Removing fallback efi from refind

Question

I've installed the latest refind to manage a ssd partitioned with OSX and Ubuntu. This has been working great and has been set up exactly how I wanted it until a recent dist-upgrade.

For some reason now my refind boot menu shows an option to boot fallback from EFI with an unknown_os icon. Selecting this option takes me into grub.

I've looked in my EFI directory which contains /EFI/bootx64.efi as well as bootx64.efi.grb. It also has the standard ubuntu and APPLE subdirectories containing the firmware.scap, grub, skim and mokmanager files.

Is there a safe way to remove the fallback entry from my boot menu as it was before?

Thanks.

Solution

For sure, there is a safe way to hide an entry from rEFInd boot menu.

I would suggest you to use "dont_scan_files" or "don't_scan_files" parameter in "refind.conf".

To add the EFI file to hide in addition to the default ones, you may use the following:

dont_scan_files + NameOfTheEFILoaderToHide.efi

For more details about the configuration of rEFInd Boot Manager, don't hesitate to take a look at the official documentation.

To identify the EFI file(s) you wish to keep or hide, efibootmgr may help you to get a list of the EFI menu entries with the corresponding EFI file.

1. Under Ubuntu, open a terminal and install "efibootmgr", if it is not already installed, by using the following command:

   sudo apt-get install efibootmgr

2. Retrieve EFI boot order and entries with the command:

   sudo efibootmgr -v

Notes:

BootCurrent: 0002 (indicates the UEFI boot entry used for booting).

BootOrder: 0002,0003,0001,0000 (indicates the UEFI boot order defined).

Boot000x* (represents one boot entry. It is followed by its name, HD and EFI file. All the boot entries are listed below "BootOrder").

Comments

[Daniel]

Just a note, if you aren't aware of it do not mess around with that EFI directory unless you know exactly what yer doing. It's kinda like messing with BIOS without knowing what yer doing. And I know what that's like.

[bleeves]

Thanks, but I'm having trouble finding the efi file responsible for the fallback option. Do you know which efi file is needed for ubuntu to load and which is the one I need to hide?

[Rod Smith]

The fallback boot loader is bootx64.efi or bootia32.efi, depending on your architecture. As you've found the former file on your system, use that one.

[gone]

For some reason Fallback boot loader from EFI is still showing on my MacBookPro 2014. My bootx64.efi is located in EFI/Boot/. Even though I have set dont_scan_files EFI/ubuntu/fbx64.efi,EFI/ubuntu/fwupx64.efi,EFI/ubuntu/mmx64‌​.efi,EFI/ubuntu/grub‌​x64.efi,EFI/Boot/boo‌​tx64.efi,EFI/boot/bo‌​otx64.efi,EFI/BOOT/b‌​ootx64.efi, bootx64.efi and dont_scan_dirs +EFI/Boot,EFI/boot,EFI/BOOT it's still showing, in spite of the overkill.

[gone]

In addition to the above, I have Linux from whole disk volume showing with a Linux penguin icon, which I would like to get rid of. How do I prevent that menu item from showing?

[Golboth]

Hi gone, Have you used sudo efibootmgr -v to identify precisely the EFI file(s) you wish to hide? The one you wish to hide might use an EFI file name you don't expect... If there is no other EFI file you wish to scan with the same name in another folder, you can simply use, for example, dont_scan_files + bootx64.efi (and others if needed). Don't forget the space after the comma (,)! For the last question, you might be interested in specifying a specific volume for dont_scan_files (see rEFInd official documentation for details). dont_scan_volumes might also be what you are searching for...