an MD-RAID array, not encrypted), it is fully capable of mounting the real root file…

I think you just reinforced the parents point.

Re: No more boot loader: Please use the kernel instead

#283

Post by account42 »

mjg59 wrote: post #80
Denvercoder9 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of machines are people using that entering the UEFI boot menu is difficult? On all three of mine I just press F10 during the first 5 or seconds the vendor logo shows, and I end up in a nice menu where I could select Windows, other kernels, memtest, or the EFI shell or setup.

One easy way to meet Microsoft's boot time requirements is to skip input device enumeration, so there's a lot of machines meeting the Windows sticker requirements where entering the firmware either requires a bunch of failed boots or getting far enough into the boot process that you can be offered an opportunity to reboot into the setup menu.

How many of these don't have a setting to turn quick boot off?

Re: No more boot loader: Please use the kernel instead

#284

Post by pabs3 »

gorgoiler wrote: post #225

It’s a pity we aren’t really there yet with boot loading. In 2024 if I install an OS it places a boot loader in my EFI System Partition but in a way that still feels only partially complete. What I want is for each OS to install its loader in a unique directory to that OS instance, not unique to the OS vendor. Multiple Debians etc will argue over who controls /debian. You also have to bless UEFI with magic NVRAM vari…

Theres the removable media path:

https://wiki.debian.org/UEFI#Booting_from_removable_media https://wiki.debian.org/UEFI#Force_grub-efi_installation_to_...

Re: No more boot loader: Please use the kernel instead

#285

Post by dexen »

drewg123 wrote: post #2

I personally think they're moving in the wrong direction. I'd rather have "NMIRFS" (no more initramfs). Eg, a smarter bootloader that understands all bootable filesystems and cooperates with the kernel to pre-load modules needed for boot and obviates the need for initramfs. FreeBSD's loader does this, and its so much easier to deal with. Eg, it understands ZFS, and can pre-load storage driver modules and zfs.ko for t…

Seconding this.

Having lucked into using Lilo and no initramfs for several years now, I'm very happy with robustness and straightforwardness of the solution.

In contrast, on the rare occasion I've dealt with somebody elses' GRUB and initramfs setups, they turn out brittle and complex.

Re: No more boot loader: Please use the kernel instead

#286

Post by account42 »

prmoustache wrote: post #261
aaronmdjones wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But to load it at boot time it absolutely must be done through an initramfs. Is that right? Yes, because it cannot be part of the kernel image, or it would be illegal (a violation of the GPL license) to distribute that kernel. Therefore, it must be a module, and that module has to live somewhere and be loaded by something. If root is on ZFS, this must therefore live in an initramfs and be loaded by it so that the i…

The distro could automatize the compilation of the kernel with ZFS on the user machine. In that case no license is violated as the kernel image is not distributed with ZFS. That would probably make updates a lot less slower than having zfs shipped in an initramfs though.

It doesn't really have to be slower as all that would be needed to do on installation is the final linking step. Linking prebuilt objects into a prepared kernel image shouldn't be inherently slower than assembling modules into an initramfs.

Re: No more boot loader: Please use the kernel instead

#287

Post by account42 »

linsomniac wrote: post #92
ta8645 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Linux kernel does not require an initramfs. You can build a kernel with everything compiled in; with no modules needed at all. Initramfs is used for generic kernels where you don't know beforehand which features will be required. This allows you to avoid wasting RAM on features you don't use. But it is optional.

Is anyone really wanting to get back into the business of building their own kernels? I started using Linux heavily in '92, and I've built a lot of kernels, and am quite happy to not be building them anymore.

I never stopped. What's so bad about building your own kernel?

Re: No more boot loader: Please use the kernel instead

#288

Post by zik »

prmoustache wrote: post #280
alerighi wrote: post #45

It's something you can do since a lot of years. I used to do so 10 years ago, when I've got the first motherboard with UEFI. But is it useful? It saves a minimal time in the boot sequence, but at what cost? The bootloader (being it grub, or something more simple as systemd-boot) is useful to me for a couple of reasons: - it allows to dual-boot with Windows easily: motherboard boot menu is often not easy to access, yo…

> - it allows to dual-boot with Windows easily: motherboard boot menu is often not easy to access, you need to perform some key combination in a short window, also modern bootloader save the last boot option such that if Windows reboots for an update Linux does not start Do people really dual boot a lot in 2024? It was a good use case when virtualization was slow but decades after the CPU started shipping with virtua…

> Do people really dual boot a lot in 2024?

Yes. I work on Linux and play most games on Windows. Playing games on a VM is... pretty terrible.

Re: No more boot loader: Please use the kernel instead

#289

Post by prmoustache »

messe wrote: post #281
prmoustache wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - it allows to dual-boot with Windows easily: motherboard boot menu is often not easy to access, you need to perform some key combination in a short window, also modern bootloader save the last boot option such that if Windows reboots for an update Linux does not start Do people really dual boot a lot in 2024? It was a good use case when virtualization was slow but decades after the CPU started shipping with virtua…

> Do people really dual boot a lot in 2024? Yes, there are still use cases for it. The state of GPU virtualisation, for example, is a spectrum from doesn't exist/sucks to only affordable for enterprise customers. So unless you have a second graphics card to do pass through with, if you want to use your GPU under both OSes then you almost always have to dual boot (yes, there are other options like running Linux headle…

Most mainboards comes with an integrated gpu though? If you use that one for the host OS, it is easy to pass the discrete through no?

Re: No more boot loader: Please use the kernel instead

#290

Post by adham-omran »

prmoustache wrote: post #280
alerighi wrote: post #45

It's something you can do since a lot of years. I used to do so 10 years ago, when I've got the first motherboard with UEFI. But is it useful? It saves a minimal time in the boot sequence, but at what cost? The bootloader (being it grub, or something more simple as systemd-boot) is useful to me for a couple of reasons: - it allows to dual-boot with Windows easily: motherboard boot menu is often not easy to access, yo…

> - it allows to dual-boot with Windows easily: motherboard boot menu is often not easy to access, you need to perform some key combination in a short window, also modern bootloader save the last boot option such that if Windows reboots for an update Linux does not start Do people really dual boot a lot in 2024? It was a good use case when virtualization was slow but decades after the CPU started shipping with virtua…

> Do people really dual boot a lot in 2024?

Yes.

> there is virtually zero overhead in using VM nowadays

Not for real-time audio production. The state of audio plugins having Linux support from vendors like EastWest, Spitfire, Native Instruments, iZotope is abysmal and even Wine does not run them nowadays.

Even with a virtual machine that has pinned cores and USB pass-through of a dedicated audio interface, it practically locks you to one sample rate, any change causes crackles, try to load more than one plugin and you hear crackles. There is plenty of overhead.

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