4 - Add new key mappings: Backspace (Delete on Mac keyboards) works the same
5 as Esc, and Tab works the same as F2/Insert/+. This is done for the
6 benefit of new Apple laptops that lack physical Esc and function keys.
8 - Fix to refind-install to work better with disks other than /dev/sd? and
11 - Fixes to touch/tablet support to improve reliability.
16 - Fixed compile problem for drivers with recent versions of GNU-EFI
19 - Fixed bug that could cause program crash on startup. (In practice, it
20 manifested with GNU-EFI starting with version 3.0.3 or 3.0.4.)
22 - An anonymous contributor has provided support for touch screens. This
23 support requires that the "enable_touch" token be used in refind.conf.
24 Note, however, that not all tablet computers have EFIs that provide the
25 necessary support in the firmware.
27 - Martin Whitaker contributed 64-bit support to the ext4fs driver, which
28 makes it compatible with ext4fs as written by some recent Linux
31 - Tweaked refind-install to do a better job of detecting disks other
32 than /dev/sd? and /dev/hd? devices.
37 - Altered RPM & Debian installation scripts so as to NOT call sbsign if
38 Secure Boot is disabled. This is a response to Ubuntu bug #1574372
39 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sbsigntool/+bug/1574372): In
40 Ubuntu 16.04, the sbsign program is segfaulting randomly, which prevents
41 proper installation of the program. This change at least permits proper
42 installation IF Secure Boot is disabled.
44 - Changed description of BIOS/CSM/legacy OS loaders on Macs to include the
45 string "(Legacy)", so as to more easily identify BIOS/CSM/legacy-mode OSes
46 in the rEFInd main menu.
48 - Added recognition of the fwupx64.efi file as a firmware update tool.
49 This filename is excluded from the first-row launchers, and is instead
50 presented on the second row, controlled by the "fwupdate" item on the
51 "showtools" option line. It's enabled by default. Note that it's still a
52 bit unclear to me how this tool is supposed to be used. rEFInd launches it
53 with no options, but if it should take options, this will have to be
54 changed in the future.
56 - Tightened exclusion of shell binary filenames from boot loader scan.
57 Previously, any filename containing the substring "shell" was excluded
58 from scans. Now it's tighter; only files matching one of the filenames in
59 the constant SHELL_NAMES in main.c are excluded. This change will enable
60 programs with names that include "shell", but that aren't in rEFInd's
61 SHELL_NAMES list, such as "shelly.efi", to be shown in the rEFInd main
64 - Fixed bug in NTFS driver that caused it to hang (and thus hang the
65 computer) in some situations, particularly when a file on an NTFS volume
66 had many fragments and when the computer's CSM was activated. (Fix
69 - Modified SIP/CSR rotation code: If the csr-active-config EFI variable is
70 missing AND the firmware is Apple (as identified by the string "Apple"
71 being present in the ST->FirmwareVendor string), rEFInd treats the
72 computer as one on which SIP is available and set to the "enabled" state
73 (0x10). The upshot is that the SIP/CSR tool will appear if the showtools
74 and csr_values options are set appropriately in refind.conf, even if the
75 csr-active-config variable is missing from the NVRAM. The point of this
76 change is that I've received reports of some Macs that run OS X 10.11 but
77 that lack this variable. OS X acts as if SIP were enabled, but rEFInd is
78 then unable to disable SIP. This change gives rEFInd the ability to
79 disable SIP on such systems. The drawback is that the variable might be
80 set on some systems that don't run OS X 10.11. This should be harmless
81 from a technical point of view, but the presence of SIP indicators in
82 rEFInd could be confusing.
84 - Added refind-mkdefault script to simplify resetting rEFInd as the default
85 boot program in Linux. The intent is to run this after GRUB, Windows, OS
86 X, or some other tool takes over as the primary boot manager. It can be
87 called from a startup script to handle this task automatically.
92 - Fixed bug in refind-install that caused mountesp to be installed as a FILE
93 called /usr/local/bin on OS X if the /usr/local/bin directory did not
96 - Fixed bug in mvrefind that caused it to fail to move bootmgfw.efi in
97 some situations, and another that caused it to give the resulting NVRAM
98 entry the default rEFInd name of "rEFInd Boot Manager," rather than the
99 intended "Windows Boot Manager" (to work around bugs in some EFIs).
