Ubuntu Developers Figuring Out Dual-Boot Changes Ahead Of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

[cl333r]

But if just mounting a filesystem is a security issue then how the hell is anyone supposed to detect other OSes?

Thus the real problem to address isn't GRUB, it's the "file-system vulnerabilities".

[Old Grouch]

How about some reading comprehension guys. If actually read the Article.
rEFInd only works on EFI/UEFI systems. The problem is os-prober being used for BIOS/MBR systems.
The security issue is bogus on many levels. It requires physical access to the system for exploitation. Plus the Linux lived could just as easily mount the partitions.

Sorry for contributing to thread-drift/derail/off-topic discussions.

[rclark]

The security issue is bogus on many levels. It requires physical access to the system for exploitation. Plus the Linux lived could just as easily mount the partitions.

This... Security paranoia gone wild. If someone has physical access, they can do anything, even take the device from the premises. I think this is looking for a solution to a non-existent problem.

That said, isn't dual booting on the decline? I know for me, I have a base OS (Linux) on all my systems, and any other OS is just loaded as a VM if needed.

[bemerk]

Hopefully they solve the 1-2h clock skew by dualbooting with windows alongside that.
It confuses people

[relsi1053]

or just don't use grub

[krzyzowiec]

This... Security paranoia gone wild. If someone has physical access, they can do anything, even take the device from the premises. I think this is looking for a solution to a non-existent problem.

That said, isn't dual booting on the decline? I know for me, I have a base OS (Linux) on all my systems, and any other OS is just loaded as a VM if needed.

Yeah I stopped using Windows a while ago. I was dual booting for games, but honestly games run really well in Linux now with wine/vulkan (and I don't play as much as before). Rebooting to change operating systems is a pain. I think it is only useful for newcomers who are dipping their toes into Linux, but aren't sure if they can manage without Windows.

[Rallos Zek]

Time to move on from grub

No thanks! No other boot loader is as stable, high quality and works on with as many Operating Systems and filesystems as GRUB does.

[ehansin]

I dual-boot, need Windows for work among other things. But I also want my Linux install, I want to start using it for "development" type work. I did a minimal install of Fedora 35 and Grub2 is not ideal, though not a deal breaker either. Sounds like switching to "systemd-boot" is doable, but also has caveats. I was aware of rEFInd, but never used it. I may give it a go...

Some of what I am reading here makes me think of Ventoy for creating an installer USB that can boot multiple ISO images, don't know exactly how it works, but it does create some sort "shim" boot partition on the USB stick that can then boot ISO images that a user places in a second partition. Super slick.

If rEFInd is at a simple level just a file in the EFI partion (I am sure there is more than that, but...), I am sort of envisioning that it is really just a sort of EFI "payload" (might not be right term) that can then pass off booting to the actual OS (or whatever) you are looking for. Anyway, in my head seeing these parallels even if I am off-base a bit. Thinking of giving it a try!

[rbmorse]

If rEFInd is at a simple level just a file in the EFI partion

The rEFInd home page will tell you everything you want to know about rEFInd as well as more than you'll want to know about booting EFI PCs.

www.rodsbooks.com/refind

[skeevy420]

Hopefully they solve the 1-2h clock skew by dualbooting with windows alongside that.
It confuses people

That's usually due to BIOS/UEFI and Windows using your time zone and Linux using UTC. Here's more details and some fixes.