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I have installed OpenSUSE 15 on Acer Aspire ES1-132 (which is infamous for being reluctant to run anything but Windows 10) and now trying to boot it.

The only way I can achieve this so far is by first booting rEFInd from USB stick. It then allows me to select EFI\opensuse\grubx64.efi and that boots just fine — OpenSUSE runs no problem.

Now I am trying to take USB stick out of the equation. Searching the web I found that placing whatever boot file as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi will trick the laptop to boot it. So what I did was:

  1. Create the EFI/Microsoft/Boot folder on the laptop's EFI partition
  2. Copy the contents of EFI/boot from the rEFInd USB stick into that folder
  3. Rename bootx64.efi to bootmgfw.efi

And that kind-of works: rEFInd boots just like it does from USB stick! But there is a hitch: when I select to proceed with EFI\opensuse\grubx64.efi, rEFInd freezes on this:

Starting grubx64.efi
Using load options ''
_

So it looks like just the fact that I booted rEFInd from EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi makes it unable to boot Linux. Why so?

  • rEFInd version 0.11.2
  • Secure boot OFF in BIOS
  • EFI revision 2.5
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I've been installing various Linux (linuxen?) On my Aspire, presently Tumbleweed. The problem in this case is YAST2. The Yast-bootloader expects Grub2 and doesn't play nicely with rEFInd. You might need to chainload Grub2 from rEFInd somehow. Win10 isn't the only OS that doesn't play nice with rEFInd, maybe uboot and others present problems, too. Personally I'm booting rEFInd from a Clonezilla USB stick, too,and boot into Opensuse that way. YAST has a steep learning curve so I'm not messing with it too much. Other linux also presents problems, I think PopOS does because there is a hidden Recovery partition that interacts with Grub on boot. Some Linux distros just don't work well with rEFInd, it's not just Win10. The bootmgfw.efi trick might not work because it's in /Microsoft/Boot/ if I understand you right. Linux expects it Boot in a non /Microsoft/ directory. Just a guess.

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  • I’m having trouble seeing an actual answer to the question here.
    – G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica'
    Commented Jul 30, 2018 at 22:36
  • Garbage in, garbage out. The questioner asks why a "fake" EFI file in a Microsoft directory won't work. After pontificating on strategies that just plain won't work well wiith OpenSUSE. Its Specifically with Yast. Thats why no zypper repos have rEFInd.
    – Cuvtixo
    Commented Jul 31, 2018 at 7:38

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