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Artix Linux Forum

Artix Linux => Installation / Migration / Configuration => Topic started by: hys on 21 July 2025, 03:27:04

Title: [SOLVED] Difference between mounting the boot partition on /boot/efi or /boot
Post by: hys on 21 July 2025, 03:27:04
The Arch wiki seems to instruct users to mount the boot partition to /boot, while Artix instructs to mount it to /boot/efi.

What is the difference between the two mount points? I was installing Artix on my desktop PC, and grub-install was not working unless I mounted the boot partition to /boot.

Specifically,

Code: [Select]
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=grub

was failing, but

Code: [Select]
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=grub

worked with no issue.
Additionally, I had to run the following command so that my MSI motherboard could detect the bootloader:

Code: [Select]
cp /boot/EFI/grub/grubx64.efi /boot/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi

Could anyone provide insight into the difference between the two mount paths? I am a little bit confused why the Artix installation wiki differs from Arch's.
Title: Re: Difference between mounting the boot partition on /boot/efi or /boot
Post by: mrbrklyn on 21 July 2025, 07:43:15
/boot/efi is  a standard for uefi

Title: Re: Difference between mounting the boot partition on /boot/efi or /boot
Post by: tintin on 21 July 2025, 08:42:14
It may depend on the efi firmware.
I had problems with my ACER PC and had to specify /boot/efi/EFI/

https://askubuntu.com/questions/862946/unable-to-install-ubuntu-on-acer-aspire-es1-533
Title: Re: Difference between mounting the boot partition on /boot/efi or /boot
Post by: Caramon2 on 21 July 2025, 09:01:39
Use BIOS-MODE/CSM, than you have no Problems: Never!

No matter if SATA, PATA or USB (even on different PCs), it boots without any problems: Always!

UEFI is trash. - Of cause Microsoft has it hands on it.
Title: Re: Difference between mounting the boot partition on /boot/efi or /boot
Post by: mrbrklyn on 21 July 2025, 09:07:02
Quote from: Caramon2 – on
Use BIOS-MODE/CSM, than you have no Problems: Never!

No matter if SATA, PATA or USB (even on different PCs), it boots without any problems: Always!

UEFI is trash. - Of cause Microsoft has it hands on it.

say what you want but new hardware requires it.
Title: Re: Difference between mounting the boot partition on /boot/efi or /boot
Post by: Caramon2 on 21 July 2025, 10:33:44
Quote from: mrbrklyn – on
Quote
UEFI is trash. - Of cause Microsoft has it hands on it.
say what you want but new hardware requires it.
For me a no-go, because I have an ext. SSD (USB) witch must be able to boot reliable on different PCs, even on older ones (WinXI = Windows 11):
Title: Re: Difference between mounting the boot partition on /boot/efi or /boot
Post by: Phosphate5 on 21 July 2025, 10:38:54
Quote from: hys – on
The Arch wiki seems to instruct users to mount the boot partition to /boot, while Artix instructs to mount it to /boot/efi.
What is the difference between the two mount points? I was installing Artix on my desktop PC, and grub-install was not working unless I mounted the boot partition to /boot.
Specifically,
Code: [Select]
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=grub
was failing, but
Code: [Select]
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=grub
worked with no issue.
Additionally, I had to run the following command so that my MSI motherboard could detect the bootloader:
Code: [Select]
cp /boot/EFI/grub/grubx64.efi /boot/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi
Could anyone provide insight into the difference between the two mount paths? I am a little bit confused why the Artix installation wiki differs from Arch's.
Arch wiki has an extensive documentation about the EFI system partition. You can read more about the typical mount points in the following page: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/EFI_system_partition#Typical_mount_points