101 - Worked around bug/quirk in some EFIs (in HP ProBook 6470b laptop, at
102 least) that prevented EFI filesystem drivers from working. (Drivers would
103 load but not provide access to filesystems.)
105 - Fixed refind-install bug that caused --usedefault option to not work in OS
106 X. (This bug did not affect Linux.)
108 - Improved Secure Boot detection in refind-install in Linux.
110 - Fixed bug that caused custom volume badges (vol_*.png) to be read only
111 from default location ("icons" subdirectory), effectively eliminating the
112 ability to adjust them.
114 - Added centos.crt and centos.cer public key files.
119 - Change to PPA version: Installing the PPA now queries the user about
120 whether to install to the ESP. Upgrades will remember the initial
123 - Modified time-based sorting of loaders in a single directory to push
124 anything starting with "vmlinuz-0-rescue" to the end of the list. Fedora
125 gives its rescue kernels filenames that begin with that string, and if
126 such a kernel happens to be the most recent, treating it normally will
127 cause it to become the default when kernel folding is in use. This is
128 almost certainly undesirable, so this change keeps the rescue kernel at
129 the end of the list instead, which is saner.
131 - Significantly reworked the project's Makefiles. This should have no
132 impact on ordinary users, and even most developers should barely notice
133 it; but it should make future extensions to additional platforms or
134 building in different environments easier.
136 - Added workaround to gptsync for issue with some Macs' EFIs that caused
137 the program to skip through all prompts, thus accepting the default
138 option. This would normally cause gptsync to do nothing.
140 - Added type code 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC (Apple Core Storage,
141 gdisk type AF05) to list of partition types recognized by gptsync.
143 - Removed Luxi Sans Mono font, since I discovered it was not open source;
144 and changed the default font from Nimbus Mono to Liberation Mono.
146 - Added support for compiling rEFInd for ARM64 (aka AARCH64 or aa64). This
147 works with both GNU-EFI and Tianocore UDK2014.SP1.P1. This support is
148 currently poorly tested. In particular, I used QEMU on an x86-64 computer
149 to create a virtualized ARM64 environment; I've not yet tested on a real
150 computer. I couldn't get QEMU to create a video card, so I used a serial
151 terminal, which means that the graphics features are untested -- I ran
152 rEFInd with "textonly" uncommented in refind.conf. I've tested the ext4fs
153 driver but no other drivers, although they all compile. (So does gptsync,
154 although it's unlikely to be useful on ARM64.) Some rEFInd features are
155 meaningless on ARM64, such as BIOS-mode boot support, anything geared
156 toward Macs (csr_values/csr_rotate, spoof_osx_version, etc.), and
159 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan EFI boot loaders on
160 removable media when rEFInd itself was launched from the fallback
163 - Moved detailed descriptions of refind-install from installing.html to
164 a refind-install man page. To keep this information Web-accessible, I've
165 also created HTML versions of the three man pages and linked them into
166 the HTML documentation.
168 - Updated LodePNG to latest version (20151024).
170 - Fixed bugs in mkrlconf and in refind-install that could cause some kernel
171 options to be excluded from refind_linux.conf. There were two trouble
173 - Previously, these scripts assumed that the first option in
174 /proc/cmdline was the kernel's filename, but this isn't always the
175 case. (In particular, when gummiboot launches the kernel, this is not
176 true. It might be an incorrect assumption in some other cases, too.)
177 The fix involves checking for likely signs of a kernel filename before
178 discarding this first option.
179 - These scripts cut the "initrd=*" option from /proc/cmdline, but the
180 call to "sed" was overzealous and cut until the end of input. This
181 usually worked, since the initrd= option was usually last on the line;
182 but if it wasn't, any options following initrd= would be lost.
184 - Added "kernel*" as a matching pattern for Linux kernels, since this is
185 what Gentoo uses by default.
187 - The refind-install script can now be run as a symbolic link in Linux.
