How To Install refind on Debian 10

Learn how to install refind on Debian 10 with this tutorial. refind is boot manager for EFI-based computers

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install refind on Debian 10.

What is refind

refind is:

A graphical boot manager for EFI- and UEFI-based computers, such as all Intel-based Macs and recent (most 2011 and later) PCs. rEFInd presents a boot menu showing all the EFI boot loaders on the EFI-accessible partitions, and optionally BIOS-bootable partitions on Macs and BIOS boot entries on UEFI PCs with CSMs. EFI-compatible OSes, including Linux, provide boot loaders that rEFInd can detect and launch. rEFInd can launch Linux EFI boot loaders such as ELILO, GRUB Legacy, GRUB 2, and 3.3.0 and later kernels with EFI stub support. EFI filesystem drivers for ext2/3/4fs, ReiserFS, Btrfs, NTFS, HFS+, and ISO-9660 enable rEFInd to read boot loaders from these filesystems, too. rEFInd’s ability to detect boot loaders at runtime makes it very easy to use, particularly when paired with Linux kernels that provide EFI stub support.

There are three methods to install refind on Debian 10. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install refind Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install refind using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install refind

Install refind Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install refind using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install refind

Install refind Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Debian. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install refind using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install refind

How To Uninstall refind on Debian 10

To uninstall only the refind package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove refind

Uninstall refind And Its Dependencies

To uninstall refind and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Debian 10, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove refind

Remove refind Configurations and Data

To remove refind configuration and data from Debian 10 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge refind

Remove refind configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove refind configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge refind

Dependencies

refind have the following dependencies:

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install refind package on Debian 10 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.