Arch Linux

Beemo

Member

Registered: 2024-12-20

Posts: 51

[SOLVED] Why UEFI boot args need to be unicode?

UEFI allows appending the kernel command line: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/EFI_bo … I_directly

$ sudo efibootmgr --create --disk /dev/nvme0n1 --part 1 --label "Arch Linux" --loader /booster-linux.efi --unicode "root=PARTUUID=... zswap.enabled=0 rootflags=subvol=@ rootfstype=btrfs quiet"

The string is appended to the UEFI entry without a space. It seems with -u it's appended as Unicode, otherwise ASCII. The -u takes no argument, it's not for taking the string (contrary to wiki): https://man.archlinux.org/man/efibootmgr.8

I have tried without the -u switch and it didn't work (Lenovo, HP). Why the kernel command line must be appended as Unicode?

Last edited by Beemo (2025-02-22 08:52:47)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,120

Re: [SOLVED] Why UEFI boot args need to be unicode?

Very dependant on your actual UEFI vendors implementation, and if they've never tested or accounted for non-Unicode entries then that's what you'll need to do.