188 This enables creating a /usr/sbin/refind-install link in Linux packages,
189 with the binaries stashed wherever the package system likes them. This
190 feature does NOT work in OS X, but there's relatively little need for it
196 - Fixed bug that caused refind-install to not unmount the ESP when it
199 - Modified refind-install and mkrlconf scripts to use /proc/cmdline as
200 source for default boot options EXCEPT when refind-install receives the
201 --root option. In that case, refind-install continues to use
202 /etc/default/grub as the source of default options. The idea behind this
203 change is that it's more reliable to get boot options from /proc/cmdline
204 when the targeted system is the one that's booted; but --root would be
205 used from emergency disks or live CDs, in which case the current boot
206 options would be completely wrong, so extracting boot options from GRUB
207 files is the best bet for getting close to the right options.
209 - Added "@/boot" to default also_scan_dirs setting. This makes kernels
210 show up on Btrfs volumes under Ubuntu (and perhaps others), at least when
211 the Btrfs driver is loaded.
213 - Added new System Integrity Protection (SIP) rotation feature for Macs
214 running OS X 10.11 or later. This feature is disabled by default, except
215 on CD-R and USB flash drive images, on which it's enabled. To enable it,
216 you must make TWO changes to refind.conf: Uncomment the new "csr_values"
217 item and add "csr_rotate" to the "showtools" line (uncommenting it, too,
218 if it's commented out). If desired, you can set more values on
219 "csr_values"; these are comma-delimited one-byte hexadecimal values that
220 define various SIP states. When SIP/CSR rotation is activated, a new
221 shield icon appears among the tools. Selecting it causes the next defined
222 value to be set and a confirmation message to appear for three seconds.
224 - Added display of current System Integrity Protection (SIP) mode to
227 - Added mountesp script for OS X to (you guessed it!) mount the ESP.
229 - Renamed support scripts: install.sh to refind-install, mvrefind.sh to
230 mvrefind, and mkrlconf.sh to mkrlconf.
232 - New icons! The old ones were getting to be a jumbled mess of styles,
233 particularly for OS tags. I used the AwOken icon set
234 (http://alecive.deviantart.com/art/AwOken-163570862) for the core icons,
235 then expanded from there by creating my own icons and modifying icons for
236 Debian and Elementary OS. I'm also trying to keep better track of
237 copyrights and licenses on icons. Between that and some icons being for
238 OSes that probably see very little use (FreeDOS and eComstation, for
239 instance), a few OS icons have been lost. If you prefer the old icons,
240 you can continue to use them by upgrading rEFInd, renaming icons-backup
241 to something else (say, icons-classic), and then adding an "icons" line
242 in refind.conf to point to the old icons directory.
244 - Changed from .zip to .tar.gz as source code archive format. I did this
245 because Linux is the only officially-supported build platform, and
246 tarballs are a more natural fit to a Linux environment. I'm leaving .zip,
247 .deb, and .rpm files as the formats for binary packages.
249 - Added detection of System Integrity Protection (SIP; aka "rootless") mode
250 to OS X portion of install.sh script. When detected, and if no existing
251 rEFInd installation is found, the script now prints a warning and brief
252 instructions of how to enter the Recovery mode to install rEFInd and
253 suggests aborting the installation. (The user can override and attempt
254 installation anyhow.) If SIP is detected along with an existing rEFInd
255 installation, the script moderates the warning and explains that an
256 update of a working rEFInd will probably succeed, but that re-installing
257 to fix a broken rEFInd will probably fail.
259 - Added new "spoof_osx_version" token, which takes an OS X version number
260 (such as "10.9") as an option. This feature, when enabled, causes rEFInd
261 to tell a Mac's firmware that the specified version of OS X is being
262 launched. This option is usually unnecessary, but it can help properly
263 initialize some hardware -- particularly secondary video devices. OTOH,
264 on some Macs it can cause hardware (notably keyboards and mice) to become
265 unresponsive, so you should not use this option unnecessarily.
