

REFIND BOOT MANAGER INSTALLING ON LINUX WINDOWS
It loads the windows kernel that resides on another partition. They happen to be good examples to describe what I call the difference between a loader and a manager. You have a need to boot arch linux and windows. I'll use your use case to start this explanation. There are some things to consider to determine which is better for your use case. Most of the time there are a number of options that will work.

REFInd does have a nice look and most other options can be made to look good as well, even grub. He does make a distinction but isn't really sure of it anymore. Here is something from the creator of rEFInd. I just looked a bit at the definitions of boot loaders and boot managers and decided I shouldn't really make much distinction between them. moved all the files copied from sda3 to efi directory in sdb2 (/boot), unmounted sda3 and removed its fstab entry,ģ. copied all the files from sda3 (/boot/efi),Ģ. Would it work if I did the following steps:ġ. Okay, so I read about EFISTUB and an idea popped up in my mind.
REFIND BOOT MANAGER INSTALLING ON LINUX INSTALL
So now that I know that rEFInd is a boot manager, not a boot loader ( despite that the Arch Wiki lists it as such), I suppose I could just install GRUB through chroot and then add rEFInd on top of it later? I don't feel like booting my system with EFISTUB yet, since I've only just learned about its existence and I need to read more about it.īesides, what exactly is wrong with my mount commands? I read that I need to mount the ESP for refind-install to work. I was aware of UEFI boot manager existence, but I always assumed it was a different kind of beast altogether, operating on a lower level. I've only been using Linux systems for the last two years and I always installed GRUB, which, if I understand correctly, combines both boot loader and boot manager, since it's possible to add entries for different OSes' boot loaders in it.

I wasn't aware of the difference between boot manager and boot loader. rEFInd looks more modern and thus, more user-friendly. It may sound funny, but the black, undecorated screen of GRUB seems to scare them a little. I sometimes let other people use my PC, hence the Windows partition on it, and that's also the reason I want to keep this particular boot manager. My question was related specifically to rEFInd, which I chose mainly due to aesthetic reasons. You can look up the efibootmgr command I've used here in the past or I can post it later but I have to run right now. That is in the wiki and the efibootmgr utility is used to put the boot entry in the UEFI boot entries. You won't have to install any boot manager or boot loader. The simplest and fastest boot option for Arch is to use /boot as the mount point for the ESP and take advantage of the default EFISTUB capability enabled in the Arch kernel. UEFI will read those variables and launch that loader if windows is the only or first boot entry or if you choose it from the built in boot manager. The windows installation will put a windows boot loader efi file on the ESP and entries in the UEFI variables that point to it. UEFI has variables it stores in NVRAM that it reads at boot to know what EFI file to launch when the hardware initialization is finished. I think it might help to discuss the most simple and efficient boot configuration for arch and windows on a UEFI system. Do ask if it is confusing to you what the differences are between boot managers and boot loaders but I won't assume you don't know the differences. I don't see the point in using some other boot manager like refind when you have that already. You press an F key at boot, it brings up a list of devices with valid boot options, select a device, then select the desired OS on that device to boot. I don't know of any UEFI implementations that don't include a built-in boot manager. You don't have to do all that on a UEFI system. That means you skip using the built-in UEFI boot manager, use the refind boot manager to bring up the grub boot loader to launch the arch linux kernel. You also mention a poor process of going through refind to grub. Your commands above for mounting partitions are wrong so be sure not to do that. Some confusion here so lets clear that up first.
