Dual Booting NixOS and Windows: Difference between revisions

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-This article explains various methods to have the bootloader prompt whether to boot windows or NixOS.
+This section explains various methods to have the bootloader prompt whether to boot windows or NixOS.
-== Autodetection with os-prober ==
+== Autodetection ==
+=== systemd-boot ===
+When {{ic|systemd-boot}} is installed to the same EFI System Partition (ESP) that Windows uses, it will automatically detect the Windows installation ({{ic|/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi}}) and present it as a boot option.
+You can verify detected boot loaders by running the {{ic|bootctl}} command.
+A system pre-installed with Windows might have a small ESP partition size that is not sufficient to store the kernel and initrd files for multiple NixOS generations. One solution is to create an additional [https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/boot_loader_specification/#the-partitions XBOOTLDR] partition and configure {{ic|systemd-boot}} to use it:
+{{File|/etc/nixos/configuration.nix|nix|<nowiki>
+{
+  fileSystems."/boot" =
+    { device = "/dev/disk/by-uuid/57D4-A2B2";
+      fsType = "vfat";
+    };
+  fileSystems."/efi" =
+    { device = "/dev/disk/by-uuid/3280-5418";
+      fsType = "vfat";
+    };
+  boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable = true;
+  boot.loader.efi.canTouchEfiVariables = true;
+  boot.loader.efi.efiSysMountPoint = "/efi";
+  boot.loader.systemd-boot.xbootldrMountPoint = "/boot";
+}
+</nowiki>}}
+=== os-prober ===
 <code>os-prober</code> is a tool to autodetect which other systems are present on the machine. Grub can be
@@ Line 10: / Line 39: @@
    # ...
    boot.loader.grub.enable = true;
-  boot.loader.grub.version = 2;
+   boot.loader.grub.device = "nodev";
-   boot.loader.grub.device = "/dev/sda";
    boot.loader.grub.useOSProber = true;
    # ...
@@ Line 17: / Line 45: @@
 }</nowiki>}}
-== Manual bootloader configuration ==
+== Manual configuration ==
 In case <code>os-prober</code> does not detect your windows partition you can configure your bootloader manually to find it.
@@ Line 24: / Line 52: @@
 All MBR bootloaders will need at least some configuration to chainload Windows.
-==== Grub  ====
+==== Grub ====
 Here is an example config:
@@ Line 32: / Line 60: @@
    # ...
    boot.loader.grub.enable = true;
-  boot.loader.grub.version = 2;
    boot.loader.grub.device = "/dev/sda";
    boot.loader.grub.extraEntries = ''
@@ Line 42: / Line 69: @@
 Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/31lx3i/windows_and_nixos_dual_boot/
-=== EFI ===
+=== UEFI ===
 After setting up a 256mb EFI Partition dualboot should work out of the box (at least for windows10)
-Source: https://zimbatm.com/journal/2016/09/09/nixos-window-dual-boot/
+Source: https://zimbatm.com/journal/2016/09/09/nixos-window-dual-boot/ ([https://web.archive.org/web/20170523065625/https://zimbatm.com/journal/2016/09/09/nixos-window-dual-boot/ Archive.org Mirror])
+Here is another article that documents dual booting NixOS and Windows on a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (6th Gen): https://github.com/andywhite37/nixos/blob/master/DUAL_BOOT_WINDOWS_GUIDE.md
 ==== Grub ====
-<nowiki>systemd-boot</nowiki> can not load EFI binaries from other partitions,
-and a pre-exisitng EFI partition from a Windows install may be smaller than we would like our <nowiki>/boot</nowiki> partition to be. If we still want Windows and NixOS to use the same EFI partition, we can use GRUB instead.
 Here we assume:
@@ Line 84: / Line 110: @@
            insmod search_fs_uuid
            insmod chain
-           search --fs--uid --set=root $FS_UUID
+           search --fs-uuid --set=root $FS_UUID
            chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
          }
@@ Line 93: / Line 119: @@
 }</nowiki>}}
-Sources:
+==== EFI with multiple disks ====
-* [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#Windows_installed_in_UEFI-GPT_Mode_menu_entry Arch Wiki GRUB article]
+When Windows is installed on another disk with a separate EFI partition, the following might work:
+{{File|/etc/nixos/configuration.nix|nix|<nowiki>
+{ config, ... }:
+{
+  boot.loader = {
+    efi.canTouchEfiVariables = true;
+    grub = {
+      enable = true;
+      devices = [ "nodev" ];
+      efiSupport = true;
+      useOSProber = true;
+    };
+  };
+}</nowiki>}}
+== System time ==
+System clock might be incorrect after booting Windows and going back to the NixOS. It can be fixed by either setting RTC time standard to UTC on Windows, or setting it to localtime on NixOS.
+Setting RTC time standard to localtime, compatible with Windows in its default configuration:
+{{file|/etc/nixos/configuration.nix|nix|<nowiki>
+{
+  time.hardwareClockInLocalTime = true;
+}</nowiki>}}
+See [https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System_time#Time_standard Arch Linux wiki#System time].
+== See also ==
+* [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#Windows_installed_in_UEFI-GPT_Mode_menu_entry Arch Linux wiki#GRUB]
 * [https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/modules/system/boot/loader/grub/install-grub.pl NixOS GRUB installer] (check the code block beginning with <nowiki># install EFI GRUB</nowiki>)
+[[Category:Cookbook]][[Category:NixOS]]