[GRUB] How do I prevent GRUB from installing?

[GKNByNW]

In a previous thread I detailed the steps I went through with various attempts/experiments using UEFI on my system. A few weeks ago I went "live" and made the full switch to UEFI. During installation I used Ubiquity's "no bootloader" option (so as to not install GRUB at all), then installed rEFInd to handle my dual-booting needs. My system has been perfectly happy without GRUB, but now today Muon again thinks it needs to install GRUB:



Running "dpkg -l *grub*" output the following:

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name           Version      Architecture Description
+++-==============-============-============-=================================
un  grub           <none>       <none>       (no description available)
un  grub-common    <none>       <none>       (no description available)
un  grub-coreboot  <none>       <none>       (no description available)
un  grub-efi-amd64 <none>       <none>       (no description available)
un  grub-efi-ia32  <none>       <none>       (no description available)
un  grub-gfxpayloa <none>       <none>       (no description available)
un  grub-ieee1275  <none>       <none>       (no description available)
un  grub-legacy    <none>       <none>       (no description available)
rc  grub-pc        2.02~beta2-9 amd64        GRand Unified Bootloader, version
un  grub-pc-bin    <none>       <none>       (no description available)
un  grub-xen       <none>       <none>       (no description available)
un  grub2          <none>       <none>       (no description available)
un  grub2-common   <none>       <none>       (no description available)

So I ran "sudo apt-get remove grub-pc" and:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package 'grub-pc' is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.

...followed by "sudo apt-get purge grub-pc"

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  grub-pc*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 7 not upgraded.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y
(Reading database ... 160006 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing grub-pc (2.02~beta2-9) ...
Purging configuration files for grub-pc (2.02~beta2-9) ...
rmdir: failed to remove ‘/boot/grub’: No such file or directory

A second instance of "dpkg -l *grub*" gives now gives me this:

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name           Version      Architecture Description
+++-==============-============-============-=================================
un  grub           <none>       <none>       (no description available)
un  grub-efi-amd64 <none>       <none>       (no description available)
un  grub-efi-ia32  <none>       <none>       (no description available)
un  grub-legacy    <none>       <none>       (no description available)
un  grub-pc        <none>       <none>       (no description available)
un  grub2          <none>       <none>       (no description available)

Since Muon still wants to install GRUB...

...how can I force my system to ignore GRUB completely and forever so that it doesn't try to install with my other updates?

[GKNByNW]

After doing some deeper reading here on the forums, I came across this post by Qqmike. I created the /etc/apt/preferences.d/no-boot-loaders file as suggested in that post and now Muon shows this:

It appears that Muon will now, by default, skip any GRUB-related packages. However, this seems like maybe a less-than-elegant solution and I am wondering if there is any way to prevent these items from even showing up at all?

[Qqmike]

I think that is in my how-to:

Remove GRUB from UEFI -- Instead, use rEFInd and/or UEFI firmware boot menus
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...317#post378317

Read down to "After you remove GRUB ..." I believe I got that from SteveRiley.

Sorry, I'm on the run at the moment ... but I'm fairly certain it is all there ...

[Qqmike]

Looks like we cross-posted, but that you found this how-to on your own.

seems like maybe a less-than-elegant solution and I am wondering if there is any way to prevent these
items from even showing up at all?

Sorry, I don't know the answer, but I'll bet--maybe--someone here does.

[GKNByNW]

After doing some deeper reading here on the forums, I came across this post by Qqmike. I created the /etc/apt/preferences.d/no-boot-loaders file as suggested in that post and now Muon shows this:

It appears that Muon will now, by default, skip any GRUB-related packages. However, this seems like maybe a less-than-elegant solution and I am wondering if there is any way to prevent these items from even showing up at all?

So I went ahead and installed the updates as they appear in this screenshot. I ended up with the usual GRUB folders and files, though GRUB itself did not install to my EFI partition or to the NVRAM variables as shown by "sudo efibootmgr -v". Running "sudo apt-get purge grub-common:i386" and "sudo apt-get purge grub-pc:i386" removed the files and folders. Just to see what happened, I removed the /etc/apt/preferences.d/no-boot-loaders file and once again GRUB is no longer showing up in my available updates. Kind of a roundabout way of doing things, but if that's what it takes then I guess I have no choice. Frankly, it wouldn't hurt anything to have GRUB installed. It's just that, with rEFInd, I simply have no need for it and I prefer to keep things as clean and streamlined as possible.