How to upgrade from rEFIt to rEFInd

Question

I have recently installed Ubuntu Server (12.04.3) on a MacMini1.1...

The MacMini already had OSX (Leopard) on it and I wanted to keep it, so after much research, I used the gpart and fdisk within an "Ubuntu-Desktop i386 LiveCD"-on-a-usb-stick to shrink the OSX partition and then used an installation usb-stick-Ubuntu-Server-i386 in a similar manner to format the left-over partition and install the Ubuntu Server on it.

Everything went fine so far. Scary yet flawless process :)

Before doing all that - I installed rEFIt. I saw it on oh so many internet-guides, and remembered it from back in the day before I was an IT Manager & Tech... So I was sure it'll be THE thing to help me out.

And indeed it was great, only I missed one very important detail: On rEFIt's main webpage they clearly state: "As you may have noticed, rEFIt is no longer actively maintained. Please check out rEFInd, a fork that is maintaned and under active development."

So now all of a sudden I notice this strange phenomenon: My Ubuntu Server OS only boots up properly while I have a screen attached to the Machine(MacMini). The keyboard & mouse don't seem to be needed, but if I reboot without a screen being connected, it just gets stuck along the way and I can't access it via putty from my not-so-remote windows machine. If I then connect a screen to the MacMini, I see it got stuck along the way and there's no options to be chosen. Currently, my only option seems to be rebooting with a connected screen, then unplugging it and connecting it back to my windows-pc, where I use putty for an ssh connection over the LAN.

I decided to check rEFIt's website for troubleshooting options, when I suddenly noticed the comment about rEFInd and instantly face-palmed.

I saw that the maintainer of rEFInd is here in the forums (am I right in my realization that it's Rod Smith? So I thought after explaining the situation and how delicate it is for my work - I'd ask this supposedly simple question: I've read through the installation guide in the rEFInd site and I still don't understand how I can replace my current rEFIt with the new rEFInd without having to format anything, nor erase anything, nor delete, nor risk anything in my current system and/or files. Can you please help me?

Solution

Yes, I'm rEFInd's maintainer.

Just running the install.sh script from OS X should install rEFInd as the default boot loader, bypassing rEFIt, although you might also want to install an EFI filesystem driver for the filesystem on which your Linux kernel resides. (That will enable direct booting of Linux without involving GRUB.) Also, running rEFInd's install.sh script will not completely remove rEFIt. If you find that rEFInd works as well as or better than rEFIt, you can delete rEFIt manually by removing the /EFI/refit directory in OS X (or on your ESP, if you installed it there).

That said, it seems unlikely to me that rEFInd will fix the problem you're having. I've never heard of this issue before, but my suspicion is that it's a firmware limitation, not a bug in rEFIt. I have made some changes to video handling in rEFInd, and it's conceivable that one of those changes would inadvertently fix your problem. It's worth trying rEFInd to see if this is the case, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

You might want to try completely removing rEFIt before installing rEFInd to test whether the computer will boot with the monitor unplugged without any third-party boot managers installed. If it does, then rEFIt is probably hanging or pausing and waiting for input when the monitor is disconnected. If rEFInd does the same thing, it would be difficult to debug, because there's currently no facility to write a log file that would reveal where such a hang occurs.

Comments

[Captain Gold]

First of all thank you so much for the buz-lightning-speed reply :D I cannot, to my knowledge, uninstall rEFIt and let the computer try booting, because as mentioned I'm dual-booting OSX Leopard & Ubuntu Server 12.04.3. If it boots I have no guarantee that I'll be able to boot into OSX to install rEFInd and if it doesn't I'm pretty much screwed. I might of course be utterly wrong about this - and if so please do explain. As far as the firmware bug possibility - isn't there any way that rEFInd (or rEFIt for that matter) can be configured in a more case-specific way that'll surpass such a bug?

[Rod Smith]

Removing rEFIt would cause your computer to boot straight into OS X. (Sorry; I misread your original post and thought you wanted to boot straight into that OS, not into Ubuntu.) Some types of firmware bugs can be worked around, but with no data about what's going wrong, it's an impossible task. FWIW, I just tested on my own Mac Mini, and it booted fine with rEFInd and the monitor unplugged. I haven't tested with rEFIt, though, so I don't know if this is a difference between our computers or a rEFIt/rEFInd difference.

[Captain Gold]

I am in awe every time I try to get help in the Ubuntu community. It's such a warm place and has such nice and caring people in it :D To the matter at hand: I have a MacMini1.1 - it's one of the oldest models (for reference: before that came the PowerPCs which are Macs that look and are also defined as MacMini but have no support in the Ubuntu world anymore). That was per your comment.

[Captain Gold]

Now to my question: I am contemplating whether I should really uninstall rEFIt before installing rEFInd (I'm afraid to loose the access to my Ubuntu Server for more than 20 minutes haha). Or should I just install rEFInd and then erase the rEFIt folder (or like... rename it), and only then reboot my MacMini? Sorry for being so picky on the details - I gotta get this 100% right on this computer and I have no other suitable computer to test it on.

[Captain Gold]

Well thanks again :D I will try it as soon as I get rid of my postfix problem. Aaahhh the life of IT . . .

[Captain Gold]

I'm a bit confused as to which package I should download for the OS X on my MAcMini1.1 --- it says on the Mac instructions to use the script, but I'm not 100% by the section "Get rEFInd" if all packages have the script in them or not.

[Rod Smith]

Get the .zip file package (either the standard one compiled with Tianocore or the one compiled with GNU-EFI -- both work equally well on Macs).

[Captain Gold]

Well, I've installed rEFInd and then configured it (nice conf file btw. very clear), and then I moved the rEFIt folder to another location and renamed it. The rEFInd is great, and very easy to use. I like it. It's not much different visually than the rEFIt but I'm extremely glad to have switched to what's still supported and I truly liked the options in the conf file. It didn't fix my "not turning on while no screen is connected" issue. It must be a firmware (or who knows, maybe even a hardware) issue.

[Captain Gold]

Luckuly for me, I got a new screen from work, which has dual input and a click-to-switch button. So I'm all set. My only regret here is not having a solution for any who sees this post and has the same issue. Thanks for sticking with me Ron. P.S. Interesting fact: If my screen is physically connected but is showing the OTHER connected computer while I load rEFInd... the MacMini1.1 DOES load into Linux (my default selection) with no problems whatsoever.

[Rod Smith]

I bet it would be possible to build a simple adapter that tricks the computer into thinking a screen is connected when it's not. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if such a device is available commercially, so you might try asking on a hardware forum or doing a Web search. Maybe a simple DVI-to-VGA adapter would do the trick, in fact.

[Captain Gold]

Already tried a simple DVI to VGA adapter. No luck there.