I use rEFInd as my boot manager and sometimes I like to dual boot a new linux distro (just to try out) which I install with a live USB. Unfortunately, after installing, GRUB has always taken the reigns and it becomes a slight inconvenience to get back to rEFInd every time.
Is there some trick that can request grub not to install?
[What prompted me to ask was I tried KaOS yesterday, and during installation it asked what bootloader i wanted and included the option for ‘none’.]
That’s going to be specific to each distro whether it’s possible or not. It’s usually hidden in advanced partitioning, if available at all. It’s like every new distro has to be completely turnkey to appeal to gamers.
I don’t get why GRUB is so popular, GRUB 2 is so incredibly bloated and convoluted when it really doesn’t need to be, and it’s not even nice like rEFInd and other graphical bootloaders. When they started shipping GRUB 2 by default I switched to syslinux, then systemd-boot/efistub.
Same. GRUB might offer wider compatibility and support legacy BIOS, but it’s a cantankerous, wheezy dinosaur compared to systemd-boot. I don’t know why more distros don’t at least offer the latter as an option during installation.
GRUB 2 is so incredibly bloated and convoluted when it really doesn’t need to be
Heh. Because back when LILO was the standard bootloader people wanted something modern that could boot off everything and could support new tech indefinitely. And then it kind of got out of hand. Ironically, Grub still can’t boot into a generic ISO without loading all of it in RAM.
Grub is the systemd of bootloaders… it’s large and complex and can do anything but occasionally someone will say “I don’t need it to do everything, how about something smaller that only does this and this”.
I tried to use rEFInd years ago on my first UEFI machine, gave up and ended with GRUB… maybe it was just a crap setup and I need to try again…
But, how about backing up just the boot sectors / EFI partition with a
ddcommand and then just restoring it again? Not a slick solution, I agreeTBH, if a distro doesn’t give me options during install then I’d probably stop there as every update to GRUB could be automatically installed and blat your machine again.
But, how about backing up just the boot sectors / EFI partition with a
ddcommand and then just restoring it again? Not a slick solution, I agreeUnfortunately that does nothing on a UEFI system. There’s no boot record any more (just a partition table) and even if there were (ie it’s an MBR drive instead of GPT) it would be ignored under UEFI.
But in the case of rEFInd and GRUB, both would actually happily live side by side, what’s changing is just the default bootloader selection in the UEFI. So all you need to go into your UEFI settings and point it back to your choice of bootloader. No need to worry about reinstalling the bootloader, messing with config files, etc.
Debian installer in expert mode definitely asks you whether, and howz you want to install grub.
Pop Os uses SystemD and not GRUB
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Is there some trick that can request grub not to install?
That really depends on your distro’s installer, so there’s no simple answer to your question. If you’re using Arch for instance, you have complete control over that process. For other distros, you’ll need to do your homework.
In saying that, one option could be to do a manual partition restore - like install your distro inside a VM (but don’t reboot after the install, just shutdown the VM), and then clone the partition from the VHD to your real drive. After that you can just create an entry in rEFInd. But that’s more effort than simply just changing the default bootloader.
Easy, replace it with
systemd-boot: https://blog.bofh.it/debian/id_465systemd-boot is simpler to configure and keep up to date. On my PC I only needed to create 5 lines of config for my Linux drive, and it automatically configures the boot option for my Windows drive.
This is the right answer.
Fedora (workstation): search ‘inst.sdboot’ to install without grub (leaving systemd-boot).
— Thank you to everyone for replying. I’m pretty satisfied now that there is no trick to prevent grub installing unless an option is given during installation. Maybe in future, more distros will have the option 🤷♂️
