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7 <title>The rEFInd Boot Manager: Getting rEFInd</title>
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11 <body>
12 <h1>The rEFInd Boot Manager:<br />Getting rEFInd</h1>
13
14 <p class="subhead">by Roderick W. Smith, <a
15 href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
16
17 <p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
18 7/6/2014, referencing rEFInd 0.8.3</p>
19
20 <p>This Web page is provided free of charge and with no annoying outside ads; however, I did take time to prepare it, and Web hosting does cost money. If you find this Web page useful, please consider making a small donation to help keep this site up and running. Thanks!</p>
21
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65 <form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
66 <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_donations">
67 <input type="hidden" name="business" value="rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">
68 <input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US">
69 <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="0">
70 <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
71 <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="5.00">
72 <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="rEFInd Boot Manager">
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76 </form>
77 </td>
78
79 <td>
80 <form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
81 <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_donations">
82 <input type="hidden" name="business" value="rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">
83 <input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US">
84 <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="0">
85 <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
86 <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="10.00">
87 <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="rEFInd Boot Manager">
88 <input type="hidden" name="bn" value="PP-DonationsBF:btn_donate_LG.gif:NonHostedGuest">
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90 <img alt="Donate with PayPal" border="0" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1">
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92 </td>
93
94 <td>
95 <form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
96 <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_donations">
97 <input type="hidden" name="business" value="rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">
98 <input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US">
99 <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="0">
100 <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
101 <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="20.00">
102 <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="rEFInd Boot Manager">
103 <input type="hidden" name="bn" value="PP-DonationsBF:btn_donate_LG.gif:NonHostedGuest">
104 <input type="image" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donate_LG.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!">
105 <img alt="Donate with PayPal" border="0" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1">
106 </form>
107 </td>
108
109 <td>
110 <form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
111 <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_donations">
112 <input type="hidden" name="business" value="rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">
113 <input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US">
114 <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="0">
115 <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
116 <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="rEFInd Boot Manager">
117 <input type="hidden" name="bn" value="PP-DonationsBF:btn_donate_LG.gif:NonHostedGuest">
118 <input type="image" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donate_LG.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!">
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120 </form>
121 </td></tr>
122 </table>
123
124 <hr />
125
126 <p>This page is part of the documentation for the rEFInd boot manager. If a Web search has brought you here, you may want to start at the <a href="index.html">main page.</a></p>
127
128 <hr />
129
130 <p><b>Note:</b> I consider rEFInd to be <i>beta-quality software!</i> I'm discovering bugs (old and new) and fixing them every few days. That said, rEFInd is a usable program in its current form on many systems. If you have problems, feel free to drop me a line.</p>
131
132 <h2>Getting rEFInd from Sourceforge</h2>
133
134 <p>You can find the rEFInd source code and binary packages at <a href="http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/refind/">its SourceForge page.</a> Note that rEFInd is OS-independent&mdash;it runs before the OS, so you download the same binary package for any OS. You can obtain rEFInd in several different forms:</p>
135
136 <ul>
137
138 <li><b><a
139 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.8.3/refind-bin-0.8.3.zip/download">A
140 binary zip file</a></b>&mdash;Download this if you want to install
141 rEFInd and/or its filesystem drivers on an <i>x</i>86 or <i>x</i>86-64
142 computer and have no need to test rEFInd first by booting it on an
143 optical disc. This zip file package includes both <i>x</i>86 (aka IA32)
144 and <i>x</i>86-64 (aka <i>x</i>64, AMD64, or EM64T) versions of rEFInd.
