MacBookAir 2012 with only rEFInd and Kali does not boot to ANYTHING

[theschles]

Hi all,

MacBookAir 2012. Have just a fresh install of Kali -- and rEFInd in the EFI -- and that's it. Won't self-boot to anything.

Full story:

macOS Sequoia 15.x with OpenCore was just slow as molasses, so thought "why not install Kali?"

I downloaded and installed Kali 2024.3 to a USB stick. During Kali install doing a complete wipe of the hard drive, using the entire hard drive with encrypted LVM2.

Upon reboot, after a long long long wait, all I get is the flashing folder with a question mark like this one: https://i.sstatic.net/hmRFH.jpg (for some reason the WYSIWYG editor won't let me past images)

If I boot while holding the Option key, I get a drop-down to pick a Wi-Fi network...and after 30 to 60 seconds, an icon for "Internet Recovery".

I find rEFInd, install it to a USB stick, and boot while holding the Option key. It prompts me for "EFI Boot". When I select that, I get the rEFInd boot menu which has 3 choices:
* Grub
* rEFInd
* vmlinuz

If I pick Grub or vmlinuz, Kali's encrypted LVM2 loads and prompts me for my disk encryption password.

However, if I pick rEFInd, it shows a textual display of loading the OS...and...nothing.

I've cleared NVRAM -- holding for four (4) chimes.

I've cleared SMC -- holding for 60 seconds.

I've installed rEFInd from within Kali using sudo refind-install. It complained about not finding /boot/refind_linux.conf, so I used the mkrlconf utility to create one for me:

"Boot with standard options"  "root=/dev/mapper/<computer_name>--vg-root ro quiet splash"
"Boot to single-user mode"    "root=/dev/mapper/<computer name>--vg-root ro quiet splash single"
"Boot with minimal options"   "ro root=/dev/mapper/<computer name>--vg-root"

The refind.conf file seems to have the sample parameters.

efibootmgr:

BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 5 seconds
BootOrder: 0000
Boot0000* rEFInd Boot Manager   HD(1,GPT,<long guid>,0x800,0x100000)/File(\EFI\refind\refind_x64.efi)

FYI I still can access macOS Recovery via "Internet Recovery"...meaning it needs to download the various Recovery apps from the Internet. But it's still there.

What am I missing? Do I need an unencrypted /boot partition outside the encrypted LVM2?

[Edgars]

Hi, theschles,

From what I have seen, /boot should be on an unencrypted partition (take a look at, for example, https://sourceforge.net/p/refind/discussion/general/thread/3b372fcaec/#70c4 from 2018):

rEFInd does not directly support encryption; you'll need either an unencrypted partition to hold your kernels and initrd files or an EFI driver that supports the decryption tool you're using. AFAIK, the latter does not exist...

I am not sure though if this and how much still is true, but a quick web search did not reveal anything different about this.

[Roderick W. Smith]

I don't think the problem is an encrypted /boot partition, since rEFInd does work when loaded from an external USB flash drive. What filesystem is used for the rEFInd install (the ESP)? On a Mac, that must be FAT or HFS+, and it must not be encrypted. Kali should have set it up correctly, but it's worth double-checking. Also, what partition table is used on the disk, GPT or MBR? If it's MBR, then the Mac's firmware will default to BIOS/CSM/legacy mode and won't load any EFI-mode boot program.

Macs, and especially older ones, have quirky EFI implementations that sometimes fail when they're configured in unusual (for Apple/macOS) ways. It may be more reliable to force a boot of Kali in BIOS/CSM/legacy mode and install that way, on an MBR disk, but using the BIOS-mode version of GRUB (or another BIOS-mode boot loader).