I then removed all drives except one WD 250GB SSD and I installed the OSs in this order:
- Windows 10 Pro,
- Linux Mint 19.1, and
- Trident (what used to be TrueOS Desktop and based on FreeBSD 12).
From there, I used boot-repair's Recommended Repair, but I ended up with a full dozen entries in GRUB:
- 1 that goes to System Setup,
- 2 that boot Linux (one with Advanced options),
- 2 that boot Windows, and
- 7 that do essentially nothing, either crashing with messages such as "alloc magic broken," "premature EOF," or a countdown into SHIM that then dies.
What I'd like to try now is to install rEFInd using the refind-install script so I can clean up all these unusable entires in GRUB. Or does rEFInd replace GRUB? I'm not clear on that.
Before I go ahead, though, I'm hoping someone can review all the info below and let me know if rEFInd will be the most effective way to end up with a working triple-boot set-up. I've read through the docs for rEFInd, but other than instructions for installing with either Linux or OSX, I'm not getting a clear picture on how to proceed or if rEFInd is the best way to go.
Maybe there's another way to do this and it means wiping the drive and starting over. I'm open to this because another day of installing OSs is no big deal at this point.
So, on to the information I gathered...
Output of sudo blkid:
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/dev/sda1: LABEL="Recovery" UUID="E89E06DC9E06A2E4" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="d96aa3e6-b72f-4871-a5ce-07d2089800c1"
/dev/sda2: UUID="4C06-FD0D" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI system partition" PARTUUID="a9102bf5-58af-4c49-ba00-5d3dbc0b8bad"
/dev/sda4: UUID="2A1AB8BD1AB8877B" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="60a00964-2d87-4b72-bec1-ad15b0160789"
/dev/sda5: UUID="526819bf-34ad-4c1b-93cc-6fb8db0267d0" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="eeb05fee-9833-4dbe-93cb-eb7d0eae79eb"
/dev/sda6: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="EFISYS" UUID="BD41-11EE" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="6bd33430-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5"
/dev/sda7: LABEL="trident" UUID="16658864228302214331" UUID_SUB="108957535238235013" TYPE="zfs_member" PARTUUID="6bd42ec6-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5"
/dev/sda3: PARTLABEL="Microsoft reserved partition" PARTUUID="4f778216-53f7-47f3-b51c-d9529bf3b172"
/dev/sda8: PARTUUID="6bd4afc8-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5"
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BootCurrent: 0002
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0002,0004,0000,0001,0006,0005
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager HD(2,GPT,a9102bf5-58af-4c49-ba00-5d3dbc0b8bad,0xfa000,0x32000)/File(\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...a................
Boot0001* ubuntu HD(6,GPT,6bd33430-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5,0x1499c800,0x64000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\SHIMX64.EFI)
Boot0002* ubuntu HD(2,GPT,a9102bf5-58af-4c49-ba00-5d3dbc0b8bad,0xfa000,0x32000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\SHIMX64.EFI)
Boot0004* UEFI OS HD(6,GPT,6bd33430-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5,0x1499c800,0x64000)/File(\EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI)..BO
Boot0005* ubuntu HD(2,GPT,a9102bf5-58af-4c49-ba00-5d3dbc0b8bad,0xfa000,0x32000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\GRUBX64.EFI)..BO
Boot0006* ubuntu HD(6,GPT,6bd33430-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5,0x1499c800,0x64000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\GRUBX64.EFI)..BO
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NAME FSTYPE LABEL UUID MOUNTPOINT
sda
├─sda1 ntfs Recovery E89E06DC9E06A2E4
├─sda2 vfat 4C06-FD0D
├─sda3
├─sda4 ntfs 2A1AB8BD1AB8877B /media/ron/2A1AB8BD1AB8877B
├─sda5 ext4 526819bf-34ad-4c1b-93cc-6fb8db0267d0 /
├─sda6 vfat EFISYS BD41-11EE /boot/efi
├─sda7 zfs_member trident 16658864228302214331
└─sda8
These three are all the same:
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Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager HD(2,GPT,a9102bf5-58af-4c49-ba00-5d3dbc0b8bad,0xfa000,0x32000)/File(\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...a................
Boot0002* ubuntu HD(2,GPT,a9102bf5-58af-4c49-ba00-5d3dbc0b8bad,0xfa000,0x32000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\SHIMX64.EFI)
Boot0005* ubuntu HD(2,GPT,a9102bf5-58af-4c49-ba00-5d3dbc0b8bad,0xfa000,0x32000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\GRUBX64.EFI)..BO
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Boot0001* ubuntu HD(6,GPT,6bd33430-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5,0x1499c800,0x64000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\SHIMX64.EFI)
Boot0004* UEFI OS HD(6,GPT,6bd33430-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5,0x1499c800,0x64000)/File(\EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI)..BO
Boot0006* ubuntu HD(6,GPT,6bd33430-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5,0x1499c800,0x64000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\GRUBX64.EFI)..BO
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Partition Volume File System Status Size
1 Recovery NTFS OEM 499 mb
2 EFI Basic 100 mb
3 C: NTFS system, etc. 97.06 gb
4
5 Primary 67.15 gb
6 EFI 200 mb
7 Primary 64.7 gb
8 Primary 3.08 gb
Note: This is an MSI GE72 2QF laptop with the Aptio Setup Utility (2015, American Megatrends)
UEFI Hard Disk Drive BBS Priorities
Boot option #1: [ubuntu]
Boot option #2: [UEFI OS P0: WDC WD5250G2B0B)]
Boot option #3: [Windows Boot Manager (P0: WDC WD5250G2B0B)]
Boot option #4: [ubuntu]
Boot option #5: [ubuntu (P0: WDC WD5250G2B0B)]
Boot option #6: [ubuntu (P0: WDC WD5250G2B0B)]
Digging down a bit further, into the list of options that can be selected for each Boot option, these are the choices:
- ubuntu
- UEFI Boot Manager (P0: WDC WD5250G2B0B)
- Windows Boot Manager (P0: WDC WD5250G2B0B)
- ubuntu
- ubuntu (P0: WDC WD5250G2B0B)
- ubuntu (P0: WDC WD5250G2B0B)
- there are two EFI boot partitions on the drive, sda2 and sda6,
- the two vfat partitions are the partitions where installers have placed EFI boot scripts, managers, etc,
- the Windows installer created sda2,
- either the Linux Mint 19.1 installer or the Trident 18.12 installer created sda6.
Also, the three partitions containing OSs are:
- sda4 (Windows 10),
- sda5 (Linux Mint 19.1), and
- sda7 (Trident).
More assumptions:
- GRUB is on sda2,
- the Windows Boot Manager is also on sda2,
- sda2 is where I want to put rEFInd, and
- sda6 is extraneous.