[SOLVED] rEFInd multiboot system (Windows / Kali / Arch)

lonlon · 2021-12-26 19:20:31

Hello there,
as I had to quarantine myself I had some spare time and thought this is a good moment to try to upgrade my machine. I want to run a triple boot setup with Windows, Kali and Arch (with the option to install other distros down the line), thus I chose rEFInd as my bootloader of choice for its autodetect features.
Following the Wiki I installed Windows first, then I installed Kali and now I with the installation of Arch I run into problems. But let me outline the setup and what I have done to this point:

This is my partition layout

$ fdisk -l
Device              Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1       2048     206847     204800   100M EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2     206848     239615      32768    16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/nvme0n1p3     239616 1448181759 1447942144 690.4G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p4 1448181760 1449428991    1247232   609M Windows recovery environment
/dev/nvme0n1p5 1449428992 1533315071   83886080    40G Linux filesystem
/dev/nvme0n1p6 1533315072 1669629951  136314880    65G Linux filesystem
/dev/nvme0n1p7 1669629952 3907028991 2237399040     1T Linux filesystem

$ blkid
/dev/nvme0n1p1: UUID="5CE8-6395" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI system partition" PARTUUID="f8fd9ecc-3ffe-4045-b760-5c08691e32d0"
/dev/nvme0n1p2: PARTLABEL="Microsoft reserved partition" PARTUUID="fff028e4-4f51-452a-8359-162b72b91b2b"
/dev/nvme0n1p3: BLOCK_SIZE="512" UUID="1C3CE9D33CE9A84A" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="501c96dd-6551-496a-85fb-ee1664349038"
/dev/nvme0n1p4: BLOCK_SIZE="512" UUID="CE6E65CA6E65AC41" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="790958b2-92b7-4059-bbca-80c16d08196f"
/dev/nvme0n1p5: UUID="75b1dc51-0a9f-4b15-a19e-505b6a49c2ff" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTLABEL="kali" PARTUUID="177d4801-1649-4f93-94e9-db5b69db954c"
/dev/nvme0n1p6: UUID="2e94ec05-f64f-403a-8937-33db84d367e3" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTLABEL="arch" PARTUUID="2517d701-8e83-44e9-aa50-5f755bc6dbc4"
/dev/nvme0n1p7: UUID="4513c012-4427-4e7f-bbdb-fea104e47aa3" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTLABEL="data" PARTUUID="59071193-a34c-42c1-b1d0-d2c01466139f"

The first four partitions got created by Windows. Note that /dev/nvme0n1p1 is the EFI partition. Then I have a 40G partition for Kali, followed by a 65G partition for the Arch installation and the rest is for data e.g. /home or /data.

As I said, after I got Windows and Kali to dual boot I wanted to install Arch as a third boot option. I followed the Installation guide on the Wiki with the mounting points

mount /dev/nvme0n1p6 /mnt
mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot

and for the installation for rEFInd I followed the Wiki article for rEFInd.
That means, I installed refind using Pacman. Then I ran refind-install to install rEFInd.
At this point I thought it should work, but I was mistaken. So I did some digging and found, that when issuing refind-install from within the chroot, it does not set the parameters for the partition right.
Thus I manually edited the refind.conf so that the correct UUID was chosen i.e.

# cat /refind_linux.conf
"Boot with standard options"  "ro root=PARTUUID=2517d701-8e83-44e9-aa50-5f755bc6dbc4 rw add_efi_memmap initrd=boot\intel-ucode.img initrd=boot\initramfs-%v.img"

This did not help and the partition still did not show up in rEFInd but only Windows and Kali were an option. So I started up Kali and had a look at what I did.
So from within Kali, when I look at /boot I find the following structure:

# ls /boot
config-5.14.0-kali4-amd64  grub                           refind_linux.conf              vmlinuz-5.14.0-kali4-amd64
efi                        initrd.img-5.14.0-kali4-amd64  System.map-5.14.0-kali4-amd64

Here the file refind_linux.conf has the configuration for the Kali installation i.e.

# cat /boot/refind_linux.conf
"Boot with standard options"  "root=UUID=75b1dc51-0a9f-4b15-a19e-505b6a49c2ff ro quiet splash"
"Boot to single-user mode"    "root=UUID=75b1dc51-0a9f-4b15-a19e-505b6a49c2ff ro quiet splash single"
"Boot with minimal options"   "ro root=/dev/nvme0n1p5"

Going in /boot/efi I found

# ls /boot/efi
 EFI                            initramfs-linux.img   refind_linux.conf            vmlinuz-linux
 initramfs-linux-fallback.img   intel-ucode.img      'System Volume Information'

and here the file refind_linux.conf has the configuration for the Arch installation i.e. the configuration I tried during the installation

# cat /boot/efi/refind_linux.conf
"Boot with standard options"  "root=PARTUUID=2517d701-8e83-44e9-aa50-5f755bc6dbc4 rw add_efi_memmap initrd=boot\intel-ucode.img initrd=boot\initramfs-%v.img"

