Add partition number to every linux kernel

[Matej]

Dear Roderick,
can you please add one functionality in rEFInd?
It is very good, that rEFInd support boot from linux kernels, but on my computer it is not clearly on what partition is concrete linux kernel. I use more distributions on the same disk, on more partitions. Based my partition setting during OS installation, every linux kernel is on separate partition on root partition.
Based on partition number I know, on what partition I have installed what OS distribution. Based partition number I can identify OS distribution.

Can you please add display partition number (for example sda2 or sda4 ….) to every linux kernel?

More information on photo for better understanding.

Thank You very much

[mfvianna]

Hi @Matej,
You could label your filesystems. In addition to allowing you to identity each installation you will also be able to display a more human readable entry.

Refind does show the filesystem label on each selection if its labeled, like:
"Boot vmlinuz... from file-system-name"

To label an ext4 filesystem:
tune2fs -L "<label>" /dev/sda1

To label a btrfs filesystem:
btrfs filesystem label /dev/sda1 "<label>"

To label a xfs filesystem:
xfs_admin -L "<label>" /dev/sda1

(please replace /dev/sda1 with the appropriate partition device)

[Roderick W. Smith]

That's not really possible. rEFInd runs under EFI, which has a completely different naming convention from Linux. That is, /dev/sda1 is a Linux partition name that is not retrievable from EFI. In theory, I could poach the Linux kernel's naming code for use in rEFInd, in the hopes of getting the same results; but even that would not be guaranteed to work because of differences in drivers -- a disk might show up in Linux but not the EFI, which would throw off the naming convention. Even the partition numbers (1, 2, etc.) aren't really guaranteed to be the same in EFI and in Linux. In fact, even the partition names and numbers aren't guaranteed to be the same within Linux -- they can change if a disk or partition is removed or added, for instance. That's why most Linux distributions use UUIDs in /etc/fstab to identify the filesystems to be mounted at particular locations.

One of the reasons that rEFInd displays partition and filesystem names is that these are guaranteed to be the same between EFI and Linux, assuming they're retrievable in EFI (sometimes they aren't, at least not without filesystem-specific code). Thus, you can use these names to identify specific partitions, as @mfvianna suggested. I'd add that partition names, vs. filesystem names, have some advantages, because they aren't filesystem-specific -- you can set them with partitioning tools like gdisk or GParted in the same way for any partition, no matter what filesystem it contains.

[Matej]

Thank you very much for help Roderick.
Thank you very much for help mfvianna.

I tested it and it works correct :)