267 - Worked around an EFI bug that affected my 32-bit Mac Mini: That system
268 seems to have a broken EFI, or possibly a buggy CPU, that causes some
269 (but not all) conversions from floating-point to integer numbers to hang
270 the computer. Such operations were performed only in rEFInd's
271 graphics-resizing code, and so would manifest only when icons or
272 background images were resized. My fix eliminates the use of
273 floating-point operations in the affected function, which eliminates the
274 crashes. There may be some degradation in the quality of resized images,
275 though, particularly on 32-bit systems. (64-bit systems use larger
276 integers, which enable greater precision in my floating-point
279 - Under OS X, install.sh can now be run from the recovery system. This may
280 help work around OS X 10.11's problems with System Integrity Protection,
281 since it should be possible to reboot into the recovery system to install
282 rEFInd without disabling SIP for the main installation, even for just one
288 - Added "--keepname" option to install.sh. This option causes install.sh
289 to keep refind_x64.efi named as such rather than rename it as grubx64.efi
290 when using Shim. This option is meaningful only if the --shim option is
291 also used. This option passes the refind_x64.efi filename as an option to
292 Shim, which overrides the default filename of grubx64.efi. A big caveat:
293 Only Shim 0.7 and later supports this feature. (Shim 0.4 also works if a
294 refind_x64.efi is referred to as "\refind_x64.efi" on the command line,
295 but the need for a leading backslash to refer to a file in the same
296 directory as Shim is so confusing and wrong that I cannot in good
297 conscience support it.) I've not seen signed Shim binaries between 0.4
298 and 0.7, so I don't know if any of them might work.
300 - Implemented a workaround for a bug in Shim 0.8 that prevented
301 authentication of more than one binary. If any filesystem drivers were
302 installed, the first one would be verified, leaving rEFInd unable to
303 launch anything else unless it was signed by a key in the computer's main
309 - When rEFInd identifies the root (/) partition via the Freedesktop.org
310 Discoverable Partitions Specification, it now checks two of the
311 partition's attributes, as per the DPS (see
312 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
313 - The partition's read-only attribute determines whether to pass a "rw"
314 or "ro" option to the kernel.
315 - If the partition's do-not-automount flag is set, rEFInd will not pass
316 it as a "root=" option to the kernel. This flag can be used to remove
317 all but one partition from consideration as a root (/) partition if a
318 system has more than one with the correct type code.
320 - Improved Freedesktop.org Discoverable Partitions Specification support:
321 Previously, if no refind_linux.conf file was present but an /etc/fstab
322 file was found, rEFInd ignored the Discoverable Partitions Specification
323 filesystem-type codes. This was fine if /etc/fstab contained a valid "/"
324 filesystem specification, but if that was absent, the result was no
325 "root=" specification being present. Under these circumstances
326 (refind_linux.conf absent, /etc/fstab present but lacking a "/" entry),
327 rEFInd now tries to identify a device to specify as "root=" via the
328 Discoverable Partitions Specification.
330 - Fixed bug that caused "Found match!" and a prompt to press a key to
331 continue to be printed if any partition used the Freedesktop.org
332 Discoverable Partitions Specification root-partition GUID. (This
333 was leftover debugging/testing code that I somehow missed deleting.)
335 - Added icon for Elementary OS.
337 - Added /etc/lsb-release to files scanned for clues about the Linux
338 distribution. This file differentiates Mint and Elementary OS from Ubuntu
339 better than does /etc/os-release, and may also help with other
340 closely-related distributions.
342 - Improvements to handling of case-insensitive string comparisons. These
343 are buggy on some EFIs, and such bugs affect things like dont_scan_*
344 blacklists, removal of rEFInd's own directory from scanning, matching of
345 keyword names in refind.conf, and even loading of icons. I've replaced
346 many calls to problematic functions with safer calls, which should help a
347 lot. There may still be problems on some systems with some computers,
348 though; as far as I can tell, the bugs are buried deep in some EFI
349 firmware, so I can only replace some of the most direct calls to
350 potentially buggy system calls.
355 - New icon for Kali Linux, submitted by Francesco D'Eugenio.