145 Which you install depends on your architecture, as described on the <a
146 href="installing.html">Installing rEFInd</a> page. Some users of Arch
147 Linux have reported problems booting some specific Arch Linux kernels
148 with rEFInd and some other tools. For them, a <a
149 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.8.3/refind-bin-gnuefi-0.8.3.zip/download">variant
150 package</a> exists in which the <i>x</i>86-64 binary was compiled with
151 GNU-EFI rather than the usual TianoCore EDK2. This change helps some
152 users with this problem.</li>
153
154 <li><b><a
155 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.8.3/refind-0.8.3-1.x86_64.rpm/download">A
156 binary RPM file</a></b>&mdash;If you use an RPM-based <i>x</i>86-64
157 Linux system such as Fedora or openSUSE, you can install the binary RPM
158 package rather than use the binary zip file. (I don't provide an
159 equivalent 32-bit package.) This package runs the <tt>install.sh</tt>
160 script (described on the <a href="installing.html">Installing
161 rEFInd</a> page) as part of the installation process. Distribution
162 maintainers can examine the <tt>refind.spec</tt> file in the source
163 package and tweak it to their needs. The <a
164 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.8.3/refind-0.8.3-1.src.rpm/download">source
165 RPM file</a> might or might not build on your system as-is; it relies
166 on assumptions about the locations of the GNU-EFI development
167 files.</li>
168
169 <li><b><a
170 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.8.3/refind_0.8.3-1_amd64.deb/download">A
171 binary Debian package</a></b>&mdash;If you use an <i>x</i>86-64 version
172 of Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, or another Debian-based distribution, you can
173 install from this package, which was converted from the binary RPM
174 package using <tt>alien</tt>. Note that an <a href="#ppa">Ubuntu
175 PPA</a> is available, which may install more smoothly and will cause
176 rEFInd to automatically update with other packages.</li>
177
178 <!--
179 <li><b><a
180 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.7/refind-bin-gnuefi-0.4.7.zip/download">A
181 binary zip file (built with GNU-EFI)</a></b>&mdash;This package is just
182 like the preceding one, except that it was built using the GNU-EFI
183 development kit rather than the TianoCore EFI Development Kit 2 (EDK2)
184 that was used to build the other binary. I originally used GNU-EFI to
185 develop rEFInd, but the GNU-EFI toolkit doesn't support the legacy
186 (BIOS-mode) boot calls on UEFI-based PCs, so I now consider the
187 TianoCore build to be the primary one. (Macs can boot legacy OSes using
188 either build.)</li>
189 -->
190
191 <p class="sidebar"><b>Note:</b> At the moment, neither the bootable CD-R image file nor the bootable USB flash drive image file supports booting with Secure Boot active. The x86-64 version of the <a href="http://en.altlinux.org/Rescue">ALT Linux Rescue disc</a> uses a Secure Boot-enabled rEFInd, though, so you may find that useful in some situations.</p>
192
193 <li><b><a
194 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.8.3/refind-cd-0.8.3.zip/download">A
195 CD-R image file</a></b>&mdash;This download contains the same files as
196 the binary zip file, but you can burn it to a CD-R to test rEFInd
197 (and its filesystem drivers) without installing it first. (It boots on
198 UEFI PCs, but fails on some older Macs.) If you like it, you can then
199 copy the files from the CD-R to your hard disk. The files are named in
200 such a way that the disc should boot on either 64-bit (<i>x</i>86-64)
201 or 32-bit (<i>x</i>86) EFI computers. I've included an open source EFI
202 shell program on this disc that's not included in the binary zip file,
203 so that you can access an EFI shell from a bootable disc even if you
204 don't have an EFI shell available from your regular hard disk. This can
205 be an extremely valuable diagnostic tool if you know how to use an EFI
206 shell.</li>
207
208 <p class="sidebar"><b>Tip:</b> If you want to make your own bootable USB
209 flash drive, download the binary zip file or CD-R image file, prepare a USB
210 flash drive with a FAT32 partition, and then use the <tt>install.sh</tt>
211 program's <tt>--usedefault</tt> option, and perhaps the
212 <tt>--alldrivers</tt> option, as in <tt class="userinput">bash install.sh
213 --usedefault /dev/sdd1 --alldrivers</tt> to install to the first partition
214 on <tt>/dev/sdd</tt>. This procedure should work even on a BIOS-booted
215 computer.</p>
216
217 <li><b><a
218 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.8.3/refind-flashdrive-0.8.3.zip/download">A
219 USB flash drive image file</a></b>&mdash;Although you can create
220 your own rEFInd USB flash drive, you may find it easier to download
221 this version and copy it to your USB drive with <tt>dd</tt> or some
222 other low-level disk copying utility.</li>
223
224 <li><b><a
225 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.8.3/refind-src-0.8.3.zip/download">A
226 source code zip file</a></b>&mdash;This is useful if you want to compile
227 the software locally. Note that I use Linux with the <a
228 href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/tianocore/">TianoCore EFI
229 Development Kit 2 (EDK2)</a> to build my binary packages (above),
230 although the <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnu-efi">GNU-EFI</a>