Then my thought was, that I might be lucky if I change the content of the Arch file to be in line with the Kali file and tried these two variants without luck

# cat /boot/efi/refind_linux.conf
"Boot with standard options"  "root=UUID="2e94ec05-f64f-403a-8937-33db84d367e3 rw add_efi_memmap initrd=boot\intel-ucode.img initrd=boot\initramfs-%v.img"

and

# cat /boot/efi/refind_linux.conf
Boot with standard options"  "root=UUID="2e94ec05-f64f-403a-8937-33db84d367e3 ro quiet splash"
"Boot to single-user mode"    "root=UUID="2e94ec05-f64f-403a-8937-33db84d367e3 ro quiet splash single" 
"Boot with minimal options"   "ro root=/dev/nvme0n1p6"

I used Arch as my daily driver for about two years now and I got pretty used to it and I mostly find my way around with the forum and the Wiki, but right now I am rather stumped.
So I would appreciate any help you guys can offer me to get my triple boot system running.

Last edited by lonlon (2021-12-28 17:25:02)

V1del · 2021-12-26 22:30:27

Did you see the necessary config and note in: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/REFInd … _by_rEFInd for properly evaluating the version string?

FWIW based on the outputs, you either did not install a kernel for Arch or did the mounting of the ESP after installing a kernel, in which case you will have masked the initramfs and vmlinuz images of the Arch system from the "vision" of an autodetect script. I'd say try mounting the ESP to something like /efi or so so that the autodetect can actually pick the kernel from the root partition like you probably intend to.

lonlon · 2021-12-27 18:18:30

okay I think I have to read up more.
I try a dual boot system with Windows and Arch first and then try to expand to more systems.

Thank you for your time, but I think this could be deleted for the time being.

V1del · 2021-12-27 20:08:58

It's good that you try to figure things out properly first, but we can just keep it open and you can come back to mark it as [SOLVED] or ask some more clarifying questions if needed.

lonlon · 2021-12-28 17:22:34

I found a way to make it work.
Here is what I did so someone else looking for an answer can use it as a guide line:

Starting with a clean drive I first installed Windows 11.
Then I disabled Secure Boot to be able to install Arch.
During the Arch installation, I used the following mount points (here I assume my partition layout from the first post)
```
mount /dev/nvme0n1p6 /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/boot/efi
mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/efi/boot
```
Then I continued the installation guide
When it comes to choosing the bootloader I installed refind
```
pacman -S refind
```
After the installation one has to run
```
refind-install
```
to install the bootloader completely
Now I edited the file /boot/refind_linux.conf such that is in line with the example file from the Wiki
For this I ran
```
blkid /dev/nvme0n1p6 >> /boot/refind_linux.conf
```
to easily get the PARTUUID for my partition and then edited the file such that it looks like this
```
"Boot using default options"     "root=PARTUUID=2517d701-8e83-44e9-aa50-5f755bc6dbc4 rw add_efi_memmap initrd=boot\intel-ucode.img initrd=boot\initramfs-%v.img"
```
Lastly I had to edit the file /boot/efi/EFI/refind/refind.conf in the following way

...
extra_kernel_version_strings linux-hardened,linux-zen,linux-lts,linux
...
menuentry "Arch Linux" {
	...
	options  "root=/dev/nvme0n1p1 rw add_efi_memmap"
	...
}
...

At this point I could reboot my machine and have rEFInd give me the options to boot Windows or Arch Linux.

To get Kali Linux running as a third option I installed it on my dedicated partition without any other changes during the installation procedure.
After the install I just deleted the boot entry from my BIOS and let rEFInd handle the OS selection, which it does just fine.

This last step here leaves a somewhat bitter taste as it seems like cheating, but for the moment it works. I tried to remove GRUB but somehow I failed and it seems not necessary right now. I imagine that a kernel update in Kali could break something with GRUB and should this be the case or if anything else makes problems down the line, I make sure to update this little guide here (given I remember and that I am allowed to do this in the first place as it would seem like necrobumping at one point)

Alright, so If anyone sees this and has a better way to make it work, feel free to comment here or drop me a PM.

Last edited by lonlon (2021-12-28 17:26:39)

Arch Linux

#1 2021-12-26 19:20:31

[SOLVED] rEFInd multiboot system (Windows / Kali / Arch)

#2 2021-12-26 22:30:27

Re: [SOLVED] rEFInd multiboot system (Windows / Kali / Arch)

#3 2021-12-27 18:18:30

Re: [SOLVED] rEFInd multiboot system (Windows / Kali / Arch)

#4 2021-12-27 20:08:58

Re: [SOLVED] rEFInd multiboot system (Windows / Kali / Arch)

#5 2021-12-28 17:22:34

Re: [SOLVED] rEFInd multiboot system (Windows / Kali / Arch)

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