Multi-boot EndeavourOS wish list

Because you can! :grin: Great work ! Looks nice. How did you add that background?

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@2000 posted it above for my use, , after I expressed a wish that I could create something like it. You can see why I thought it was worth pursuing! I think it came out quite well - I think I’ll keep the look for now. I am trying to thing of what else I can add to a ‘wiki part2’ if I do one. Should I make Anarchy behave first? :grin:

Freebird54

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@freebird54
Well …i finally did something. Manjaro is also not very co-operative. It shows no EFi folders … i can’t find them and it puts refind in /usr/share! :hot_face: Anyway i managed to tweak out something at least for all your hard efforts! It wasn’t easy because of these issues.

Thanks! @freebird54

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Edit: By the way. Why does yours have more icons on the bottom tools?

There can, apparently be up to 10 tools defined to be there. I guess it decides which ones to deploy when it is installed. For instance, Windows recovery is not needed here, nor some Mac specific stuff. The 2 items you’re not showing are MOK (secure boot enabler) and firmware updater. Maybe there’s a setting in /boot/efi/EFI/refind/refind.conf that hides them? - or maybe Secure boot being on at one time on my system caused the extras…

Glad to see you got something working right - it obviously wasn’t YOU that had the problem! :grin: - just Anarchy…

Have you decided what kind of look you would like now that it works? There’s quite a few, especially ‘minimalist’, themes out there. A whack of them are on Github, complete with detailed instructions on installatoin - or just do what I did and substitute a background in - maybe with icon size changes. Minimal work for maximum impact…!

Freebird54

Ya i might work on that and try to figure it out. I tried to at first set i up in Manjaro but it’s also a little troublesome. I’m just not used to all the differences in desktops and files browsers etc. I don’t know exactly where the background image comes in if it’s in the same folder or another. I like what you have done with the endeavouros background it’s really tasteful. :+1:

I can’t take much credit for that, though - the original picture (in the installer, for one place) looked pretty much the same! I just 'implemented ’ it or ‘enlivened’ it!

If you can figure out what resolution your rEFInd shows up in (a screenshot - hit - should tell you as it saves a .bmp file in EFI) - then copying a background you like into /boot/efi/EFI/refind, and giving the filename to the ‘banner’ specification in refind.conf will work fine. That’s all I did for the screenshot in the wiki entry. A slow cruise through the refind.conf will net you ideas I’m sure - although most of it needn’t apply!

As for the differences in DE’s - I find that XFCE and Cinnamon are the most ‘aligned’ with my ways of working, and KDE Plasma is the least fitted to my style. I can’t even find a way to (for instance) look at the contents of /boot/efi/EFI in the file browser! Mate is old Gnome in effect (OK - but old is the operative keyword), Deepin needs figuring out, LXQt so far is ugly (to me) and Budgie and Gnome just don’t seem to fit me. What I really enjoyed was Unity on Ubuntu, but they dropped it (sigh) and it is too much hassle to bring it back to life now. You CAN use compiz though (effects and window management) together with XFCE quite successfully)…

Oh well - just my opinions - and the exact reason that 8 DE’s come with EndeavourOS!

Freebird54

Well i’m a Cinnamon user mostly too but have gotten to like a few others lately.

So i’m a little confused with the instructions and the setup. So in order to put a background in rEFind. I can’t even find the existing file it uses. Also there are two refind.conf files. The one is in /boot and i assume that is the one it uses called refind_linux.conf. The other one is in /boot/efi/EFI/refind called refind.conf and it has everything commented out. I assume this one is just instructions although i don’t understand some of what it tells you. It’s not specific enough. :persevere:

I have a wiki2 written that will address some of this stuff - we’ll see if @manuel picks it up. Anyway…

The general stuff that rEFInd has installed, including the banner file that is the default, is in /usr/share/refind on the distro you installed it to. The banner is just that - the refind logo, and is displayed centred in the top half of the screen. The top left pixel of the banner .png is used to pick the background colour of the rest of the display. So - you could make the background purple by loading the/usr/share/refind/images/refind-banner.png into a paint program, and changing the top left pixel purple!

If, however, you specify a full-size banner in the refind.conf file, you lose the ‘original’ banner, unless you add it back in with the paint program (as you have seen on my multi-boot screens - no banner). But it can look pretty!