Most distors that have a graphical installer, like Artix Linux and Linux Mint, mount the EFI partition to /boot/efi. The Artix Linux wiki also suggests /boot/efi. However, Arch wiki discourages this mount point and suggests /efi as a replacement. I myself use /efi as a mount point because by using /boot you are basically putting your kernel in FAT partition and I don't like this. If you are using GRUB, and not some obscure boot loader, then I also suggest using /efi as a mount point
Title: Re: Difference between mounting the boot partition on /boot/efi or /boot
Post by: mrbrklyn on 21 July 2025, 12:51:58
Quote from: Phosphate5 – on
Quote from: hys – on
The Arch wiki seems to instruct users to mount the boot partition to /boot, while Artix instructs to mount it to /boot/efi.
What is the difference between the two mount points? I was installing Artix on my desktop PC, and grub-install was not working unless I mounted the boot partition to /boot.
Specifically,
Code: [Select]
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=grub
was failing, but
Code: [Select]
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=grub
worked with no issue.
Additionally, I had to run the following command so that my MSI motherboard could detect the bootloader:
Code: [Select]
cp /boot/EFI/grub/grubx64.efi /boot/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi
Could anyone provide insight into the difference between the two mount paths? I am a little bit confused why the Artix installation wiki differs from Arch's.
Arch wiki has an extensive documentation about the EFI system partition. You can read more about the typical mount points in the following page: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/EFI_system_partition#Typical_mount_points

Most distors that have a graphical installer, like Artix Linux and Linux Mint, mount the EFI partition to /boot/efi. The Artix Linux wiki also suggests /boot/efi. However, Arch wiki discourages this mount point and suggests /efi as a replacement. I myself use /efi as a mount point because by using /boot you are basically putting your kernel in FAT partition and I don't like this. If you are using GRUB, and not some obscure boot loader, then I also suggest using /efi as a mount point


two things - First is the /boot/efi is NOT putting your kernel in a vfat partition
Code: [Select]
flatbush:[ruben]:~$ mount|grep boot
/dev/sda3 on /boot/efi type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0077,dmask=0077,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro
flatbush:[ruben]:~$ ls -al /boot
total 131372
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root      271 Jul 17 22:09 .
drwxr-xr-x 17 root root      226 Jul 17 22:11 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   153600 Jul  9 10:19 amd-ucode.img
drwx------  3 root root     4096 Dec 31  1969 efi
drwxr-xr-x  6 root root       96 Apr 27 02:30 grub
-rw-------  1 root root 36746970 Jul 17 22:09 initramfs-linux-fallback.img
-rw-------  1 root root  8326604 Jul 17 22:08 initramfs-linux.img
-rw-------  1 root root 37998088 Jul 17 22:08 initramfs-linux-lts-fallback.img
-rw-------  1 root root  8296313 Jul 17 22:06 initramfs-linux-lts.img
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 13286400 May 12 16:33 intel-ucode.img
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root       25 Jan 18  2025 memtest86+
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 15802880 Jul 17 22:05 vmlinuz-linux
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 13894144 Jul 17 22:05 vmlinuz-linux-lts

flatbush:[ruben]:~$ mount |grep sda2
/dev/sda2 on / type xfs (rw,noatime,attr2,inode64,logbufs=8,logbsize=32k,noquota)

Secondly - UEFI is defined in the UEFI standard, not the arch wiki
https://uefi.org/

The other secondly  is that systemd-boot likes /efi  (or /boot which WOULD put your kernel in a vfat filesystem)
grub et all  prefers /etc/efi .  Wherever you put it through, it better conform with the NVRAM variables or you are screwed... and yes that IS the UEFI standard.

Title: Re: Difference between mounting the boot partition on /boot/efi or /boot
Post by: mrbrklyn on 21 July 2025, 13:16:34
Quote from: Caramon2 – on
Quote from: mrbrklyn – on

say what you want but new hardware requires it.
For me a no-go, because I have an ext. SSD (USB) witch must be able to boot reliable on different PCs, even on older ones (WinXI = Windows 11):

You are not listening.  New x86 systems will only boot uefi and with tpm and secure boot is turned on by default.  What you want doesn't matter.  The future is here... now and hardware is being released as it is.  A properly configured  SSD should boot anyway unless is it blocked by secure boot.  Most of them are configured with UEFI anyway.  I learned this the hard way.
Title: Re: Difference between mounting the boot partition on /boot/efi or /boot
Post by: mrbrklyn on 21 July 2025, 13:42:53
I wrote up a review on this once

http://www.nylxs.com/docs/uefi/page1.html
Title: Re: Difference between mounting the boot partition on /boot/efi or /boot
Post by: hys on 21 July 2025, 15:41:08
Thank you so much for all the answers, everyone. I now have a better understanding of what happens when installing GRUB on UEFI hardware.

