Simple Hardware Switch For OS Dualbooting, Thanks To RP2040

Dualbooting your computer can be a chore, the additional switching concerning OSes you have to do – which is why virtualization or acquiring separate desktops are the go-to for several. Failing that, we have no decision but to sleek about our dualbooting expertise with a variety of workarounds and helpers. [William Somsky] shares a person this sort of helper instrument with us – an elegant gadget built with a RP2040-sporting TinyPICO board and a three-way rocker switch, directing GRUB to boot into both Home windows or Linux quickly, or go away us with the standard boot menu. This way, you can just flip the change, hit “reboot” and wander absent, coming back to your Personal computer booted into OS of your choice, as an alternative of timing your presence just so that you can catch the boot menu on time.

All you need to have to do is to solder a rocker switch to your RP2040 board of option, then flash the RP2040 with code that detects the condition of the change, and produces a mass storage unit internet hosting a file environment a Grub variable to either just one of the , 1 or 2. [William] describes his journey, battling mysterious caching troubles, but tells us he acquired it doing the job in the conclusion. Unfortunately, [William] hasn’t shared the RP2040-aspect code with us, but he has at minimum put the Grub’s customized.cfg file in the ‘Files’ area of the Hackaday.io venture.

Quickly obtainable microcontrollers with mass storage capabilities guaranteed help make these kinds of hacks uncomplicated – previously, we have seen dualboot switching like this performed by modifying assembly code of the MBR. Dualbooting is a hacker’s ceremony of passage, and certain OSes of late can make it harder than other types. Even if you don’t want to dualboot your Computer system, nevertheless, you guaranteed can dualboot an Arduino!