Change boot partition mount point from /boot to /boot/efi

eichan · 2022-12-10 02:17:12

I'm running Arch and Windows 10 in dual-boot on a laptop. Both OS share the same boot partition, which on Linux is mounted as /boot.

Recently, I've been getting errors while updating the Linux kernel or systemd because there isn't enough space left on that boot partition to write the kernel images. One solution to that problem would be to have my boot partition pointing to /boot/EFI instead and then move the Linux kernels to the main Linux partition (mounted to /). I assume that would work for Linux, but probably would break the Windows 10 boot (since I'm moving the boot files to the root of the boot partition rather than the EFI/ folder).

Would this work? If not, what other options do I have to increase the size of my boot partition?

Here is what my partition table looks like:

Device             Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1      2048    1023999    1021952   499M Windows recovery environment
/dev/nvme0n1p2   1024000    1228799     204800   100M EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p3   1228800    1261567      32768    16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/nvme0n1p4   1261568  860162047  858900480 409,6G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p5 860162048 1953525134 1093363087 521,4G Linux filesystem

cfr · 2022-12-10 02:45:42

What boot loader or method are you using? Whether it will work on Linux depends on that.

Why should moving your Linux kernels break Windows?

eichan · 2022-12-10 02:48:39

Oh yeah sorry forgot to mention. I'm using refind.

At the moment Windows looks for boot files in the EFI folder of the boot partition. If I switch those files will now find themselves at the root of that boot partition (since I'm mounting it to /boot/EFI). I assumed that would confuse Windows.

cfr · 2022-12-10 03:05:27

eichan wrote:

Oh yeah sorry forgot to mention. I'm using refind.

Provided your root partition uses a supported filesystem and you install the driver for it, refind should have no trouble. Available drivers:

btrfs_x64.efi  ext2_x64.efi  ext4_x64.efi  hfs_x64.efi  iso9660_x64.efi  reiserfs_x64.efi

eichan wrote:

At the moment Windows looks for boot files in the EFI folder of the boot partition. If I switch those files will now find themselves at the root of that boot partition (since I'm mounting it to /boot/EFI). I assumed that would confuse Windows.

Leave them where they are. You don't need to touch the EFI directory. You just end up with the files at /boot/efi/EFI/... when you're on Arch, where /boot/efi is the mount point. You definitely don't want those files at the root of the ESP. For one thing, the fallback bootloader is /EFI/boot/bootx64.efi relative to the ESP's root and that is an extremely useful thing to have. It means you can (probably) boot even if your bootloader entries get wiped. If you put a copy of refind there, you get refind if your entries disappear. Wherever you mount your ESP, you want that path relative to the ESP's root to exist and be functional. (But note Windows may replace your preferred fallback bootloader, so if you don't want that you have to be vigilant.)

Arch Linux

#1 2022-12-10 02:17:12

Change boot partition mount point from /boot to /boot/efi

#2 2022-12-10 02:45:42

Re: Change boot partition mount point from /boot to /boot/efi

#3 2022-12-10 02:48:39

Re: Change boot partition mount point from /boot to /boot/efi

#4 2022-12-10 03:05:27

Re: Change boot partition mount point from /boot to /boot/efi

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