I’m using an F2FS filesystem with the extra_attr option for my root partition, so it seems my only option is to mount my boot partition at /mnt/boot and install kernels on a VFAT filesystem due to this issue (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/F2FS#GRUB_support).
Title: Re: [SOLVED] Difference between mounting the boot partition on /boot/efi or /boot
Post by: Caramon2 on 21 July 2025, 18:58:36
Quote from: mrbrklyn – on
You are not listening.  New x86 systems will only boot uefi and with tpm and secure boot is turned on by default.  What you want doesn't matter.  The future is here... now and hardware is being released as it is.  A properly configured  SSD should boot anyway unless is it blocked by secure boot.  Most of them are configured with UEFI anyway.  I learned this the hard way.
I will see, when I need new Hardware.

Now my AMD FX-8350 (for 76€ few years ago) is more than enough for me. - Maybe I can switch to Coreboot/Libreboot, if CSM is not an option.
Title: Re: [SOLVED] Difference between mounting the boot partition on /boot/efi or /boot
Post by: ####### on 21 July 2025, 22:51:58
Perhaps you did this, but /boot/efi has to be created before it can be used:
https://wiki.artixlinux.org/Main/Installation#Mount_Partitions
Title: Re: [SOLVED] Difference between mounting the boot partition on /boot/efi or /boot
Post by: Dastard on 24 July 2025, 05:54:04
Quote from: mrbrklyn – on
You are not listening.  New x86 systems will only boot uefi and with tpm and secure boot is turned on by default.  What you want doesn't matter.  The future is here... now and hardware is being released as it is.  A properly configured  SSD should boot anyway unless is it blocked by secure boot.  Most of them are configured with UEFI anyway.  I learned this the hard way.

Are you talking about Windows 11? I haven't heard of any hardware or linux requiring the disk to be formatted as GPT instead of being able to use MBR, the only real reason to use GPT is if the disk is larger than 2TB as far as I know.
Title: Re: [SOLVED] Difference between mounting the boot partition on /boot/efi or /boot
Post by: mrbrklyn on 24 July 2025, 06:11:48
Quote from: Dastard – on
Quote from: mrbrklyn – on
You are not listening.  New x86 systems will only boot uefi and with tpm and secure boot is turned on by default.  What you want doesn't matter.  The future is here... now and hardware is being released as it is.  A properly configured  SSD should boot anyway unless is it blocked by secure boot.  Most of them are configured with UEFI anyway.  I learned this the hard way.

Are you talking about Windows 11? I haven't heard of any hardware or linux requiring the disk to be formatted as GPT instead of being able to use MBR, the only real reason to use GPT is if the disk is larger than 2TB as far as I know.


Please, if you are going to join the discussion, read it first instead of dragging it off topic.  If you want to discuss the GPT partitioning system,  start a different topic.

http://images.mrbrklyn.com/2023_2_Brooklyn_Museum/.cache/2400x1600-IMG_1159.JPG
http://images.mrbrklyn.com/2023_2_Brooklyn_Museum/IMG_1161.JPG?width=1024
Title: Re: [SOLVED] Difference between mounting the boot partition on /boot/efi or /boot
Post by: Dastard on 24 July 2025, 16:50:56
Quote from: mrbrklyn – on
Please, if you are going to join the discussion, read it first instead of dragging it off topic.  If you want to discuss the GPT partitioning system,  start a different topic.

http://images.mrbrklyn.com/2023_2_Brooklyn_Museum/.cache/2400x1600-IMG_1159.JPG
http://images.mrbrklyn.com/2023_2_Brooklyn_Museum/IMG_1161.JPG?width=1024


I'm asking you what "new x86 systems" only work with UEFI, because I haven't heard anything about that and I'm here to learn, and the topic is solved so it's not derailing anything.
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