- the same disk is now impossible/harder to boot in another system/mainboard.
- no more choice between different kernels in case the newest one broke something
- to change the cmdline with kenel parameters you now need to run efibootmgr
Still, the quick boot can be worth it :-)
It's the most simple boot setup I've ever used, and it doesn't have the mentioned issues:
> the same disk is now impossible/harder to boot in another system/mainboard.
Just go and select your UKI in the EFI boot-manger. Works on every modern system OOTB.
> no more choice between different kernels in case the newest one broke something
You can have more than one UKI around. You can, for example, have even one with a whole recovery system included in the initrd part!
> to change the cmdline with kenel parameters you now need to run efibootmgr
You only need to recreate the UKI with an updated command line. No change to the boot-manager needed.
Also a UKI has a better security story compared to all other options. You have only one signed EFI binary. No need for complex setups that validate the initrd after the fact, as everything is included in the UKI and signed as a whole.
Have this setup on my Debian box but used actually the superior documentation form the Arch wiki to get there.
I just recently switched all of my Arch boxes to this setup. The first was so I could enable Secure Boot on that machine, the rest just because it felt so much simpler and cleaner than Grub. Actually, the last one just stopped booting entirely with Grub but worked just fine with UKI.
> You can have more than one UKI around. You can, for example, have even one with a whole recovery system included in the initrd part!
Same! I was considering writing up how to do this for the Arch wiki since it’s handy and I couldn’t find any complete guides.
Ah, I see. That's a deal breaker for me. Switching to an older kernel has saved me many times, usually when I completely mess up my nvidia drivers.