this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
118 points (93.4% liked)
Linux
48328 readers
626 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
How else would one motivate itself to learn about grub, boot partitions, UEFI, MBR and all the other wonderful crufty technologies involved in starting operating systems?
Is it just me or does no one actually know how any of it works, and everyone relies on a mixture of
grub-install
,os-prober
,Boot Repair
,bootcfg
, and random internet guides to make it all work? I dual boot windows and linux and I don't understand where any of the boot files actually live or how they function. It feels like the deeper I dig, the more nondeterministic it all is.There are resources out there to learn exactly what's going on, and the process is not too complex.
I've recovered a bunch of nuked MBR records and broken boot partitions myself, and maybe things UEFI added some complexity, but it's not hard if you have a live USB ready and know the appropriate conjurations.
Most of the fun comes from self centered arrogant companies that make monocultural software, blatantly ignoring that other OSs may already be installed.
I've spent the last two nights trying to rescue a windows installation from a rescue usb, and no amount of BCD recovery seems to help. It has forced me to take a closer look at the EFI partition, but even deleting it outright and recreating it from scratch still won't boot. I think there must be something corrupted and I should just give up and reinstall. That's windows for ya...
An example of something I just don't understand, after deleting and recreating the EFI partition, and using bcdboot to repopulate it, I now see two Windows Boot Manager BBS entries listed in BIOS. No idea why, no idea how to find out. One site said I must have multiple entries in my BCD, but bcdedit just shows the standard
{bootmgr}
and{default}
OS entries.