Re: [gentoo-user] Anybody using refind?

[Klaus Dittrich]

On 02.02.23 13:31, J. Roeleveld wrote:
> On Thursday, February 2, 2023 1:15:51 PM CET Klaus Dittrich wrote:
>> On 02.02.23 12:33, J. Roeleveld wrote:
>>> Please only send mails to the list.
>>> There is no need to add me to the TO or CC lists.
>>>
>>> On Thursday, February 2, 2023 12:22:49 PM CET Klaus Dittrich wrote:
>>>> On 02.02.23 10:51, J. Roeleveld wrote:
>>>>> On Thursday, February 2, 2023 10:42:40 AM CET Klaus Dittrich wrote:
>>>>>> Is there andbody using refind? Especially in Germany?
>>>>>> I have some questions about.
>>>>>
>>>>> If you have questions, feel free to ask on this list.
>>>>> I am sure I am not the only one using it.
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Joost
>>>>
>>>> Joost,
>>>>
>>>> my current system boots from bios(mbr) not uefi.
>>>>
>>>> My knowlege of uefi is poor and uefi is still confusing me.
>>>> So it may be some of my questions will looking silly for you.
>>>
>>> Did you read the well-written howto on the Gentoo website?
>>>
>>> https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Refind[1]
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --------
>>> [1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Refind
>>
>> Joost,
>>
>> no. Thanks for the hint, I had just a short look into at it.
>>
>> There is presupposed that one is at a uefi system already.
>>
>> I have to install refind to a disk mounted to my mbr-booted-system,
>> make all necessary adjustments there and then put it to the uefi-only
>> machine and boot it there.
>>
>> So I cannot call efibootmanger to pin refind to nvram of the uefi-system.
>
> Use a USB boot-stick with EFI image, like the gentoo one. See the relevant section in the
> Gentoo installguide:
>
> https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:AMD64/Installation/Media[1]
>
>
> --------
> [1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:AMD64/Installation/Media
>
Joost,

I installed refind to the esp partition of my disk according to what I 
have understood so far from https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Refind and the 
meanwhile up again site https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/installing.html

The disk is a nvme disk put into an nvme-to-usb adapter, so I can easily 
move it between my existing (mbr) machine and the new uefi-machine.

The efi partition looks like this now:

.
└── EFI
     ├── BOOT
     │   ├── BOOT.CSV
     │   ├── bootx64.efi
     │   ├── icons
     │   │
     │   ├── refind.conf
     │   ├── refind.conf-sample
     │   ├── refind.log
     │   ├── refind.log-old
     │   └── vars
     │       └── PreviousBoot
     ├── myBackup
     │   ├── System.map-6.1.9
     │   └── vmlinuz-6.1.9
     ├── mySystem
     │   ├── System.map-6.1.9
     │   └── vmlinuz-6.1.9
     ├── refind
     └── tools

I left out the numerous contents of icons.
refind is installed to teh default BOOT/bootx64.efi as I have no access 
to nvram up to now.

The disk looks like this:( gdisk /dev/sda)
Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
    1            2048          452607   220.0 MiB   EF00  PEFI
    2          452608       461826047   220.0 GiB   8300  PSYS



My EFI/BOOT/refind.conf has this entry:

menuentry Linux {
     icon EFI/refind/icons/os_linux.png
     volume PSYS
     loader vmlinuz-6.1.9
     options "root=LABEL=PSYS ro rootfstype=ext4 mds=full"
}

And /etc/fstab :(the essential parts only)

LABEL=PSYS  /           ext4   defaults,noatime,nodiscard     1       1
LABEL=PEFI  /boot/efi   vfat   umask=00755                    0       0
efivarfs /sys/firmware/efi/efivars efivarfs nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime
0 0

When I am trying to boot this (uefi-machine) I get

/dev/root can't open block device

or

please append correct root=boot option.


The kernel is compiled with all necessary drivers built in not using 
modules. I don't like initrd or intramfs.

I decided to use the partition label PSYS because I cannot see
(like in legacy bios) to which device my disk got connected.
So I relay on refind which can pass partition labels to the "root=" 
option of the kernel as I have read.

Do you or anyone reading this thread know what mistake I have made
in this configuration of refind.

--
Regards Klaus