Now - the difference between refind.conf and refind-linux.conf:

refind.conf is found (in endvr) at /boot/efi/EFI/refind/ It controls the actions and setup of rEFInd itself. Setting here include the banner, where to look for boot files, screen res, icon size, which tools to show and on and on.

refind-linux.conf is found (if it is to work right!) in the same directgory as the boot files. It describes HOW the accompanying boot should be presented for booting. It is the one that says where the root= will be, how to load other stuff (initramfs etc) and what options should go with it. Thnings such as rw (read/write) quiet (no green OK’s on the screen) loglevel (if desired) etc. There should be one for each distro on the system.

Freebird54

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In Manjaro or Windows i just don’t see these files. I have refind installed on Endeavouros and it’s all there. It works…but this is very difficult to understand when you don’t see the files in the other distro’s? :disappointed:

They are not there until either:

  1. you install rEFInd and run refind-install (it creates default ones)
  2. you put one there - and I suggest you do that - they control the details of the boot setup (including microcode). If you install refind first, then they are partially ready to go (they have the right id’s for the root= parameter) but they do NOT know about Arch particularly, and don’t give you access to the fallback, or terminal only boot options.

When you highlight an icon on rEFInd, hitting F2 will show you equivalent of submenu entries for that icon. It gets them from refind-linux.conf (or internal defaults) - but better that they match what’s needed!
Hopefully this clears it up.

Freebird54

Can you be more specific? What should be there? Just a copy of the refind.conf file that is created in Endeavour? Where do you put it? In the folder that has the image that it’s booting from? That’s difficult because i don’t really see them?

Edit: I also haven’t added any microcode to the endeavour because i don’t really where and how.

Nope - a copy of the refind-liux.conf (which is separate from refind.conf) will be created automatically, but it will NOT be Arch-based ready. THAT’S the file I posted for you to copy and save next to the boot files. It needs to have the right UUID for root for that distro, and it will handle the microcode if it’s there (it should be, on EndeavourOS installs).

refind.conf is found ONLY in the ESP (EFI and beyond) and has settings for refind - not for each distro.

Freebird54

The refind_linux.conf file is created when you install refind. It has the info in it that matches my fstab. Is this what you mean? I need a copy of this in the other distro’s in the boot folders?

refind-linux.conf is created for the distro you are IN, when you run refind-install. It is not present in the other boot dirs of other distros unless you put it there, OR install refind and run refind-install there too. The version it generates is NOT optimized, unless you edit it. What I provided is a good setup for any Arch-based distro, including loading microcode.

Freebird54

So are you saying you should install-it in all the distros? Or just create a refind.conf file and put it in each distro in boot related to the distro it’s in?

I didn’t run install it in all of them, but it is one way of generating the refind-linux.conf files. I just copied one I liked in to each instance (boot file directory) and then edited the UUID to match the root for the distro. It really doesn’t matter which order, or method, one uses - it’s just that it’s a good idea to end up with it done! You can boot without it, but you won’t have access to a reliable fallback image, and in Arch distros you won’t have microcode…

Freebird54

So you put the microcode in the refind_linux.conf file? Correct?
Edit: Does it matter if it comes before or after the uuid stuff or it’s part of it?

You put the reference to the microcode into the refind-linux.conf file. The order can be a bit variable, but I know this one works:

"Boot using default options"     "root=UUID=30abdc04-e525-4912-aa8e-147b82b2d64d rw quiet add_efi_memmap initrd=/boot/amd-ucode.img initrd=/boot/initramfs-%v.img"
"Boot using fallback initramfs"  "root=UUID=30abdc04-e525-4912-aa8e-147b82b2d64d rw add_efi_memmap initrd=/boot/amd-ucode.img initrd=/boot/initramfs-%v-fallback.img"
"Boot to terminal"               "root=UUID=30abdc04-e525-4912-aa8e-147b82b2d64d rw add_efi_memmap initrd=/boot/amd-ucode.img initrd=/boot/initramfs-%v.img systemd.unit=multi-user.target"

Of course = UUID needs to be whatever the system is actually running on - not what’s here! I’m pretty sure the root= stuff needs to be first, and the rest doesn’t matter about order.

You will notice the description entries like “Boot with default options”. If you hightlight a choice on the boot screen, then hit F2, those are the choices you can then select from - if no choice is made the default options is what you boot with.

Freebird54