what version of rEFInd is for 32-bit systems?

[dolphin05]

Hello, total NOOB here, so sorry if my question is too basic or I've overlooked the obvious. I could not find something that quickly tells me what is the appropriate version to install on a 32-bit machine. I've got Xubuntu (32-bit obviously) installed in one partition, but have several more partitions where I want to install other flavours of Linux to try out.
Thanks!

[Roderick W. Smith]

Most computers today have 64-bit CPUs and 64-bit EFIs, and to boot them in EFI mode, you (almost) must install a 64-bit OS. Certainly, a 64-bit rEFInd (which is the only variety that a 64-bit EFI will run) won't load a 32-bit Linux kernel. The easiest way to install a 32-bit Linux distribution on such a computer is to use BIOS/CSM/legacy mode, and for such installations, it's easiest to use BIOS-mode GRUB, not rEFInd. (A harder solution is to use a 64-bit EFI GRUB to load a 32-bit kernel.) If this describes your hardware and configuration, I recommend you not use rEFInd and instead use GRUB and BIOS-mode installs.

OTOH, if you've got one of the rare systems with a 32-bit EFI, rEFInd can work fine; however, most distributions don't directly support booting their 32-bit distributions in EFI mode, so you may need to jump through some extra hoops to get the OSes installed. rEFInd itself should not be a problem, and will install exactly as covered in the rEFInd documentation. The .zip file version linked on the rEFInd downloads page includes binaries for x86-64/AMD64/X64, i386/IA32, and AARCH64/ARM64, so you can download it and install rEFInd with the refind-install script or in other ways. Alternatively, since you're starting with Xubuntu, you could use the rEFInd PPA, which includes builds for the same three architectures; or install the rEFInd package that's included in recent versions of Debian and Ubuntu.

[dolphin05]

Thank you very much for the clarifications and for letting me know what my options are. I sure did not expect that, but will try the options you point out.