357 - Minor code changes to ensure that rEFInd compiles with GCC 5.1. (Tested
358 with GNU-EFI on a Fedora 22 system; not yet tested with the TianoCore
361 - Added new "fold_linux_kernels" token to refind.conf. This option, when
362 active (the default) "folds" all Linux kernels in a directory into a
363 single entry on the rEFInd menu. The kernel with the most recent time
364 stamp is launched by default. To launch another kernel, you must press F2
365 or Insert; additional kernels appear as options on the first kernel's
366 submenu. To see the pre-0.9.0 behavior, you must set "fold_linux_kernels
367 false" (or one of its synonyms, "off" or "0"). The point of this option
368 is to help de-clutter the rEFInd main menu.
370 - Added new Linux root (/) partition auto-discovery feature, based on
371 Freedesktop.org's Discoverable Partitions Spec (DPS)
372 (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
373 If no refind_linux.conf file or /etc/fstab file is found, and if a
374 partition with the correct DPS type code for the system architecture is
375 found, rEFInd adds "ro root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/{GUID}" to the kernel
376 options. This will not help on LVM setups, and will get it right for only
377 one installation on systems with multiple Linux installations, but it may
378 help some users, if/when the DPS type codes become more common.
380 - Fixed bug that caused a rEFInd crash if an empty refind_linux.conf
381 file was encountered.
383 - The mkrlconf.sh script now checks the OS on which it's running, which
384 should help avoid confusion or problems by users who mistakenly run it
387 - rEFInd now skips checking for various BIOS-mode boot sector signatures
388 when running on a UEFI-based PC; these checks are run only on Macs. This
389 may reduce startup time on systems with many partitions.
391 - Fixed Debian debinstall script to work correctly on IA32 systems. It had
392 a bug that caused filesystem drivers and gptsync to not be packaged for
395 - Modified Debian postinst file to call install.sh with --localkeys option
396 if sbsign and openssl are available, even when NOT in Secure Boot mode or
397 if shim is not detected. This helps with my Ubuntu PPA when using custom
398 Secure Boot keys, since the PPA is delivered unsigned. (Users will have
399 to have added their own local keys to their firmware's db.) For
400 consistency, I've made the same change to the RPM .spec file.
405 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused inappropriate installation under the
406 name bootx64.efi (or bootia32.efi) under Linux, with a failure to update
407 the boot entries in NVRAM, has been fixed.
409 - Added identification of XFS as filesystem type in volume descriptions.
411 - More fixes to filesystem type detection code. Previous version sometimes
412 identified FAT or NTFS (or anything with a boot loader) as a whole-disk
413 device rather than the correct filesystem type.
415 - Added protections to the code to reduce the risk of crashes that might
416 occur when dereferencing NULL pointers in various situations.
418 - I'm deprecating the use of filesystem numbers (as in "fs0:") because
419 they're unreliable -- filesystem numbers can change between boots and
420 might not be the same as those used in an EFI shell or other program.
421 Sooner or later I'll remove code supporting this feature. In the
422 meantime, if it doesn't work for you, please switch to using filesystem
423 labels, partition labels, or partition GUIDs.
425 - Added detection of FreeBSD's BIOS-mode GPT boot loader. Previously,
426 rEFInd could detect FreeBSD's BIOS-mode MBR boot loader, which gave
427 FreeBSD an appropriate icon on Macs; but the BIOS-mode GPT boot loader
428 code is different, so some recent FreeBSD installations showed up with
429 generic grey diamond icons. This change creates FreeBSD icons instead.
431 - Added "Secure Boot [active|inactive]" notice to "about" menu for x86
432 (32-bit) systems, since there are now a few 32-bit UEFI systems that
433 support Secure Boot. (AFAIK, these are mostly tablets and convertibles
434 such as the ASUS T100.)
436 - Added KeyTool.efi and KeyTool-signed.efi to list of MOK managers. KeyTool
437 is the "super-deluxe" Secure Boot key and hash manager provided as part
438 of the efitools package.
440 - Fixed more instances of "invalid parameter" errors on some EFIs.
442 - Improved Secure Boot detection in install.sh.
444 - install.sh should no longer complain when copying Shim or MokManager over
450 - Removed special case of ignoring an HFS+ name of "HFS+ volume", since the
451 old rEFInd HFS+ driver that produced this name for all HFS+ volumes has
452 long since been updated to deliver a real name.
