efifs VS refind-btrfs

See also UEFI drivers that can read a bunch of other file systems (btrfs, ext2/3/4, HFS, ISO, NTFS, UFS/FFS, XFS, ZFS, etc):

* https://efi.akeo.ie

* https://github.com/pbatard/efifs

The UEFI spec specifies (§13.3) that firmware is only required to read FAT32/16/12, which is generally why your /boot/efi is VFAT/FAT32.

In theory you would still need a FAT32 efi 'stub' partition with the exFAT filesystem drivers which you have to load before loading the WinPE loader (bootmgfw.efi).

I am pretty sure that that I am doing something incorrectly with the configuration files for the rEFInd bootloader, but everything else should be correct. However, as I write this, I barely realized did I not use the following commands recommended from the "Usage" section from the aforementioned website where I downloaded the zfs_x64.efi driver file for rEFInd:

I found the drivers here https://efi.akeo.ie/ . Which means, that any EFI bootloader able to load them will be able to use them. They are not for bootloader, but it is the firmware which will use them. As i said, i am little bit afraid that it will not work on any board as some manufacturers have pretty buggy firmware when talking about infrequently used features. Also i am bit unsure they will work with secure boot as they are gpl3 thus will be never signed by Microsoft and i don't know what UEFI requirements for drivers are in this regard.

Even for those using systemd-boot with custom efi drivers to provide functionality, it's worth noting that those drivers are being developed downstream of GRUB.

I think you can also add btrfs filesystem support for sd-boot by including the EFI drivers for it on the EFI partition instead, from https://github.com/pbatard/efifs/releases I think. Haven't tried it myself though.

EFI doesn't actually mandate FAT for the system partition. The system partition can be any filesystem that the firmware supports.

Of course, pretty much all EFI implementations only support FAT, so it's a bit of a moot point; the only one I'm aware of that supports anything else is the one on Intel Macs, which also understands HFS+.

You can find a huge selection of EFI filesystem drivers at https://efi.akeo.ie/ but they're derived from GRUB and hence GPL, so don't expect the likes of American Megatrends to be bundling these any time soon.

Then you need a service that will check snapshots folder and automatically create boot entries. I have refind-btrfs, which does exactly that.

rEFInd can also be used to boot into Btrfs snapshots using this automation tool.

Yes, see refind-btrfs

It's a actually third party tool which simply automates the whole process because enabling such a feature manually is pretty cumbersome and annoying.

In a similar vein, there's also https://github.com/Venom1991/refind-btrfs.

Especially when using refind-btrfs. "This tool is used to automate a few tedious tasks required to boot into Btrfs snapshots from rEFInd. It is to rEFInd what grub-btrfs is to GRUB.". It works great.

Well.. The same way GRUB has grub-btrfs, rEFInd has refind-btrfs, which automates the whole process of booting your snapshots. Maybe you could give rEFInd a try. And honestly, I don't think that the GRUB issue will happen again. I'm using Linux for ages and it's the first time I saw it messing stuff up. Sorry if not answers your questions directly.

Like GRUB has grub-btrfs to automate this process, refind has refind-btrfs. I never tested grub-btrfs, but refind-btrfs is awesome.

I'm using snapper with refind-btrfs. The setup was confusing at first but now it works nicely.