Refind boot manager cd software#

UEFI requires every bootable disk to have a special partition called EFI System Partion (ESP). You can use these almost everywhere (in /etc/fstab, crypttab, etc) instead of using device names and UUIDs. In Linux, the device files are referenced as: /dev/disk/by-partuuid/В and /dev/disk/by-partlabel/. You can refer to devices with their PARTUUIDВ and PARTLABELВ to ensure that device references remain valid, even if the partition is re-formatted. UUIDВ and LABELВ are stored in the file-system and change when the partition is re-formatted.These are stored in partition table and do not change when partition is re-formatted. PARTLABELВ is empty and needs to be set manually. These are stored in partition table and are different from the normal UUID and LABEL that are stored in filesystem. GPT provides a unique UUID (called PARTUUID) and a label (called PARTLABEL) for each partition.GPT partition size is limited to 8 ZB (Zetta-bytes). MBR partition size is limited to 2 TB.

GPT supports creation of more than 128 partitions.

MBR supports only 4 primary partitions, or 3 primary and 1 extended partition (that can be further subdivided into more partitions).

You can create a GPT partition table using GParted or any other disk partitioning tool. It is a modern replacement for the old MBR partition table (Master Boot Record) that was used with BIOS systems. GPT (GUID Partition Table) is a new partition table format used with EFI systems. In order to use a new hard disk or SSD with UEFI, create a new partition table on the disk in GPT format.Д¬reating GPT partition table with GParted In order to provide backward compatibility, most EFI systems provide a Legacy Boot mode that can be used to boot your computer. UEFI Configuration Utility on an Asus motherboard EFI on the other hand can provide a complete graphical environment with support for mouse and graphical controls. BIOS provides a basic text-based interface.

Refind boot manager cd software#

The firmware on your motherboard is another low-level software that controls hardware components.Д«IOS was developed in the 1970s and was prevalent till the late 2000s when it began to be gradually replaced by EFI.

Both EFI and BIOS are low-level software that acts as an interface between the operating system and the firmware on the motherboard. If you have a laptop or desktop that was manufactured in the last 10 years, then it uses EFI instead of BIOS. REFInd is a boot manager for computers that use EFI/UEFI ( Unified Extensible Firmware Interface). The Linux kernel will then load itself into memory and execute, instead of depending on an external boot loader like GRUB. All we need is a boot manager to hand off control to the Linux kernel that we want to boot. We donвЂ™t need the GRUB boot loader on EFI-based systems, since an EFI-boot loader stub is built into the Linux kernel itself. GRUB is both a boot loader and a boot manager. A boot manager hands off control to another boot program. Basics Boot loaders and Boot managersДЄ boot loader loads an OS kernel into memory and executes it. If you already have a computer with multiple Linux distributions installed in EFI-mode, then you can skip to the section for installing Refind. This article describes how we can create a multi-boot system using EFI boot, and use Refind to switch between systems. If you have a desktop or laptop that was manufactured in the last 10 years, then it comes with EFI, and there is absolutely no reason to be using GRUB. GRUB is the default on all major Linux distributions in order to keep compatibility with older computers that donвЂ™t have EFI. Many years later, IвЂ™m often surprised by how few people are aware of it, and how many people still struggle with GRUB for booting their Linux systems. I came across rEFInd five years ago, and it was one of those things that solved a lot of headaches for me. If you use GRUB for booting multiple distributions and have never heard of rEFInd then this article is for you. This article is for people who dual-boot Linux with Windows, or boot multiple Linux distributions.