Hi there!
I have a PC that runs Windows because of some Windows-only software. I personally only use atomic desktops as they are sooo much less of a pain compared to dnf fedora, especially when abandoning the Linux system for months.
Does dual-boot work? Are there known tricks?
My last state was that it does not work, at least when using grub to boot into Windows. I suppose that rpm-ostree would mess with the grub sorting?
Interesting issues
opened 11:29AM - 19 May 22 UTC
enhancement
upstream
kinoite
This issue tracker is intended only for Silverblue specific issues. We would lik… e to ask you to try to reproduce the issue on a relevant Fedora Workstation release. If you will be able to reproduce there, then please report it in Red Hat Bugzilla or in upstream (preferred for GNOME projects) and not in this issue tracker.
**Describe the bug**
Though this is a known issue, after hoping against hope that some progress might have been made on this since F34, anaconda once again fails to install Silverblue F36 onto a computer with one or more existing operating systems properly and stops before the EFI boot configuration is correctly written.
I have tried to repair the boot configuration myself, but I was not certain what layout anaconda would have used. At the moment, the root mount is a btrfs subvol ("root-0"). There are no other subvols. I can manually copy the GRUB boot commands from another machine to boot, but hit another problem as the root is mounted read only, which includes the /boot directory. Subsequent updates to the boot entries fail for this reason.
Is there a reference somewhere that I can use to understand the default mount layout in Silverblue? Do I need another subvol to mount /boot rw?
**To Reproduce**
Please describe the steps needed to reproduce the bug:
1. Download F36 image and write to USB flash memory storage.
2. On a computer with EFI firmware and an existing OS, boot from the storage.
3. Start the installation.
4. Press Ctrl+F2 to access a shell and do not attempt automount.
5. Mount the EFI partition in a directory under /mnt, rw.
6. Rename the 'EFI' directory to 'EFI2'. _(This is a suggested mitigation for the issue)_
7. Unmount the partition and press Ctrl+F5 to return to the anaconda GUI.
4. Manually configure a new btrfs partition and subvol from free space in blivet-gui, assigning the mount point '/'. Set the existing EFI partition as mount point '/boot/efi'.
8. Press 'Done' and continue the installation.
**Expected behavior**
Congratulations! Silverblue is successfully installed. Instead of a dialog box indicating a fatal error completing an "ostree admin" command.
tqcharm
March 22, 2025, 10:25am
3
In the logged issue tracking the state of Fedora Atomic dual booting , there are reports in the comments of successful Silverblue and Kinoite installations alongside Windows.
1 Like
siosm
March 24, 2025, 10:10am
4
The recommended option is to keep a distinct ESP for each system and use the EFI firmware to switch between boot entries instead of using GRUB.
1 Like
Thanks! ESP means /boot/efi partition, right?
siosm
March 24, 2025, 11:49am
6
Yes. ESP = EFI System Partition
1 Like