NextBoot

A system tray bootloader selector. Set which boot entry to use on next reboot without leaving your desktop.

Why?

Switching between operating systems on Linux desktops usually means:

• chainloading through another bootloader
• opening temporary boot menus
• manually running efibootmgr / grub-reboot

This tool puts the last workflow into a tray icon.

It is primarily designed for UEFI systems using separate EFI entries, where direct BootNext switching is often more reliable than chainloading.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• PyQt5

Usage

python main.py

Tray icon actions

Button	Action
Left	Cycle to the next boot entry & notify
Middle	Confirm & reboot
Right	Context menu (pick entry, edit config, quit)

Configuration

On first run a default config is created at ~/.config/NextBoot/config.json.

{
  "boot_entries": [
    {
      "name": "Windows",
      "set_command": "efibootmgr -n 0000",
      "skip_cycle": false
    },
    { 
      "name": "uEFI Firmware (Immediately) (Example)",
      "set_command": "systemctl reboot --firmware-setup",
      "skip_cycle": true
    },
    { 
      "name": "Linux",
      "set_command": "efibootmgr -n 0002",
      "skip_cycle": false
    }
  ],
  "reboot_command": "systemctl reboot",
  "editor_command": "xdg-open"
}

• boot_entries — list of entries shown in the tray menu.
  • name — display label.
  • set_command — shell command to set this entry as next boot. No requirements of pkexec or sudo, helper will executue it as root.
  • skip_cycle — if some command will execute immediately, this switch can exclude this section from being rolled and reboot your computer accidentally.
• reboot_command — command executed on middle-click reboot.
• editor_command — program used to open the config file (right-click → Edit Config).