454 - Addition of new Windows 8 OS icon. On Macs and for BIOS/legacy boots, the
455 new icon is now used for Windows Vista, 7, and 8, while the old one is
456 used for earlier versions of Windows. For EFI-mode boots, the new icon is
459 - If the NTFS driver is loaded, rEFInd now scans NTFS volumes on Macs for
460 the presence of Windows boot files, and removes any NTFS volume that
461 lacks such files from the BIOS/legacy boot list. This should help
462 unclutter the display on Macs that contain NTFS data partitions.
464 - Fixed bug that caused misidentification of both whole disks and NTFS
465 volumes as being FAT. (This bug affected the identification of devices
466 and locations in the rEFInd menu, not actual access to devices.)
468 - Code refactoring to clear out legacy-boot functions from the
469 ever-expanding refind/main.c file.
471 - Added new "badges" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf. This
472 option hides the device-type badges associated with the OS boot options.
474 - Reverted rEFIt commit r472, introduced in rEFInd 0.8.5 to support more
475 BMP images because I've received bug reports that it's causing existing
476 selection images to fail to load.
478 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused misidentification of installation
479 directory under OS X if an already-mounted ESP has spaces in its path.
481 - Fixed Mac-specific install.sh bug that could cause misidentification of
482 the ESP on disks with partition numbers of 10 or above.
488 - Added NTFS EFI filesystem driver.
490 - Minor improvements to filesystem driver framework code.
494 - Fixed bug in Btrfs driver's address reference.
496 - Improved install.sh to make it smarter about figuring out where to
497 install on Macs. Specifically, this version now upgrades existing
498 installations, if found (as it always has under Linux), rather than
499 blindly install to EFI/BOOT; it installs to EFI/refind if not existing
500 installation is found; it installs using the --shortform option to bless,
501 which seems to eliminate the 30-second delay problem; and it can handle
502 an HFS+ ESP, which it treats as a separate HFS+ volume (as if the user
503 had used --ownhfs). These changes do not affect behavior under Linux.
505 - Added missing check of architecture type for several tools.
507 - Applied rEFIt commit r472, which adds support for BMP images with negative
508 height fields, indicating that the image is NOT vertically flipped. This
509 commit and r467 were not incorporated in the original rEFInd because I
510 forked it from a Debian rEFIt package that had been patched to build
511 under GNU-EFI, and was apparently based on a slightly earlier version.
513 - Applied rEFIt commit r467, which improves Mac handling of legacy boots
514 from other than the first hard disk.
520 - Tweaked default for dont_scan_volumes: Removed "Recovery HD". This change
521 better suits the needs of OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") installations, but may
522 result in some stray Recovery HD entries on some Macs.
524 - Updated icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu.
526 - Added new configuration option, "enable_and_lock_vmx", which sets an
527 Intel CPU feature that's required for some types of virtualization to
528 work. Most EFIs enable setting this feature in their own setup utilities,
529 but some (such as most Macs) don't.
531 - If rEFInd can't locate an icons directory (either the default or one
532 specified by the icons_dir token), the program switches to text-only
535 - If a loader contains the string "grub" and no other clue to the loader's
536 OS association exists, search for os_grub.{png|icns} (which is not
537 provided with rEFInd) or os_linux.{png|icns}. (Previous versions provided
538 a generic loader icon for GRUB.)
540 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_files to not work with special-case
541 boot loaders (for OS X and Windows) when specifying the complete path to
542 the loader (e.g., EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi).
544 - Added support for the iPXE network boot tool (see BUILDING.txt for
545 building and basic use instructions).
550 - Added new feature: Setting "timeout = -1" in refind.conf causes rEFInd to
551 immediately boot the default option UNLESS a keypress is in the buffer
552 when rEFInd launches. In that case, if the keypress corresponds to a
553 shortcut key, the associated boot loader is launched; or if not, the menu
556 - Added new icons for Clover boot loader and for Mythbuntu Linux
559 - rEFInd now displays the partition's label, when one is available, when
560 offering a BIOS-mode boot option for a partition with no filesystem
561 driver. This works only on Macs doing BIOS-mode booting.
