Boot Management
clr-boot-manager
Solus leverages clr-boot-manager from the Clear Linux* project to manage its boot process.
On legacy BIOS systems, clr-boot-manager will configure GRUB2 to properly boot your system.
On modern UEFI systems, clr-boot-manager will configure systemd-boot instead.
This means that any time we want to modify the boot process, clr-boot-manager will be involved.
Trying to modify the configurations manually may work temporarily, but will be overwritten eventually.
Open the boot menu
By default, EFI installs will not show the boot menu and boot directly into Solus. By hitting space bar (repeatedly) during boot, the boot menu will appear (it may take a couple of goes to get the timing right).
Displaying the boot menu by default every boot
The following command will set the timeout of the boot loader to five seconds so that it appears by default:
sudo clr-boot-manager set-timeout 5 && sudo clr-boot-manager update
Adding kernel parameters
Kernel parameters can be appended to boot via creating a file for clr-boot-manager to use when updating kernels. For example, to add nomodeset to boot options, you would create a file in /etc/kernel/cmdline.d (as sudo):
sudo mkdir -p /etc/kernel/cmdline.d
echo 'nomodeset' | sudo tee /etc/kernel/cmdline.d/40_nomodeset.conf
The settings should be on one line with a space between them. You will need to run sudo clr-boot-manager update for the options to be appended to boot.
Kernels
Installing a different kernel branch
By default, Solus utilizes our linux-current kernel. The separate kernel branches can be added by installing the linux-lts or linux-current packages. Note that each kernel has separate module packages, so if you use these kernel modules, you'll need to install the one related to the kernel you are adding.
| linux-lts | linux-current |
|---|---|
| bbswitch | bbswitch-current |
| broadcom-sta | broadcom-sta-current |
| linux-lts-headers | linux-current-headers |
| nvidia-470-glx-driver | nvidia-470-glx-driver-current |
| nvidia-beta-driver | nvidia-beta-driver-current |
| nvidia-developer-driver | nvidia-developer-driver-current |
| nvidia-glx-driver | nvidia-glx-driver-current |
| openrazer | openrazer-current |
| rtl8852bu | rtl8852bu-current |
| v4l2loopback | v4l2loopback-current |
| vhba-module | vhba-module-current |
| virtualbox | virtualbox-current |
| xone | xone-current |
Change the default kernel branch to boot
After successfully booting into a kernel from the current or lts branches running sudo clr-boot-manager update will make the booted kernel branch the default boot option going forward.