187
<p>Once you've installed rEFInd, you may face a new challenge: Keeping it set as your default boot manager. Users of multi-boot computers have long faced similar challenges, because most OSes provide mechanisms to keep themselves booting, even at the cost of disrupting other OSes—or overriding your own choices. On this page, I refer to such unwanted changes as <i>boot coups.</i> Experienced multi-booters know the tools and techniques to avoid or recover from boot coups. If you're new to the EFI world, though, most of the techniques you may know for helping with BIOS-mode booting don't apply to EFI-mode booting.</p>
189
<p>This page describes tools and techniques you can use to keep rEFInd set as your default boot manager, or at least to recover it as the default boot option if something else takes over. This page is organized by OS, describing the tools and techniques you can use in each OS to recover from a boot coup—or in some cases, to prevent one from occurring. I begin and end with information on firmware-based tools, though. Chances are you should not read this page straight through; instead, peruse the Contents to the left and pick an OS and, perhaps, a recovery tool or technique you wish to pursue and read the relevant section. In most cases, the recovery technique is fairly quick and painless, once you understand how to do it. Note also that, in extreme cases, a full rEFInd re-installation may be required. It may also be easier to re-run <tt>refind-install</tt> than to learn about esoteric commands such as <tt>efibootmgr</tt>, <tt>bless</tt>, or <tt>bcdedit</tt>.</p>
196
192
<h2>Evading the Guards: Performing a One-Time Boot to Your Desired OS</h2>
199
195
<p>Most EFIs provide their own built-in boot managers. These tools are primitive, and in some cases they can be difficult to reach, but they can be useful if you need to bypass a new system default in order to boot an OS that has the tools you need to control the boot process.</p>
201
<p>On Macs, holding the Option key (or Alt with a PC keyboard) brings up the Mac's boot manager. Typically, the Esc key, Enter key, or a function key (usually F8 or above) does the job on UEFI-based PCs. Some computers provide a prompt for what key to use to access the boot menu, but this isn't always true. Sometimes the keyboard is disabled in the early stages of the boot process by default—part of a strategy to speed up system boots. Disabling a "fast start" feature in the firmware may work around this problem. Getting into the firmware can be a challenge on such computers, though. Microsoft provides a way to do this in Windows 8 and later; see <a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/126016/three-ways-to-access-the-windows-8-boot-options-menu/">this How-To Geek article</a> for documentation on how to use this feature. If a Linux distribution uses the popular <tt>systemd</tt> initialization system, you can type <tt class="userinput">systemctl reboot --firmware</tt> as <tt>root</tt> (or using <tt>sudo</tt>) to do the same from Linux.</p>
197
<p>On Macs, holding the Option key (or Alt with a PC keyboard) while powering on the computer brings up the Mac's boot manager. Typically, the Esc key, Enter key, or a function key (usually F8 or above) does the job on UEFI-based PCs. Some computers provide a prompt for what key to use to access the boot menu, but this isn't always true. Sometimes the keyboard is disabled in the early stages of the boot process by default—part of a strategy to speed up system boots. Disabling a "fast start" feature in the firmware may work around this problem. Getting into the firmware can be a challenge on such computers, though. Microsoft provides a way to do this in Windows 8 and later; see <a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/126016/three-ways-to-access-the-windows-8-boot-options-menu/">this How-To Geek article</a> for documentation on how to use this feature. If a Linux distribution uses the popular <tt>systemd</tt> initialization system, you can type <tt class="userinput">systemctl reboot --firmware</tt> as <tt>root</tt> (or using <tt>sudo</tt>) to do the same from Linux.</p>
203
199
<p>Once you've found the built-in boot manager, you'll see its display, which is typically a text-mode listing of boot options. On UEFI-based PCs, the user interface is typically similar to the one used in years past on BIOS-based computers to select the boot device; it's simply been upgraded to include the descriptions held in NVRAM for specific boot loaders. (In fact, prompts are often outdated and misleading; as in the below example, they may refer to "boot devices," when in fact most of the options are EFI boot loader programs, not hardware devices.) As an example, an ASUS P8 H77-I's boot manager looks like this:</p>