An Open-Source Bootloader For Windows Lets You Run Off Btrfs, Other Possibilities

[starshipeleven]

Why create an open bootloader for a closed os?

Because someone is fed up with NTFS being complete bullshit I guess.

[starshipeleven]

Because ZFS sucks

Lol, ok boomer

[Guest]

I'm interested whether using a modern file system would make Windows a more bearable experience.

[profoundWHALE]

and in the same vein as your comment...
why post useless comments on a website when you could be doing something more productive?

surely people doing their own thing is more than enough of a reason to do things.

Because BTRFS is aimed to be a GPL replacement for ZFS and if it can't keep your files from getting corrupted from one of the many bugs they have, why even make the effort to change the filesystem to the inferior system?

[starshipeleven]

rEFInd is a cross-platform bootloader.

Wrong, rEFInd is a EFI boot manager. http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/

It creates a GUI and loads EFI boot loaders but it is not a boot loader itself. For example to boot windows it is still loading and executing Windows's EFI bootloader.

Linux kernel does not need an EFI bootloader at all as it has the EFI stub feature making itself an EFI executable (so it can be loaded and executed raw from UEFI, no bootloader needed). You can literally boot a Linux kernel raw from EFI partition with no bootloader at all if you set the Linux kernel binary as "bootloader" in the UEFI setup or with EFI var manipulation.
This does not mean rEFInd is a bootloader, just that Linux kernel is a very strange animal and can do without boot loaders.

[starshipeleven]

I'm interested whether using a modern file system would make Windows a more bearable experience.

considering how much Windows is always writing and reading from disk for no real reason (cough*spyware*cough), btrfs is not the best fileystem for it. Its features are still leagues better than NTFS, but I guess it won't be integrated in stuff like system restore points (aka btrfs snapshots) and Volume Shadow Copy (aka also btrfs snapshots)

[DMJC]

I'm actually surprised that people are surprised this exists since ReactOS has had BTRFS boot support for about a year now. TBH I don't care about Windows support I just want the X86-64 port of ReactOS along with some better Networking/Windows 95/98 support in ReactOS.

[lectrode]

I thought the original WinBTRFS was based on the ReactOS code?

Incorrect. WinBtrfs (Alpha in February 2016) came long before it was built into ReactOS (July 2018).
The ReactOS dev worked with the WinBtrfs dev to get it fully working.

"WinBtrfs is a Windows driver for the next-generation Linux filesystem Btrfs. A reimplementation from scratch, it contains no code from the Linux kernel, and should work on any version from Windows XP onwards. It is also included as part of the free operating system ReactOS."

[illwieckz]

It could be used by ReactOS as well...

At least ReactOS already know how to boot Windows from Btrfs with their FreeLoader boot loader:

https://twitter.com/reactos/status/1174490301211144192

https://twitter.com/reactos/status/1166154753266442240

Maybe they can team up?

[Nille]

At least ReactOS already know how to boot Windows from Btrfs with their FreeLoader boot loader:
Maybe they can team up?

And because the FreeLoader is a mess he decided to create his own (i guess it was mentioned in a github issue). And to be honest, even in ROS the Freeloader is always a hot topic.