Update boot_managers.md #80
Conversation
This commit adds a comprehensive feature comparison table for boot managers (systemd-boot, rEFInd, GRUB) to help users effectively choose the right boot manager for their CachyOS installation. The table includes key features, pros and cons, and recommendations for each boot manager. Additional details are provided below the table for further clarification. This update aims to improve user understanding and decision-making while setting up their system.
Deploying cachyos-wiki with
|
| Latest commit: |
3d0f3e3
|
| Status: | 🚫 Build failed. |
| |----------------------------|---------------------------------------|---------------------------------------|------------------------------------| | ||
| | **UEFI Support** | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | | ||
| | **BIOS Support** | ❌ No | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | | ||
| | **Autodetection** | ❌ Limited (manual configuration) | ✅ Full autodetection | ✅ Autodetection (regenerates config) | |
There was a problem hiding this comment.
As a reader I don't know what "autodetection" entails. Is it autodetection of various kernel versions or autodetection of the various operating systems installed on the system?
There was a problem hiding this comment.
In this case, it should be an autodetection of kernel versions. I can change that.
There was a problem hiding this comment.
In that case, all of them support autodetection, without any caveats. systemd-boot-manager will update entries and create new ones for each kernel version. GRUB also has kernel hooks for this, no need to regenerate the config.
There was a problem hiding this comment.
Is that better?
| **Autodetection of kernel versions** | ✅ Supported | ✅ Supported | ✅ Supported |
There was a problem hiding this comment.
I would just remove this. All of them support it and it seems to be a nobrainer feature to have in any boot manager that users shouldn't even think about this.
| | **Encrypted Boot** | ❌ No | ❌ No | ✅ Yes (boot partition) | | ||
| | **Boot Time** | Fastest | Moderate | Slowest | | ||
| | **Hardware Compatibility** | UEFI-only | UEFI-only | UEFI and BIOS | | ||
| | **Ease of Setup** | Moderate | Easy | Moderate | |
There was a problem hiding this comment.
This can "bait" users into thinking that the other boot managers except rEEFInd is "hard" to setup while it's not true. Can you give cases where GRUB and sd-boot are harder to setup than rEFInd? In the context of CachyOS, systemd-boot is complemented with systemd-boot-manager which aids in creating new entries for the each kernel installed/updated and a generic way to configure entries from one file (similar to GRUB).
There was a problem hiding this comment.
Personally, I have sometimes struggled to configure and maintain GRUB and ended up with a broken system. That's why I wrote this. SystemD booting is easy via systemd-boot-manager, true.
I would say we can also remove this section, because the diffculty of configure this up is marginal?
There was a problem hiding this comment.
I would say we can also remove this section
Instead of removing it altogether, I think replacing it with "Partition Table" would be better. In the context of setting up boot managers, all of it is handled by the installer. The only case where a user would have to do it themselves is through manual partitioning, in which case adding a partition table comparison would make sense. Consider https://wiki.cachyos.org/installation/installation_on_root/#manual-partitioning No. 5 for that. (Note that these partition tables aren't strict requirements[1][2], it's just what CachyOS uses.)
[1] rEFInd used to have a three-partition table, /boot, /boot/efi and /
[2] It is also possible for systemd-boot to have separate ESP (EFI binaries) and boot partitions (kernel image and initramfs).
| | **Theming/Customization** | ❌ Minimal | ✅ Extensive | ✅ Extensive | | ||
| | **Configuration Complexity**| Simple | Moderate | Complex | | ||
| | **Secure Boot Support** | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | | ||
| | **Filesystem Support** | FAT, FAT16, FAT32 | FAT, EXT4, BTRFS | Most Linux FS | |
There was a problem hiding this comment.
While it is true that GRUB has support for loads of filesystems, I believe that the support is strictly read-only. For example, see CachyOS/distribution#59 where GRUB fails to write grub.env to a BTRFS filesystem.
There was a problem hiding this comment.
I’m not sure how to solve this at the moment, but I can try investigating which filesystems are specifically supported by GRUB.
There was a problem hiding this comment.
It is likely sufficient to add a footnote clarifying that certain filesystems aren't supported (right not those that come to mind are BTRFS and ZFS).
There was a problem hiding this comment.
https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub/html_node/Features.html?
Support multiple filesystem types transparently, plus a useful explicit blocklist notation. The currently supported filesystem types are Amiga Fast FileSystem (AFFS), AtheOS fs, BeFS, BtrFS (including raid0, raid1, raid10, gzip and lzo), cpio (little- and big-endian bin, odc and newc variants), Linux ext2/ext3/ext4, DOS FAT12/FAT16/FAT32, exFAT, F2FS, HFS, HFS+, ISO9660 (including Joliet, Rock-ridge and multi-chunk files), JFS, Minix fs (versions 1, 2 and 3), nilfs2, NTFS (including compression), ReiserFS, ROMFS, Amiga Smart FileSystem (SFS), Squash4, tar, UDF, BSD UFS/UFS2, XFS, and ZFS (including lzjb, gzip, zle, mirror, stripe, raidz1/2/3 and encryption in AES-CCM and AES-GCM).
btw: BTRFS should works, idk what happened.
There was a problem hiding this comment.
As I mentioned previously, the support mentioned here seems to indicate a sufficient condition for reading, not writing. The issue seems to be that GRUB doesn't support sparse files, which BTRFS and some others do from compression or so.
edit: The "unsupported" part of this has to do with saving default entries. If that feature is off, then GRUB is happy.
| | **BIOS Support** | ❌ No | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | | ||
| | **Autodetection** | ❌ Limited (manual configuration) | ✅ Full autodetection | ✅ Autodetection (regenerates config) | | ||
| | **Theming/Customization** | ❌ Minimal | ✅ Extensive | ✅ Extensive | | ||
| | **Configuration Complexity**| Simple | Moderate | Complex | |
There was a problem hiding this comment.
I don't really agree with this either, but I would need to fact check on rEFind's configuration
There was a problem hiding this comment.
I can look into this, but since I don’t personally use rEFInd, it may take some time.
This commit removes the section that categorized performance differences using terms like "fastest," "faster," and "fast."
This commit adds a comprehensive feature comparison table for boot managers (systemd-boot, rEFInd, GRUB) to help users effectively choose the right boot manager for their CachyOS installation. The table includes key features, pros and cons, and recommendations for each boot manager. Additional details are provided below the table for further clarification. This update aims to improve user understanding and decision-making while setting up their system.