Thank you for testing that.
Your Debian 12 is the same as @Skywalker71 's… both are on ext4 partitions.
So , I think its grub would be the same.
Therefore Debian’s grub can work with Gentoo/btrfs, but it cant work with Fedora/btrfs.
Therefore the problem is with Fedora’s implementaion of btrfs or with @Skywalker71 's installation of Fedora., it is not a grub problem.
Thank you @ihasama , that little test sorted out a lot of issues
Given the problems that @Sheila_Flanagan has had with MX and Garuda
" That is the key. As I said earlier, having a btrfs OS control grub by installing it “after” MX Linux, I had no issues as it incorporated other installs into its grub. It is when you try to install the non-btrfs after the btrfs OS and have it control grub that issues arise."
I think we now understand. … Some distros like Garuda and Fedora implement Btrfs in a way which grub has difficulty with, but other distros like Gentoo implement Btrfs in a more grub-friendly manner.
The details of the difference in implementation remain obscure.
I found an interesting article about the subvolumes and actually found the quote I had seen in getting my MX to control grub over Garuda in this document.
" A freshly created filesystem is also a subvolume, called top-level , internally has an id 5."
I did not know what they were talking about on two different forums when they used the phrase,
So now I know where that came from. Reading this doc might shed some light on the parts we are not understanding and what makes Gentoo different from Fedora or other btrfs.
While searching the internet for a definitive answer, I found this: Multibooting with GRUB | Lorenzo Bettini. But as you all know, I am not an expert like you and just have started my journey in the Linux world, this article went over my head, as expected. The only thing I understood that the grub has to be configured in a different way from within Fedora but I may be wrong. So, the point is, if someone of you my friends, can spare a little from your precious time and make a step by step wiki in a fashion so that a dumb like me can do it on his own, then it will be an honour to me and will be an asset for the Linux world which we could share with other Linux communities giving the due respect and all the credit to the wiki-creator. It will be an asset, really. It will help, not only me but many other Linux entusiasts (which I am not, I am just an user with many questions) out there. But, in case it cannot be done, because it will take a significant amount of time, I will be content with Fedora as it detects all my hardwares and I am very hopeful, that I will be able to make Davinci Resolve detect my AMD GPU with your help and @kovacslt has already helped me a lot.
That is a really good article, but it is mostly about writing custom grub configuration files. You dont need that for simple dual booting with 2 linuxes.
What you want to do is relatively simple, but it is complicated by the choice of Fedora, because Fedora uses Btrfs.
The best way to learn to use grub is to practice. Do lots of installs and read the grub manual
Can’t be Fedora instructed to use ext4 instead?
Btrfs is just a default, isn’t it?
Once I tried OpenSUSE, IIRC it offered btrfs as default but I could choose ext4 and I did.
Just had a quick look into it, kept Debian anyway.
I think that is correct and it may be the best approach for @Skywalker71 .
The filesystem type on the root partition can normally be anything the distros kernel has drivers loaded for.
The drivers have to be in the kernel, not loadable later after booting is completed.
Most Linux kernels have ext4 drivers built in. I would be very surprised if Fedora has taken them out.
I also wonder whether one of the Debian derivatives such as MX, or one of the Ubuntu family such as Mint, would better suit @Skywalker71’s needs. They should detect the hardware that Debian is missing. Fedora is a strange choice for a beginner.
Mint was the distro I used for the longest time before Debian.
So I vote for Mint, if that matters
I admittedly still like it very much, just Debian fits my habit better.
(Just let’s get over the fact they don’t work well on that awkward hardware)
Yes. The btrfs was the default when I tried to install Fedora manually today, after I installed Debian and it was a drop-down menu. So, there must be other options which I didn’t look into. I am a dumb.
Actually, I tried these all… MX, Mint, Debian, Pop, Peppermint, Mint LMDE and Fedora… but except Fedora, none of these distros could detect and access the USB 2 ports. So, to use my flash drives and my WiFi dongle, I am forced to use Fedora. The only problem is it consumes nearly 2GB RAM when idle, which others don’t. Though I think Fedora consumes less RAM than Windows. Am I right or wrong?
I am trying this dual boot just as an experiment because Fedora has fulfilled all my needs right now and I think, I will be able to make the vireo editing softwares ‘see’ my GPU with the help of you, @kovacslt and others. I will give it one last shot. If I succeed, I will use Fedora as my primary OS and Debian to solve its problems like not detecting wifi dongle etc.otherwise I will use only Fedora and @nevj as per my experience, Fedora is much more userfriendly. Installing Fedora from the live USB is much more easy than installing Windows 10. I first installed Fedora in my PC before coming here. It takes normally 4 clicks and if I need to select partition then 5-6 clicks to install it. So, as a user, Fedora is my first choice.
Just find the workaround for these distros, like booting with iommu=soft, or such…
Linux has different desktop environments, I think that’s true for Fedora too.
On a lower-spec computer usually XFCE/MATE is advisable, maybe LxDE.
On a better computer KDE, Cinnamon may work, they are more full-flegded, but require more resources.
And so on towards GNOME…
I suspect, you have Fedora with a more demanding DE. maybe?
I would not worry anyway, RAM is there to be used, right?
Debian on my desktop with GNOME takes alone ~1.3GB
OK, I get it, grub-btrfs is an extension to grub2. It is not required to boot an OS with a btrfs filesystem
That Gentoo Wiki info clarifies everything.
Grub2 (without grub-btrfs) does support booting from a btrfs filesystem
So
The problems @Sheila_Flanagan and @Skywalker71 are having must be due to
Fedora and Garuda not implementing btrfs properly to work with grub2
I am in awe of your collective expertise. I just use grub-customizer or interrupt the boot sequence to go to the boot menu. Failing either of those, Emmabuntus has a local grub updater in its menu. Or I just flush it all and start over, since all my data is elsewhere and nobody depends on me for anything.
Btw, I’m having some fun with FunOS, a newer Ubuntu respin. It has an interesting take on package management.
I have just started a fresh dual boot installation of Debian and Fedora. Before doing this, I had deleted all the partition in the disk and then partitoned it into two equal size of 232.88GB partitions using Windows disk management and formatted them in exFAT file system. After that I have installed Debian first using the live USB. No cuatom partition. Now I am installing Fedora 41 using live USB. As I am using Ventoy, on booting from live USB it gave me two choices:
Boot into Normal mode
Boot into Grub2 mode
Though I don’t know anything about the ‘Grub2’ but in the process of searching and learning, somewhere I read that Grub2 gives more choices, I don’t know what they are, though.
Now tell me what should I do when I am in the ‘INSTALLATION DESTINATION’ page, ‘Custom’ or 'Advanced Custom (Blivet-GUI)?
Update 1: ‘Blivet-GUI’ is a page with a graphical interface. See the picture below
Normal mode: UEFI boot.
Grub2 mode: Legacy (MBR) boot
You shoold boot the installer in the mode you whish to install - most probably UEFI mode = Normal mode.
But for UEFI you are going to need a 3rd partition, EFI system partition, formatted to FAT32, size about 250MB.
Additionally the partition table has to be GPT, not MBR.
I chose ‘Grub2’ mode as I have disabled UEFI in BIOS as I saw when the disk is partitioned under UEFI and GPT, it does not recognise the disks with MBR partition table.
Now, see the below images and let me know what to choose:
1.
