Re: A question about --removable

[Daniel Kiper]

Hey,

On Fri, Sep 01, 2023 at 11:53:28PM -0500, Oskari Pirhonen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Recently me and a few others were helping someone in #gentoo on
> libera.chat with their Gentoo install. Things were going smoothly up
> until rebooting into the fresh installation. Instead of getting GRUB, it
> kept booting straight into the UEFI menu. After scratching our heads a
> bit, we tried `grub-install --efi-directory=/boot --removable` which
> worked. (The default Gentoo installation, if you go by the Handbook,
> sets up /boot as the ESP)
>
> I have GRUB installed the "normal way", but I just tried it with that
> and it seems to work for me. My machine is a ThinkPad T14 Gen 1 (AMD
> version). I don't know what machine the person we were helping with has,
> but both use the x86_64-efi target.
>
> Is there a reason `--removable` is not the default behavior? Maybe I'm
> missing something, but IMO it would provide a better user experience to
> not have to go through the headache of having to figure out that it is
> `--removable` which was holding you back.

If you take a look at the util/grub-install.c file and look for
"removable" variable and take a look at the Unified Extensible Firmware
Interface (UEFI) Specification, 3.5.1.1 Removable Media Boot Behavior
chapter then it should appear clear why it works in that way.

Daniel