rEFInd. How do you add a new OS entry?

Help Desk
5

You can always use the PARTUUID. A filesystem LABEL or PARTLABEL are also acceptable, but require first creating the label in parted or gparted or whatever. The PARTUUID can just be pasted in without any additional futzing about. Just run sudo blkid and identify the partition you need, scoop up the PARTUUID and you are off to the races.

The PARTUUID for the volume entry should be the partition where the kernel image is–usually this is the EFI partition (/boot/efi would be the most common place) but some configurations put it in /boot which might be the main partition.

If you aren’t sure, poke around until you find the actual kernel bits:

root@debian:~# cd /boot
root@debian:/boot# ls
config-5.10.0-13-amd64  config-5.10.0-16-amd64  grub                        initrd.img-5.10.0-14-amd64  System.map-5.10.0-13-amd64  System.map-5.10.0-16-amd64  vmlinuz-5.10.0-14-amd64
config-5.10.0-14-amd64  efi                     initrd.img-5.10.0-13-amd64  initrd.img-5.10.0-16-amd64  System.map-5.10.0-14-amd64  vmlinuz-5.10.0-13-amd64     vmlinuz-5.10.0-16-amd64

Then use df to help figure out what partition you are in.

root@debian:/boot# df /boot
Filesystem     1K-blocks     Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2      243520884 14241548 216836304   7% /

Finally, use the device to grab the PARTUUID.

root@debian:/boot# sudo blkid /dev/sda2
/dev/sda2: UUID="090f73ad-a4ab-4819-83d5-6fd6add31b5a" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="fd52a804-e4bc-4c19-9751-72c81ccffc10"

In this example, my volume entry should look something like this:

menuentry "Debian" {
	icon     /EFI/refind/icons/os_debian.png
	volume   PARTUUID="fd52a804-e4bc-4c19-9751-72c81ccffc10"
	loader   /boot/vmlinuz
	initrd   /boot/initrd.img
	options  "root=PARTUUID=fd52a804-e4bc-4c19-9751-72c81ccffc10 quiet splash"
}

Note the “volume” and “root” PARTUUID’s are the same in this example because the kernel image is stored at /boot on the root partition (instead of /boot/efi on the EFI partition)–that is not always the case.

:point_up: That “volume” line needs the PARTUUID=" - ", so like this:

    volume PARTUUID='0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4'

Other than that, assuming those PARTUUID’s are pointing to the correct partitions, it looks good to me! :slightly_smiling_face: