On Friday, 25 October 2019 15:28:27 BST Peter Humphrey wrote: > At the next reboot, the UEFI BIOS starts the system directly; it doesn't > show a menu of boot images. But I want that list so that I can choose which > image to boot.
The UEFI firmware does not display a list of bootable devices the user could choose from, *unless* you enter the firmware/BIOS GUI before booting of an OS commences, or you boot into a UEFI shell application. To launch the UEFI firmware/BIOS GUI usually requires pressing F2 on start up or some FXX button, depending on the MoBo. On some laptops there is a separate button for this purpose. > Now if I repeat those last two commands but with "--unicode '...'" omitted, > expecting those values to be picked up from /boot/loader/entries/30- > gentoo-4.19.72.conf, the BIOS starts some unconfigured kernel - which panics > because it can't find its filesystem. Again, it doesn't show me a menu, > just goes for it. Without the '--unicode' option the efibootmgr uses ASCII to pass extra command line arguments, so it could well be your root, initrd, or net options are mis- translated and/or ignored. Entries in /boot/loader/entries/30-gentoo-4.19.72.conf are parsed and interpreted by the systemd-boot Boot Manager application, not by the UEFI firmware itself. > I may have the directory layout wrong under /boot, and that may be my > problem. I think I used a layout from systemd-boot, which I no longer use. > > Can anyone see what I'm doing wrong? Do I have to go back to bootctl from > systemd-boot? If you intend to have a list of available OS kernels displayed for you to choose from at boot time, then you need a Boot Manager (eLILO, GRUB, systemd- boot, et al.) and will *have* to follow the respective Boot Manager's conventions regarding its configuration and storage/naming of kernel images. Without a 3rd party Boot Manager you will be using the UEFI firmware's embedded boot manager, which is accessible at start up via the firmware/BIOS GUI, or in some MoBos via the UEFI shell. For those MoBos that support running it, the UEFI shell can be launched with F6, F11 or F12 keys. Otherwise, you may have to install and configure <ESP>/shellx64.efi as the image to boot with. If your think entering the firmware/BIOS GUI, or running UEFI shell commands (bcfg plus options), each time you want to boot an OS will soon wear thin, the use of a 3rd party Boot Manager with its convenient boot menu is probably a more suitable option. PS. Happy to discuss specifics off-list if you think this is less of a Gentoo issue. -- Regards, Mick
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