[EFI STUB]Need help to configure stub

Trieforce · 2012-05-12 10:57:10

I have macbook with refind and I want to boot archlinux without grub. Refind tries to boot arch from EFI/vmlinuz-linux.efi, but it end in rootfs or something. And booting with GRUB2 works fine.

BTW I have / on ext4 and I have no experience in configuring the kernel.

Trieforce · 2012-05-12 11:09:44

I did this
zcat /proc/config.gz | grep EFI_STUB
CONFIG_EFI_STUB=y

So I guess the problem is ext4?

the.ridikulus.rat · 2012-05-12 12:44:46

The files should be like

<UEFISYS>/EFI/<SOME_SUBDIR>/vmlinuz-linux.efi
<UEFISYS>/EFI/<SOME_SUBDIR>/initramfs-linux.img
<UEFISYS>/EFI/<SOME_SUBDIR>/refind_linux.conf

I have <SOME_SUBDIR> == arch , and <UEFISYS> == /boot/efi , in my system.

EDIT: rEFInd requires the kernel and initramfs files to be in the UEFISYS partition, so you need to copy those files to <UEFISYS>/EFI/<SOME_SUBDIR>/ . You might get the "rootfs" error when the initramfs is missing or corrupt in that location. Grub2 loads these files directly from /boot and does not touch the files at <UEFISYS>/EFI/<SOME_SUBDIR>/* , that why it boots properly.

Last edited by the.ridikulus.rat (2012-05-12 12:52:13)

jloomb · 2012-05-18 22:02:47

sorry to hijack, but this felt like a relavant place to post. Dear the.ridikulus.rat any thoughts as to if rEFInd will get ext4 support any time soon?
Truth is am interested in using rEFInd + EFI STUB, I am sick of dealing with grub2. I recently built a new system on UEFI and had to go through all the same teething issues it would appare you have also discovered and answered.
But have been happy using ext4 for the last several years.... so would prefer to leave my filesystems alone.
Cheers

litemotiv · 2012-05-18 22:30:25

jloomb wrote:

sorry to hijack, but this felt like a relavant place to post. Dear the.ridikulus.rat any thoughts as to if rEFInd will get ext4 support any time soon?
Truth is am interested in using rEFInd + EFI STUB, I am sick of dealing with grub2. I recently built a new system on UEFI and had to go through all the same teething issues it would appare you have also discovered and answered.
But have been happy using ext4 for the last several years.... so would prefer to leave my filesystems alone.
Cheers

rEFInd works fine with ext4, what exactly do you mean? If you mean the EFI system partition on which rEFInd is installed; that limitation lies in the EFI specification which specifically requires a fat partition for booting.

the.ridikulus.rat · 2012-05-19 06:57:34

litemotiv wrote:

jloomb wrote:
sorry to hijack, but this felt like a relavant place to post. Dear the.ridikulus.rat any thoughts as to if rEFInd will get ext4 support any time soon?
Truth is am interested in using rEFInd + EFI STUB, I am sick of dealing with grub2. I recently built a new system on UEFI and had to go through all the same teething issues it would appare you have also discovered and answered.
But have been happy using ext4 for the last several years.... so would prefer to leave my filesystems alone.
Cheers
rEFInd works fine with ext4, what exactly do you mean? If you mean the EFI system partition on which rEFInd is installed; that limitation lies in the EFI specification which specifically requires a fat partition for booting.

As litemotiv said, UEFI system partition needs to be FAT32. No other filesystems are supported by firmware (except Apple Macs which seem to support HFS+ as well). rEFInd does not contain any filesystem drivers by itself, so it suppports only those FS the firmware supports.

rEFInd does not support reading kernel and initramfs files directly from /boot (by itself, if thats what you expect), and it does not look like it might do so in the future. For such use-cases you need to use grub2 or grub-legacy-fedora ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UE … acy-Fedora ).

However there have been some attempts to create ext2/ext3 (not ext4) UEFI drivers so that the firmware can read from those filesystems too. So if you have your /boot as ext2 or ext3 (ext2 recommended for this driver), you might be able to load the kernel and initramfs files from /boot, provided you make sure the kernel has .efi extension and you configure rEFInd to read the /boot directory. See http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/drivers.html for more info.

Last edited by the.ridikulus.rat (2012-05-19 06:58:26)

litemotiv · 2012-05-19 09:22:00

the.ridikulus.rat wrote:

However there have been some attempts to create ext2/ext3 (not ext4) UEFI drivers so that the firmware can read from those filesystems too. So if you have your /boot as ext2 or ext3 (ext2 recommended for this driver), you might be able to load the kernel and initramfs files from /boot, provided you make sure the kernel has .efi extension and you configure rEFInd to read the /boot directory. See http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/drivers.html for more info.

Ah yes, that's useful information!

jloomb · 2012-05-25 07:07:25

sorry for my misunderstanding. thanks

Arch Linux

#1 2012-05-12 10:57:10

[EFI STUB]Need help to configure stub

#2 2012-05-12 11:09:44

Re: [EFI STUB]Need help to configure stub

#3 2012-05-12 12:44:46

Re: [EFI STUB]Need help to configure stub

#4 2012-05-18 22:02:47

Re: [EFI STUB]Need help to configure stub

#5 2012-05-18 22:30:25

Re: [EFI STUB]Need help to configure stub

#6 2012-05-19 06:57:34

Re: [EFI STUB]Need help to configure stub

#7 2012-05-19 09:22:00

Re: [EFI STUB]Need help to configure stub

#8 2012-05-25 07:07:25

Re: [EFI STUB]Need help to configure stub

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