Good morning everyone! I have a dual-boot setup with Batocera and Bazzite, and I'm looking for help on how to eliminate the need for a keyboard during boot. Right now, when I start my system, I have to hit F11 to select which device to boot from, and I want to streamline that process.
Currently, my setup goes like this: Drive 1 boots, then Drive 2. Ideally, I'd like it to boot from a USB drive first, which would target Drive 2, so if the USB is unplugged, it defaults to Drive 1. I'm not really sure if this is possible, but I figured someone here might have some insights!
3 Answers
A potential solution could be installing GRUB on the USB drive. You can configure it to boot directly into Drive 2. The system doesn't care where the bootloader is located as long as it's set up correctly.
Honestly, it sounds like you're making this more complicated than it has to be. You still need some kind of keyboard to set this up. You could get a mini keyboard and keep it tucked away for when you need it. For your USB device, you can set it as the default boot option in most BIOS settings—just rearrange the boot order. If the USB isn’t connected, it’ll skip to the next device. Have you thought about managing the dual boot right from the hard drives instead? It might be better to grab another drive for that if your current drives are full. It would be faster too!
I have two drives already for the dual boot: an m2 for Bazzite and a 1TB for Batocera. Sorry if I wasn't clear. Ideally, I want the USB to trigger Booting from the Bazzite drive, otherwise default to the Batocera drive. Is there a way to make that happen?
Sounds like a neat setup, but having something recognized automatically like that could be tricky. You'll likely need a keyboard at least for the configuration part.
You could set custom boot rules in most BIOS. Have you checked if yours allows that? It might solve your issue if you can prioritize the USB drive automatically on boot.
I'll take another look, but the most I managed was to set USB as a boot device. I thought I needed a clear way to link it back to Drive 2, though. Maybe I missed an option?
That sounds promising! I'll check out GRUB and see if it helps me achieve what I'm looking for. Thanks for the tip!