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Foreword: I have found quite a few posts here and there that address bits and pieces of my particular problem, but I haven't found a sufficiently complete answer that would quell my concerns.

My intent is to cleanly install Ubuntu on a new GPT disk, using rEFInd to boot into Ubuntu and whatever other operating systems I may install later (e.g. Arch, Gentoo, Windows, and whatever I may need). I may partition the disk ahead of time using another system, setting up the ESP, the root, and maybe a swap partition for Ubuntu. If possible, I may install rEFInd into the ESP at this point, too.

I know that Ubuntu can be installed without Grub (using ubiquity --no-bootloader, if that's still valid), but then I'm not sure what needs to be done after this point. rEFInd is supposedly easy to configure, but I'm not sure how to set up things like boot and kernel parameters, or whatever configuration crap usually goes into Grub.

What I'm looking for is a list of things that I would need to consider and configure in this particular setup, whilst also reducing headache afterwards (e.g. upgrading the kernel).

Bonus question: What if the mode of installation happens to be by copying over a pre-configured disk image (specific to this computer), which already has a Grub setup? How should I get rid of it and replace it with rEFInd whilst also retaining any important boot/kernel configuration that the to-be-removed Grub has?

Mona the Monad
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  • Meta: I don't think my question is necessarily specific to Ubuntu, as I will be installing other operating systems in a similar manner. Would this be or have been better asked on SuperUser instead? – Mona the Monad Oct 15 '19 at 16:18
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    You still use grub to boot, its just not using grub menu, but using rEFInd's menu to choose what system to boot with. http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/ & https://askubuntu.com/questions/908677/want-to-view-contents-of-boot-efi-in-xubuntu-dont-have-permissions Setting up a multi-boot of 5 Linux distributionsm boot with rEFInd https://medium.com/@manujarvinen/setting-up-a-multi-boot-of-5-linux-distributions-ca1fcf8d502 I have used rEFInd on a flash drive without any special configuration and it found and offered to boot all my installs. – oldfred Oct 15 '19 at 16:45
  • That makes a bit more sense. My rationale for not using Grub is that I'd rather have a boot manager that can automatically detect kernels and such without needing to, for example, update the Grub configurations every single time a kernel is changed or upgraded somewhere. – Mona the Monad Oct 15 '19 at 16:48
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    With Ubuntu you can do that just by booting a partition, not a kernel. You add your own boot stanza to 40_custom to boot the link of the most current kernel in another install. Not sure about other systems, but you can use grub's configfile to boot into their grub. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MaintenanceFreeCustomGrub2Screen & https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub/grub.html#Multi_002dboot-manual-config & https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/CustomMenus – oldfred Oct 15 '19 at 17:26

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