231 development tools are also supported.</li>
232
233 <li><b><a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/refind/code">Source code via
234 git</a></b>&mdash;If you want to peruse the source code in your Web
235 browser or get the very latest version (including pre-release bug fixes
236 and updates), you can use the Sourceforge git repository. This access
237 method is most useful to programmers, or at least to those who are
238 familiar with programming tools. Note that if you need to ask "what's
239 git?", this is probably not the best way for you to obtain rEFInd.</li>
240
241 </ul>
242
243 <p>If you're using a platform other than <i>x</i>86 or <i>x</i>86-64, you can give rEFInd a try; however, you'll need to build it from source code yourself or track down a binary from another source. (Perhaps by the time you read this it will be included in Linux distributions built for unusual CPUs.)</p>
244
245 <p>To extract the files from the zip file images I've provided, you'll need a tool such as <tt>unzip</tt>, which is included with Linux and Mac OS X. Numerous Windows utilities also support this format, such as <a href="http://www.pkware.com/software/pkzip/">PKZIP</a> and <a href="http://www.7-zip.org/">7-Zip.</a></p>
246
247 <p>You should be able to create a bootable USB flash drive from either the binary zip file or the CD-R image file; just treat the flash drive as if it were a hard disk and install rEFInd as described on the <a href="installing.html">installation page.</a> Using the fallback boot loader name of <tt>EFI/boot/bootx64.efi</tt> is likely to be the most useful way to install rEFInd to a removable medium.</p>
248
249 <h2>Getting rEFInd from Your OS's Repositories</h2>
250
251 <p>I know of a small number of pre-packaged versions of rEFInd, either in official OS repositories or in ancillary repositories:</p>
252
253 <ul>
254
255 <li><a name="ppa"><b>Ubuntu</b></a>&mdash;Although an official Ubuntu
256 package isn't available, I've created a <a
257 href="https://launchpad.net/~rodsmith/+archive/refind">rEFInd PPA</a>
258 for Ubuntu. To use it, type <tt class="userinput">sudo
259 apt-add-repository ppa:rodsmith/refind</tt>, then <tt
260 class="userinput">sudo apt-get update</tt>. You can then type <tt
261 class="userinput">apt-get install refind</tt> to install the package.
262 Thereafter, the rEFInd version will update along with your other
263 software. This package is built with GNU-EFI and is not signed with a
264 Secure Boot key; however, the install script (which launches
265 automatically when you install the package) should sign the binary with
266 a locally-generated key if it detects that your system uses Secure
267 Boot. Thus, if you've previously installed one of my binaries on a
268 Secure Boot system and added its key as a MOK, you'll have to add your
269 local key when you reboot.</li>
270
271 <li><b>Arch Linux</b>&mdash;You can obtain rEFInd from the Arch
272 repositories, in both a stable version (the <tt>refind-efi</tt> package
273 installable via <tt>pacman</tt>) and an experimental release built from
274 rEFInd's git repository in the Arch User Repository (AUR), under the
275 name <tt>refind-efi-git</tt>. The git release is likely to include
276 pre-release bug fixes and new features, but those features may be
277 poorly tested or undocumented.</li>
278
279 <li><b>ALT Linux</b>&mdash;This RPM-based distribution is experimenting
280 with using rEFInd on EFI-based computers. As I write, the ALT
281 developers haven't yet nailed down booting from an optical disc (it's a
282 tricky and delicate task, especially when preparing a "hybrid" image),
283 but they're working on the problem. They have an RPM of rEFInd; see <a
284 href="http://packages.altlinux.org/en/Sisyphus/srpms/refind">this
285 page</a> for details.</li>
286
287 <li><b><a href="http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/">Fat
288 Dog</a></b>&mdash;This variant of Puppy Linux uses a combination of
289 rEFInd and GRUB 2 to boot its installation medium in EFI mode and
290 provides a rEFInd package in its repository set.</li>
291
292 <li><b>The <a href="http://nixos.org/nixpkgs/">Nix Packages
293 collection</a></b>&mdash;This site creates packages for a number of
294 OSes using its own packaging system.</li>
295
296 <li><b>Slackware</b>&mdash;Although it doesn't seem to provide an official
297 build, <a href="http://franck-barbenoire.fr/spip.php?article198">this
298 site</a> has links to rEFInd binary packages for Slackware 13.37 and
299 14.0.</li>
300
301 </ul>
302
303 <p>To the best of my knowledge, no other Linux distribution yet includes rEFInd in its repositories. That's likely to change in time. If you hear of rEFInd being included in an OS's official package set, feel free to <a href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">drop me a line.</a></p>
304
305 <hr />
306
307 <p>copyright &copy; 2012&ndash;2014 by Roderick W. Smith</p>
308
309 <p>This document is licensed under the terms of the <a href="FDL-1.3.txt">GNU Free Documentation License (FDL), version 1.3.</a></p>
310
311 <p>If you have problems with or comments about this Web page, please e-mail me at <a href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com.</a> Thanks.</p>
312
313 <p><a href="index.html">Go to the main rEFInd page</a></p>
314
315 <p><a href="installing.html">Learn how to install rEFInd</a></p>
316
317 <p><a href="http://www.rodsbooks.com/">Return</a> to my main Web page.</p>
318 </body>
319 </html>