rEFInd help with manual entries

[Christian B]

Hey guys,

I've installed rEFInd and now I want to do manual entries for my various OS installations.

I have many OS:

Gerät         Anfang      Ende  Sektoren Größe Typ
/dev/sda1       2048    616447    614400  300M Windows-Wiederherstellungsumgebung
/dev/sda2     616448    821247    204800  100M EFI-System
/dev/sda3     821248   1083391    262144  128M Microsoft reserviert
/dev/sda4    1083392 163842047 162758656 77,6G Microsoft Basisdaten (Windows 8.1)
/dev/sda5  163842048 327682047 163840000 78,1G Microsoft Basisdaten (Windows 7)
/dev/sda6  327682048 405807103  78125056 37,3G Linux-Dateisystem (Mint)
/dev/sda7  405807104 413806591   7999488  3,8G Linux Swap
/dev/sda8  413806592 491931647  78125056 37,3G Linux-Dateisystem (Kubuntu)
/dev/sda9  491931648 570056703  78125056 37,3G Linux-Dateisystem (elementaryOS)
/dev/sda10 570056704 648175615  78118912 37,3G Microsoft Basisdaten (CentOS)
/dev/sda11 648175616 730095615  81920000 39,1G Linux-Dateisystem (Fedora)
/dev/sda12 730095616 813981695  83886080   40G Linux-Dateisystem (openSuse)

Could you please help me to do the manual entries (I think in refind.conf) for all OS installations because I have to many entries with the auto loader.

I think something like this should do?

menuentry "Windows" {
        icon /EFI/refind/themes/rEFInd-minimal/icons/os_win.png
        loader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
}

menuentry "Linux Mint" {
        icon /EFI/refind/themes/rEFInd-minimal/icons/os_linuxmint.png
        volume *WHAT HERE?*
        loader *WHAT HERE?*
        initrd *WHAT HERE?*
        options "ro root=UUID=*****"
}

menuentry "Linux Kubuntu" {
        icon /EFI/refind/themes/rEFInd-minimal/icons/os_kubuntu.png
        volume *WHAT HERE?*
        loader *WHAT HERE?*
        initrd *WHAT HERE?*
        options "ro root=UUID=*****"
}

And so on...

I don't want to brick my bootloader when I try things on my own :9

Additional question: Is is possible to do two entries for my windows (7 and 8.1) installations or must I use the windows bootloader?

Thanks in advance.

[Roderick W. Smith]

I advise against attempting manual configuration. If rEFInd's OS/loader auto-detection is producing too many entries, it's better to instead hide the ones you don't want to see, as described in the rEFInd documentation:

http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/configfile.html#hiding

Creating manual boot stanzas is helpful for experts in rare cases, but it's inflexible and tricky. Far too many people get it wrong, either because of a fundamental misunderstanding or because of simple typos. If you don't understand things like kernel options (which your question seems to suggest you don't), then creating manual boot stanzas is not for you. That said, if you want to try, it's covered in the rEFInd documentation:

• http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/configfile.html#stanzas
• http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/linux.html

[Christian B]

Hello Roderick,

thanks for your answer.

I'm now working with 'dont_scan_dirs' and 'dont_scan_files'.

Here my two lines:

dont_scan_dirs ESP:/EFI/centos,/EFI/fedora,/EFI/opensuse,/EFI/tools,/EFI/ubuntu

dont_scan_files fallback.efi,fbia32.efi

Boot directory:

root@Test-Linux-Mint:/boot/efi/EFI# ll /boot/efi/EFI/
insgesamt 10
drwx------ 10 root root 1024 Aug  8 17:44 ./
drwx------  4 root root 1024 Jan  1  1970 ../
drwx------  2 root root 1024 Apr 25 04:36 Boot/
drwx------  3 root root 1024 Aug  8 15:07 centos/
drwx------  5 root root 1024 Aug  8 11:20 fedora/
drwx------  3 root root 1024 Aug  7 15:43 Microsoft/
drwx------  2 root root 1024 Aug  8 17:44 opensuse/
drwx------  7 root root 1024 Aug  9 09:42 refind/
drwx------  2 root root 1024 Aug  8 14:12 tools/
drwx------  3 root root 1024 Aug  8 14:04 ubuntu/

The following problems still exists:
* The directory for centos is not exluded and I don't know why
* How to manual fix icons? The icons for kubuntu, elementary, mint and centos are not correct

Thanks again!

[Roderick W. Smith]

Several possible reasons for a directory's contents not showing up occur to me:

• A bug in the firmware
• A bug in rEFInd
• Filesystem damage
• A misconfiguration of rEFInd (such as improper use of dont_scan_files or dont_scan_dirs, or accidental use of the hiding feature)

I recommend starting with checking for accidental use of one of rEFInd's dont_scan_* options and checking that you haven't accidentally added the CentOS loader to the dynamic hiding list, as described here. If that doesn't help, try a filesystem check (using dosfsck in Linux or equivalent tools in other OSes). If that doesn't help, try copying (not moving, copying) the centos directory to another name (say, centos2) and rebooting. If it shows up under the new name, try deleting or renaming the original and then renaming the new one to centos.