systemd-boot
A simple UEFI boot manager.
systemd-boot is a small UEFI boot manager that picks an EFI boot image based on a configuration in the EFI System Partition. It does not load Linux kernels itself; instead it relies on UEFI's ability to load PE images, including the Linux kernel directly via the EFI stub. The configuration is plain-text loader entries in /boot/loader/entries — much simpler than GRUB's generated configuration.
systemd-boot only works on UEFI systems and only supports booting EFI-stub-capable kernels (which all modern Linux kernels are). It does not support BIOS boot, GRUB-style boot encryption configurations, or some of the more elaborate multi-OS scenarios GRUB handles. In exchange, it is dramatically simpler.
The boot manager originated as gummiboot before being merged into the systemd project as systemd-boot in 2015. It is the default boot manager on several modern distributions for UEFI systems, including the Pop!_OS family and many minimalist Arch configurations. The "bootctl" command manages installation and upgrades.
License: LGPL-2.1-or-later
Category: System
Website: https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/systemd-boot/
Install
Ships with systemd. To install on the EFI system partition: bootctl install
Authors
- systemd project