Arch Linux

braz2kuk

Member

From: /dev/null

Registered: 2008-06-26

Posts: 31

rEFInd Step by Step help dual boot OS X & Arch Linux

Hi All,

After reading the rEFInd docs and EFISTUB on the Arch wiki i am still having issues booting my installation.

Firstly some backgorund, I have a MacbookPro 5,3 and have Mac OS X Mavericks installed my HDD is partitioned as follows:

/dev/sda1 - EFI boot partition FAT32
/dev/sda2 - Mac OS X Partition HFS+
/dev/sda3 - / partition EXT4
/dev/sda4  swap partition

I have successfully installed arch however my issue is around booting i would like to use rEFInd so that when i turn on my mac i get the options of booting either Mac or Arch, Can somebody please walk me through the steps i need to do to achieve this as i am really struggling now.

Also for reference i am using the latest Kernel 3.12 and i am on a x86_64 system with systemd

Thanks in advance

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: rEFInd Step by Step help dual boot OS X & Arch Linux

Did you check out Rod Smith's documentation on his site? 

I think you should make the effort of getting this going so that you can ask specific questions.  It is not really typical for users around here to hold one's hand through installation of such a well documented piece of software.  So give it a go and see what kinds of problems you run into.

Also, since you are a MacBook user, it might be advisable to actually install rEFInd to the OSX partition.  This will prevent a firmware lag on bootup that was at least present when I was still a MacBook user.  They just seem to give preferential treatment to HFS+ filesystems.  So you can actually install rEFInd to the OSX partition and then use the included filesystem drivers to have it scan for kernels/loaders on the ext4 partition as well.

braz2kuk

Member

From: /dev/null

Registered: 2008-06-26

Posts: 31

Re: rEFInd Step by Step help dual boot OS X & Arch Linux

Hi, thanks for the reply I have removed all traces of refind from arch and rebooted into Mac OS X, I then installed refind and created the following menu entry in refind.conf

menuentry "Arch Linux" {
        icon    EFI/refind/icons/os_arch.icns
        loader  vmlinuz-linux
        initrd  initramfs-linux.img
        options "root=PARTUUID=myuuid rw rootfstype=ext4 nomodeset add_efi_memmap"
}

Upon reboot refind is displayed with the option to boot arch however it fails as it cannot find the intramfs and I think this is because it is looking for them on my Mac OS X partition how can I point refind to look on /dev/sda1? For the loader and initrd?

Thanks in advance

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: rEFInd Step by Step help dual boot OS X & Arch Linux

You need to use the rEFInd ext4 driver and have it scan for the kernel on the root partition.  That is, if you are going to go the route of sticking rEFIndx64.efi on the OSX partition, then you should stop using the ESP to hold the kernel and initramfs as well.   If you still want to use the ESP as a /boot partition, then you would need to direct that boot stanza to look for the kernel on the ESP there.  This is done with the 'volume' option.  So for example, if your filesystem label for /dev/sda3 is 'archlinux' then you would put 'volume archlinux' in that boot stanza.

braz2kuk

Member

From: /dev/null

Registered: 2008-06-26

Posts: 31

Re: rEFInd Step by Step help dual boot OS X & Arch Linux

Thanks i have it working smoothly now, Thanks for the help now for the WiFi got evryhting else working! Can a moderator please mark this as solved.

Neburski

Member

Registered: 2009-09-15

Posts: 118

Re: rEFInd Step by Step help dual boot OS X & Arch Linux

Can a moderator please mark this as solved.

You can do this yourself by editing the title of your first post of this thread.