563 - Removed GPLv2 code from the FSW core files. This was done because the
564 Btrfs driver is derived from the GRUB Btrfs driver, which is licensed
565 under the GPLv3. Ironically, the GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible
566 licenses, so ensuring that the Btrfs driver doesn't rely on GPLv2 code
567 was legally necessary. In most cases, I reverted to the original rEFIt
568 code, although I kept my own cache code; since I wrote it, I can
569 change its license to a BSD license.
571 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers immediately after loading
572 them. This didn't affect rEFInd's own drivers because they didn't include
573 the unload hooks, but it did affect some other drivers.
575 - Changed default scan_all_linux_kernels setting from "false" to "true",
576 and commented the option out in refind.conf-sample. This should not
577 affect most people, since refind.conf-sample had this option commented
578 out, and most rEFInd users either use it that way or don't have Linux
579 kernels installed at all. I've made this change because I want rEFInd to
580 "do the right thing" by default in as many cases as possible. For a while
581 now, rEFInd has been excluding non-bootable files from its menu, and most
582 kernels "in the wild" now include the EFI stub. Thus, enabling this
583 support by default seems worthwhile. If you prefer to not scan Linux
584 kernels by default, simply uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" line
585 and ensure it's set to "false".
590 - Removed stray bit of debugging code that caused a prompt to press a
591 key to appear at rEFInd startup.
596 - Changed behavior when default_selection is not set: It now boots the
597 previously-booted loader, assuming it's still available; if not, rEFInd
598 boots the first loader (as it does now). Behavior is unchanged if
599 default_selection is set. Note that this behavior depends on the ability
600 of rEFInd to store an EFI variable in NVRAM. It therefore fails on
601 systems with flaky NVRAM storage. You can view the previously-booted
603 /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740
604 variable under Linux.
606 - Added icon for Mageia Linux (os_mageia.png).
608 - Fixed bug that could misidentify a not-quite-GUID as a GUID in a
609 manual boot stanza's "volume" line.
611 - I've updated my personal build system, and therefore the rEFInd Makefiles
612 and related files, to use TianoCore UDK2014 rather than UDK2010.
614 - Added "deep_uefi_legacy_scan" token. When not set (the default), rEFInd
615 does not modify EFI NVRAM settings when scanning for BIOS-mode boot
616 loaders on UEFI-based (non-Mac) computers. Some computers require
617 uncommenting this setting for rEFInd to reliably detect some BIOS-mode
618 boot devices. Passing "0", "off", or "false" as an option resets it to
619 the default value (useful in a loaded secondary configuration file to
620 override a setting in the main file).
625 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders stored
626 on the root directory of a partition.
628 - Added two new bitmap fonts to those distributed with rEFInd: Ubuntu Mono
629 and Nimbus Mono. Both come in 12-, 14-, 16-, and 24-point sizes.
631 - Messages about pauses for scanning and re-scanning of boot loaders are
632 now suppressed when doing an initial delayed scan when scan_delay is 1
635 - Improved centering of legacy boot option descriptions on some systems'
638 - Fixed bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot to boot from an inappropriate
639 device if that device had an innately high boot priority (as set by the
642 - Changed icons from ICNS to PNG form. There are several reasons to do
643 this, all of them minor; but together they're enough to warrant a change.
644 PNG is more common, and therefore more accessible to most users --
645 particularly those who don't use OS X. The PNG files are smaller than
646 their ICNS equivalents. PNG supports a wider range of sizes (although I'm
647 not now using anything that ICNS doesn't support, I might in the future).
648 The icon-scaling support added a few versions ago makes ICNS's support
649 for multiple icon sizes relatively unimportant.
651 - Reversed order of search for icons by extension: rEFInd now searches
652 for PNG files before ICNS files, rather than the other way around. This
653 makes it possible to override a volume icon for rEFInd by giving it the
654 name .VolumeIcon.png, even when a .VolumeIcon.icns file exists on the
655 volume and is used by OS X.
657 - Fixed bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take higher-than-intended
658 precedence in icon setting for OS X.
660 - Chainloading to BIOS-mode boot loaders now works on UEFI-based PCs when
661 rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI, not just when built with Tianocore.
