Arch Linux

MoonSwan

Member

From: Great White North

Registered: 2008-01-23

Posts: 881

F2FS and rEFInd don't play well together?

For a few days now I've been trying to install the F2FS file system onto an HP Envy 6 laptop with a tiny (30GB) Intel SSD.  The SSD itself is enterprise-grade and is fully functional to my knowledge at the time of this writing.  I will be testing that last statement later today so I may have to retract my last sentence if I prove that assumption to be false. 

The problem is simple:  I can install Arch using an up-to-date ISO and that's fine.  In line with the wiki (see here: F2FS wiki page) I made the boot directory a 512MB Fat 32 EFI partition (EF00 type).  I formatted all of my other partitions as F2FS volumes.  This part works splendidly as far as I can see.  However, when I reboot to finish the install I get a rEFInd splash screen but the normal icons (which are suppose to allow you to choose which install you want to boot into) are not visible.  I only see the words and icons below the primary one (the ones for information, reboot and shutdown options).  I have tried to install this with an older Arch ISO and I get (unsurprisingly) the same result (this is a net install after all). 

I use Syslinux on my desktop machine and I'm very happy with it. I considered installing it instead of but its implementation is, at the present time, full of bugs and ugliness.  I have used Gummiboot once in the past but it was only after several hours of trial and error that I got it to work.  I have found rEFInd's installer to be simpler to use and has a more attractive presentation on the whole.  For these reasons I would prefer to use rEFInd but if I have to I'll use something else if this issue is un-resolvable at this point in its development.
  I have tried F2FS in the past but I opted to discontinue using it in the past because it lacked (at that time) an fsck mechanism to recover from crashes and other unexpected fun.  As of a couple of weeks ago there was a commit that showed that F2FS does now have a viable fsck mechanism built-in. 

I also would like to hear from anyone else's (un)succesful trials with F2FS.  I'd be grateful to if I could reading any other person's first-hand experiences and opinion would of F2FS.

Edit:  I forgot to add that I did look at the SSD wiki page entry but it only mentions F2FS as a possible file system to use and provides a link the Wikipedia's list of possible file systems to use for SSDs.  See here:  F2FS on SDDs
Thank you,
MoonSwan

Last edited by MoonSwan (2014-12-06 21:30:35)

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: F2FS and rEFInd don't play well together?

Considering that rEFInd is not a bootloader at all and knows nothing about the filesystem of your rootfs, I am going to guess this has more to do with your rEFInd config than your choice of filesystem.

Maybe it would help if you posted your rEFInd config and a 'tree /boot' (you'll need the tree package from [community]).