Limine Bootloader

[mintsuki]

Hey, Limine main dev here

I figured there should probably be a thread wholly dedicated to Limine bug reports, issues, and potential feature requests from the EasyOS community. It is hard for me to track down all Limine related messages from all over the forum to get an idea, but I'd like every single bug report to be addressed, so here goes.

Also, just a friendly reminder to keep the Limine shipped with EasyOS up to date! (It is currently 1 major version and 5 months behind). There have already been substantial bug fixes and improvements that I think would benefit EasyOS users

[BarryK]

Yes, I have been tardy, not updating.
OK, Easy 5.3 will be coming along soon, so I will build it with the latest Limine.

[rockedge]

I am going to begin experimenting with a Limine bootloader in KLV-Airedale and other Kennel Linux type operating systems. Certainly looks like it has a good match potential.

[stemsee]

The best thing about the Limine Bootloader for me is navigating and editing an entry during boot. The cursor is not restricted to entry 'lines' end or start, you can move the cursor up and down through 'lines' on screen.

[esos]

I have used limine for a while on sdcard.
How to install limine (bootloader only) on hdd/ssd without changing any existing partitions?
What is the boot stanza to change "...wait 15 seconds for normal bootup" ?
How to boot linux-ISO using limine?
Thanks.

[freya]

This looks really interesting.

Can I ask does it have different stages like grub?
If so how big are each of the stages in bytes?

[BarryK]

esos, freya,
The project site has documentation:

https://github.com/limine-bootloader/limine

[mintsuki]

I have used limine for a while on sdcard.
How to install limine (bootloader only) on hdd/ssd without changing any existing partitions?
What is the boot stanza to change "...wait 15 seconds for normal bootup" ?
How to boot linux-ISO using limine?
Thanks.

Well, the installation process of Limine does not involve changing any partitions necessarily, so I am not sure what your first question is exactly about.

To chance the timeout it is sufficient to have a

Code: Select all

TIMEOUT=X

line in the config, where X is the amount of seconds to wait before automatic boot.

About ISOs... Limine is not Ventoy, nor does it try to be. I am not a fan of Ventoy as I think it is a terrible hack (because it needs to support each and every single OS (Linux, FreeBSD...) individually. For example it needs to load its own kernel modules for various OSes in order to add "virtual drives" since ISO files aren't really made to show up to the OS kernel as separate drives).

[mintsuki]

This looks really interesting.

Can I ask does it have different stages like grub?
If so how big are each of the stages in bytes?

Yes, the BIOS version of Limine does have 3 stages. The first 2 stages combined are not to exceed 32KiB, while the 3rd stage can be several hundreds of KiB in size, depending on the given Limine version, compiler used, etc...

[esos]

@ mintsuki
At the time I installed easyos using limine, my SD-card is formatted automatically. There is no option to keep my existing partitions.

I think TIMEOUT=X will not change "...wait 15 seconds.."
Pls see the screenshot.

wait15seconds.jpg (17.42 KiB) Viewed 1280 times

About ISOs... Limine is not Ventoy

Grub4Dos(BIOS) or grub2(GPT) can do also booting ISOs like ventoy.

[williwaw]

I think TIMEOUT=X will not change "...wait 15 seconds.."

hI esos
Your pic shows EasyOs early in the boot procees at a different timeout, after limine has completed its job
viewtopic.php?p=82038#p82038 has some info about adjusting the timeout in EasyOs. If you need more info making that change, starting a new topic could be useful to all.

[mintsuki]

@ mintsuki
At the time I installed easyos using limine, my SD-card is formatted automatically. There is no option to keep my existing partitions.

I think TIMEOUT=X will not change "...wait 15 seconds.."
Pls see the screenshot.
wait15seconds.jpg

About ISOs... Limine is not Ventoy

Grub4Dos(BIOS) or grub2(GPT) can do also booting ISOs like ventoy.

This (https://superuser.com/questions/154133/ ... t-from-iso) superuser post explains the issue with booting from ISO pretty accurately. Even with GRUB and Grub4DOS it is not a straight forwards process and it only works with *some* OSes. The reason I mentioned Ventoy is because Ventoy is the "fool-proof" solution to "boot ISOs" at the moment, which requires minimal end user fiddling to get working with most popular OSes... at the cost of it being a mess of hacks internally in order to get this working and to hide all the gory details from the end user, as I mentioned in my previous post.

The other issues, as mentioned, are not Limine related.

[BarryK]

Limine is now version 4.20231006.0, in EasyOS 5.5.5, see blog:

"EasyOS Kirkstone-series version 5.5.5 released"
https://bkhome.org/news/202310/easyos-k ... eased.html

[nnriyer]

Dear Guru,

Please see the Limine boot entry generated in 5.5.5 . Dual entry created for EasyOs 5.5.5. Which one is correct in respect of easyos?

