{"slug": "zfsbootmenu", "name": "ZFSBootMenu", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "", "recommenders": 2, "commenters": 3, "warners": 0, "score": 1.337, "rising": -0.65, "first": "2025-11-25", "latest": "2026-04-26", "why": "I switched to ZFS with ZFSBootMenu[2] and never looked back.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": false, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I switched to ZFS with ZFSBootMenu[2] and never looked back.", "icon": false, "domain": "zfsbootmenu.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://zfsbootmenu.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["ZFSBootMenu"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 743570389, "item_id": 46473149, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46473149", "by": "sandreas", "date": "2026-01-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to ZFS with ZFSBootMenu[2] and never looked back.", "excerpt": "Long time Linux Desktop user here. I really think Linux is a great choice as a Desktop in days of liquid glass and webviews. There are a lot of choices to make, but in the end it is working out really well (at least for me). KDE and the new COSMIC desktop environment with tiling support are tempting, but for now I keep using GNOME until I have more time to check them out. The things I personally had problems with is ", "context": "Long time Linux Desktop user", "use_case": "boot manager for ZFS", "switched_from": "", "story": "2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop"}, {"id": 736735425, "item_id": 46045964, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46045964", "by": "chungy", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Definitely worth looking into", "excerpt": "I use ZFS on both my desktop and laptop each with Linux (in addition to a server, also running ZFS, but on FreeBSD). It's actually really not terribly hard, but I might be biased since I've been doing since it 2011 :) If you can/are willing to use UEFI, ZFSBootMenu is a Linux oriented solution that replicates the power of FreeBSD's bootloader, so you can manage snapshots and boot environments and rollback checkpoints", "context": "", "use_case": "boot environments and snapshots", "switched_from": "", "story": "Unpowered SSDs slowly lose data"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "sandreas", "context": "Long time Linux Desktop user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46473149", "date": "2026-01-02"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["booting encrypted zfs root", "boot zfs", "boot manager for zfs", "boot environments and snapshots"], "compared": [{"slug": "zfs", "name": "ZFS", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47909226", "title": "Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47756876", "title": "Just Enough Chimera Linux", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46471199", "title": "2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46038099", "title": "Unpowered SSDs slowly lose data", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 766569441, "item_id": 47910590, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47910590", "by": "sandreas", "date": "2026-04-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "there has to be a macOS partition for maintenance ruling out ZFSBootMenu", "excerpt": "While I love Asahi as such and am really blown away by the effort, my setup requires an encrypted ZFS root file system, which is unreasonably hard to achieve with a Mac. The fact, that there has to be a macOS partition for maintenance ruling out ZFSBootMenu somehow is very unfortunate - but I've accepted it. Maybe the new Framework 13 Pro will be at least in the region of an alternative... :-/", "context": "", "use_case": "booting encrypted ZFS root", "switched_from": "", "story": "Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0"}, {"id": 764153730, "item_id": 47759608, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47759608", "by": "JCattheATM", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "ZBM is available in the community repo", "excerpt": "This seems interesting, but I've been using Alpine as a desktop distro wth ZFS for years now, it has native support and ZBM is available in the community repo. Not sure what advantages Chimera would add.", "context": "", "use_case": "boot ZFS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Just Enough Chimera Linux"}, {"id": 743570389, "item_id": 46473149, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46473149", "by": "sandreas", "date": "2026-01-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to ZFS with ZFSBootMenu[2] and never looked back.", "excerpt": "Long time Linux Desktop user here. I really think Linux is a great choice as a Desktop in days of liquid glass and webviews. There are a lot of choices to make, but in the end it is working out really well (at least for me). KDE and the new COSMIC desktop environment with tiling support are tempting, but for now I keep using GNOME until I have more time to check them out. The things I personally had problems with is ", "context": "Long time Linux Desktop user", "use_case": "boot manager for ZFS", "switched_from": "", "story": "2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop"}, {"id": 736735425, "item_id": 46045964, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46045964", "by": "chungy", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Definitely worth looking into", "excerpt": "I use ZFS on both my desktop and laptop each with Linux (in addition to a server, also running ZFS, but on FreeBSD). It's actually really not terribly hard, but I might be biased since I've been doing since it 2011 :) If you can/are willing to use UEFI, ZFSBootMenu is a Linux oriented solution that replicates the power of FreeBSD's bootloader, so you can manage snapshots and boot environments and rollback checkpoints", "context": "", "use_case": "boot environments and snapshots", "switched_from": "", "story": "Unpowered SSDs slowly lose data"}]}