is it possible to define the default Linux boot arguments in CLOVER?

[GoaSkin]

Hello,


when the clover scan procedure finds any bootable Linux Kernels, it generates dynamic boot entries where the arguments 'quiet splash' are added beside the information about root partition and initrd-file.

I would prefer to start my linux installation without a splash screen using generic network device names like 'eth0' by adding 'net.ifnames=0' instead of 'quiet splash'.

Is it possible to apply these (modified) arguments to all "Linux Kernel" search result and not only to a custom entry for a specified kernel?

 

[Going Bald]

I would first try the generic entry before any of your specific custom entries. If it does not work, a custom entry would probably be needed for each Linux custom entry.

 

[lucianoiam]

I also cannot find a way to pass kernel arguments to the automatically created Linux entries, something like a default <Arguments> section that only applies for a specific OS type. Is that possible at all with Clover? if so, a config.plist snippet would we awesome.

It seems quiet splash is hardcoded somewhere in the Clover source code:

$ grep -R "quiet splash" clover
clover/rEFIt_UEFI/entry_scan/loader.c:#define LINUX_DEFAULT_OPTIONS L"ro add_efi_memmap quiet splash vt.handoff=7"
clover/rEFIt_UEFI/entry_scan/loader.c: SubEntry->LoadOptions = AddLoadOption(Entry->LoadOptions, L"quiet splash");

That exactly matches what /proc/cmdline reports after booting:

$ cat /proc/cmdline
vmlinuz-5.0.0-31-lowlatency root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/189e48a0-802e-482e-b1a3-d3d5fad8dcb0 initrd=\boot\initrd.img-5.0.0-31-lowlatency ro add_efi_memmap quiet splash vt.handoff=7

 

[jpz4085]

Hi @lucianoiam you might want to have a look at the config.plist file I posted here a while back. It provides an example of a custom entry with arguments for Ubuntu. You'd need to adjust the volume name and path for your installation.

 

[lucianoiam]

I ended up patching the Clover binary using a hex editor to change the default arguments passed to the Linux kernel. This way I do not need to create any custom boot entries while being able to remove the splash screen for automatically scanned boot entries.

First I booted Linux and searched which binaries contain the arguments hardcoded in the Clover source: ro add_efi_memmap quiet splash vt.handoff=7 (note the strings are encoded using UTF-16)

grep -Par 'r\x00o\x00 \x00a\x00d\x00d\x00_\x00e\x00f\x00i\x00_\x00m\x00e\x00m\x00m\x00a\x00p\x00 \x00q\x00u\x00i\x00e\x00t\x00 \x00s\x00p\x00l\x00a\x00s\x00h\x00 \x00v\x00t\x00.\x00h\x00a\x00n\x00d\x00o\x00f\x00f\x00=\x007\x00' /boot/efi

There should be two matching files /boot/efi/EFI/CLOVER/CLOVERX64.efi and /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.efi . Only the latter needs to be edited since it overrides the former. I changed the arguments to ro add_efi_memmap nosplash debug. Note it is a bad idea to remove bytes from an executable file so any unnecessary characters in the string should be replaced with whitespaces instead of deleted, see the attached screenshots.

Before:

After: