Confusing and misleading warning about "No EFI system partition configured"
VERSIONS:
Calamares installer on Manjaro 21.1.4 (and previous versions too)
SUMMARY:
If a user manually creates a new EFI partition (or uses an existing one), the Calamares installer will complain that "No EFI system partition configured" if the partition is smaller than 300 MiB.
Not only is the warning untrue (since an EFI system partition does exist and is flagged as "boot"), but to enforce a 300 MiB minimum size is unwarranted.
Windows 10 installations use a 100 MiB EFI partition. This is still plenty of room to dual, triple, and quad boot, if the only things that exist in the partition are EFI boot loaders.
Where a larger size is needed is when the user intentionally copies the kernel and initramfs to the EFI partition, such as when using systemd-boot. In this case, they should either be aware of the size requirements, or the Calamares installer can instead provide a more clear warning about the smaller size.
PROPOSAL:
- Change the minimum accepted size to 100 MiB (to honor existing Windows 10 systems)
- Provide a more appropriate warning message if the user chooses an EFI partition size smaller than 300 MiB
EXAMPLE:
"You have chosen to use an EFI system partition that is smaller than 300 MiB. While this can safely work for most systems, be aware that if you later decide to switch to an alternative boot method, such as systemd-boot, this EFI system partition may not be sufficient in size to store multiple kernels and initial ramdisks."
"Do you wish to continue?"
The user is given the option to continue or go back to make changes.
ADDENDUM:
This is not meant as a substitute for cases when the user forgets to create and/or use an EFI system partition. In that case, the original warning is warranted because no such EFI partition has been selected.