:EasyOS Kirkstone64 (partition nvme0n1p6, path easyos/releases/easy-5.5.5)
COMMENT=EasyOS bootup
PROTOCOL=linux
KERNEL_CMDLINE=rw wkg_uuid=e77f9da7-35db-4b43-a3ef-c773cca9d5c5 wkg_dir=easyos/releases/easy-5.5.5
KERNEL_PATH=guid://7eef90f7-8243-42cb-98ea-f6736db46568/easyos/releases/easy-5.5.5/vmlinuz
MODULE_PATH=guid://7eef90f7-8243-42cb-98ea-f6736db46568/easyos/releases/easy-5.5.5/initrd

:EasyOS Kirkstone64 (partition nvme0n1p6, path easyos)
COMMENT=EasyOS bootup
PROTOCOL=linux
KERNEL_CMDLINE=rw wkg_uuid=e77f9da7-35db-4b43-a3ef-c773cca9d5c5 wkg_dir=easyos
KERNEL_PATH=guid://7eef90f7-8243-42cb-98ea-f6736db46568/easyos/vmlinuz
MODULE_PATH=guid://7eef90f7-8243-42cb-98ea-f6736db46568/easyos/initrd

:Puppy Linux dpup (partition nvme0n1p7, path BWpup64)
PROTOCOL=linux
KERNEL_CMDLINE=psubdir=BWpup64 pmedia=ataflash
KERNEL_PATH=guid://b44c818b-3204-4292-b7e9-b79c5ab6c07f/BWpup64/vmlinuz
MODULE_PATH=guid://b44c818b-3204-4292-b7e9-b79c5ab6c07f/BWpup64/initrd.gz

:Puppy Linux s15pup64 (partition nvme0n1p8, path spup15)
PROTOCOL=linux
KERNEL_CMDLINE=psubdir=spup15 pmedia=ataflash
KERNEL_PATH=guid://f6d0c5d3-ea46-411c-a374-14a7e629e78f/spup15/vmlinuz
MODULE_PATH=guid://f6d0c5d3-ea46-411c-a374-14a7e629e78f/spup15/initrd.gz

:Puppy Linux vanilladpup (partition nvme0n1p8, path vaniladpup)
PROTOCOL=linux
KERNEL_CMDLINE=psubdir=vaniladpup pmedia=ataflash
KERNEL_PATH=guid://f6d0c5d3-ea46-411c-a374-14a7e629e78f/vaniladpup/vmlinuz
MODULE_PATH=guid://f6d0c5d3-ea46-411c-a374-14a7e629e78f/vaniladpup/initrd.gz

:Windows 10
COMMENT=Windows bootup
PROTOCOL=chainload
IMAGE_PATH=guid://21e3bf30-0631-40c4-a470-537756576dcc/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi

[BarryK]

Dear Guru,

Please see the Limine boot entry generated in 5.5.5 . Dual entry created for EasyOs 5.5.5. Which one is correct in respect of easyos?

:EasyOS Kirkstone64 (partition nvme0n1p6, path easyos/releases/easy-5.5.5)
COMMENT=EasyOS bootup
PROTOCOL=linux
KERNEL_CMDLINE=rw wkg_uuid=e77f9da7-35db-4b43-a3ef-c773cca9d5c5 wkg_dir=easyos/releases/easy-5.5.5
KERNEL_PATH=guid://7eef90f7-8243-42cb-98ea-f6736db46568/easyos/releases/easy-5.5.5/vmlinuz
MODULE_PATH=guid://7eef90f7-8243-42cb-98ea-f6736db46568/easyos/releases/easy-5.5.5/initrd

:EasyOS Kirkstone64 (partition nvme0n1p6, path easyos)
COMMENT=EasyOS bootup
PROTOCOL=linux
KERNEL_CMDLINE=rw wkg_uuid=e77f9da7-35db-4b43-a3ef-c773cca9d5c5 wkg_dir=easyos
KERNEL_PATH=guid://7eef90f7-8243-42cb-98ea-f6736db46568/easyos/vmlinuz
MODULE_PATH=guid://7eef90f7-8243-42cb-98ea-f6736db46568/easyos/initrd

The first one is wrong. Did the Limine Installer generate that?

[nnriyer]

Yes Sir

Limine automatically generated the above menu entry. However, not installed due to confusion. I will delete the additional entry upon installation time.

[BarryK]

Yes Sir

Limine automatically generated the above menu entry. However, not installed due to confusion. I will delete the additional entry upon installation time.

I have fixed Limine Installer, see blog post:

https://bkhome.org/news/202310/fix-limi ... -path.html

[nnriyer]

As indicated by in your blog, it also making entry for easyos folder kept in windows partition. I have kept easyos 5.5.5 folder in my ntfs partition for facilitating transfer of easy-folder to my dedicated easy partition, When trying to generate menu entry generated as indicated below. I thought it is default behavior. Hence not reported.

:EasyOS Kirkstone64 (partition nvme0n1p3, path Puppy/easyos)
COMMENT=EasyOS bootup
PROTOCOL=linux
KERNEL_CMDLINE=rw wkg_uuid=0C448DF6448DE336 wkg_dir=Puppy/easyos
KERNEL_PATH=guid://b120f417-18ee-4d76-b08c-8d5cc3e30521/Puppy/easyos/vmlinuz
MODULE_PATH=guid://b120f417-18ee-4d76-b08c-8d5cc3e30521/Puppy/easyos/initrd

Just reported only for your information. This is first entry in menu.