FWIW and for the record, what rEFInd does (mostly) is the autodiscovery of existing bootable files (.efi and initrd images) and UEFI entries, and provides a nice GUI to present them (taking advantage of efifb capabilities).
This can also be done with a properly developed grub.cfg (possibly consisting of more than one file).
A known example of this is the SuperGrub2 project.
This has been included in my next projects TODO list, for some time now. I have already created a very alpha version of a package which exists in my own grub menus. It is not exactly production ready, but after I finish with my current projects, I hope I can create a grub-based rEFInder .
I have used rEFInd with grub either booting from grubx64.efi or the linuz-linux image file. Above i just tried with systemd-boot but i havenāt tried without any bootloaders? Iām not good with boot stanzas.
Shouldnāt need any boot stanzas in the absence of special needs. C couple of msgs ago described the process - as long as rEFInd can find a bootable file, it will present it. If it is not on a known filesystem, THEN there might be a difficulty. If I can find time (too many games to watch!) Iāll give it a shot to make sureā¦
I know how to install and use rEFind with grub or using the vmlinuz-linux image file. I just donāt know how to set it up and use it if you uninstall systemd-boot. Itās not as simple as people make it out to be. If you donāt know the steps required then it doesnāt work
It should be as simple as any other vmlinuz-linux boot - as long as it is located where it can find it. As I mentioned, Iāll have to try it on another build shortlyā¦ maybe Iāll have to write an addendum for our wiki!
I decided to install endeavourOS without any boot manager and then install rEFInd via chroot in the live system.
Iāll keep you updated on my success/failure
Thanks for all the input!
i hoped that this might already do the trick but sadly not.
This way the initramfs-linux.img and vmlinuz-linux files were installed to /boot though which i hoped would be easier for me to configure regarding to refind.conf because many examples were structured that way.
I tried different manual boot stanzes and it always ended with āInvalid loader file! Error Not Found while loading vmlinuz-linuxā
Then i read something that rEFInd does not really work when /boot is encrypted and thats the place were the kernel resides. On the other hand i saw many examples where encryption was used.
I donāt know if itās a problem with refind.conf or refind_linux.confor something else entirely. Sometimes i read the manual stanzas are not really necessary when there is only one OS and refind_linux.conf is all you need + it is configured automatically through refind-install, but that did not really worked for me
Since iām still clueless what the problem is and already spent to much time i stick to systemd-boot.
for anyone who needs to chroot into the system hereās what you need to do when using btrfs:
lsblk -f
sudo cryptsetup open /dev/nvme0n1p2 enc_part #change /dev/XXX accordingly
sudo mount /dev/mapper/enc_part /mnt
less /mnt/@/etc/fstab #save output
# mount every subvolume listed in fstab
sudo mount -o subvol=@ /dev/mapper/enc_part /mnt/
sudo mount -o subvol=@home /dev/mapper/enc_part /mnt/home
sudo mount -o subvol=@cache /dev/mapper/enc_part /mnt/var/cache
sudo mount -o subvol=@log /dev/mapper/enc_part /mnt/var/log
sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/efi #change /dev/XXX accordingly to esp
chroot /mnt/
Well try out bootctl remove and remove any kernel images in your /boot or /efi directory .
After which, run sudo pacman -R kernel-install-for-dracut , after which , run yay -S dracut-hook && linux linux-headers followed by running refind-install
.Reboot and see if the system boots and shows EOS as an option.rEFIndās autodetect should detect the files.
Please paste out the part of your refind.conf which specifies the boot entry and initramfs files . I think I might be able help you.
EDIT:This works , just tried it on my host system.
Well thanks for your offer to help. I continued using systemd-boot and unfortunately I donāt have time to try out something so fundamental at the moment.
.
