Update Boot Manager Options

When selecting a device to boot an OS from you may see old entries for operating systems that have previously been installed on the drive - especially if you distro hop or have installed Windows before.

You can manage these options in Linux using efibootmgr. To view the current list of boot options run:

$ efibootmgr

That will return something like this:

BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0005,0002,0006,0001,0003,0004
Boot0000* Fedora
Boot0001  USB NETWORK BOOT:
Boot0002* WDC PC SN720 SDAQNTW-512G-1001-183935806637
Boot0003* Wi-Fi IPV4 Network
Boot0004* Wi-Fi IPV6 Network
Boot0005  USB:
Boot0006  USB NETWORK BOOT:

If there’s an entry you want to delete, you can delete it as follows, where --bootnum is the number at the end of the first column. So Boot0004 is 4. Example below.

$ efibootmgr --bootnum 4 --delete-bootnum

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I'm a technology professional who's been passionate about computers since my Grandad introduced me to an Intel 386 back in the 90s when I was a kid. Those moments inspired a passion within for technology, and I've been playing around with anything with a circuit board ever since. Whenever I have a moment you can probably find me working on something computer-related, and this is where I like to write about those moments.