666 - The "dont_scan_volumes" parameter now also works with legacy-boot
667 volumes. Unlike with EFI volumes, where the option you pass must exactly
668 match an entire volume name, when applied to legacy-boot volumes, it
669 matches any part of the description that appears beneath the item when
670 you select it in the rEFInd main menu.
672 - Can now boot in legacy mode from second (and probably later) hard disks!
674 - rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware name string shown in the
675 system information screen to 65 characters. This is done because at least
676 one EFI presents a longer string by default, and this causes the entire
677 information display to come up empty on 800x600 displays.
679 - rEFInd now uses the partition's name (as stored in the GPT data
680 structures) as a fallback for the filesystem's name if the latter can't
681 be found. Exceptions are if the partition name is one of three generic
682 names used by GPT fdisk: "Microsoft basic data", "Linux filesystem", or
683 "Apple HFS/HFS+". These are ignored in favor of the descriptive fallback
684 (e.g., "20 GiB Btrfs volume")
686 - It's now possible to specify a volume by partition GUID number in a
687 manual boot stanza. This should be more reliable (albeit also more
688 awkward) than using a filesystem number (such as fs0: or fs1:).
690 - Fixed memory-allocation bug that could cause error message displays,
691 and possibly hangs, when re-scanning boot loaders.
696 - Attempt to fix rEFInd perpetually re-scanning after ejecting a disc on
699 - Added check to remove redundant (or non-functional if Secure Boot is
700 active) kernel entries for Ubuntu, which is now including two versions of
701 kernels, one signed and the other unsigned.
703 - Fixed bug in install.sh that could cause it to display error messages
704 if the dmraid utility was not installed.
706 - The HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name.
708 - Fixed some EFI filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups under
709 some circumstances. These bugs could affect any of the filesystem
712 - Added "gdisk" option to the "showtools" configuration file token. When
713 active, this adds gdisk.efi or gdisk_{arch}.efi, if present in the
714 EFI\tools directory, to the tools row.
716 - Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility
723 - Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian
724 packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run
725 any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the
726 hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run
727 install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64
728 references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of
729 concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else.
731 - Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of
732 the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively.
733 The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type
734 badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and
735 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If
736 the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified,
737 rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn
738 to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf.
740 - rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes.
741 This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it
742 can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a
743 graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so
744 scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128
745 OS icon) is not likely to look good.
747 - Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners:
748 Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll
749 be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the
750 behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the
751 banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display.
753 - Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate
754 RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for
755 existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi
756 rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages
757 were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note,
758 however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd
759 The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine;
760 it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that
761 problems might arise.
766 - Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in
769 - Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
771 - Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a
772 Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to
773 "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery
774 utility on the second row of icons.
776 - The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files,
777 and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first
778 option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default
779 value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for
780 scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.)
782 - Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch,
783 via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the
784 foo.conf file as the main configuration file.
786 - Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with
787 duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so
788 would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given
791 - Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP
792 in Linux, if it's currently unmounted.
794 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
795 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
796 under some circumstances.
801 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
802 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
803 default_selection "fred,ginger"
804 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
805 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
807 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
808 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
809 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
810 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
811 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
812 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
813 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
814 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
815 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
816 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
817 depending on your computer.
819 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
820 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
821 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
822 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
823 screensaver will be disabled.
825 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
826 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
827 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
828 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
829 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
834 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
835 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
837 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
838 versions of OS X to fail.
840 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
841 drivers were present.
843 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
844 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
845 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
846 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
847 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
848 black a second or so later.
853 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
854 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
860 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
861 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
862 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
864 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
865 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
866 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
867 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
868 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
869 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
872 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
873 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
874 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
875 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
877 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
878 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
879 known case, but there may be others.)
884 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
887 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
892 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
893 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
895 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
896 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
898 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
899 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
901 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
902 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
903 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
904 HashTool-signed.efi".
906 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
908 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
911 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
917 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
919 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
920 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
921 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
923 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
924 volume specification, if present.
926 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
931 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
932 type for volumes that lack labels.
934 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
935 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
936 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
939 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
940 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
941 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
942 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
943 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
944 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
945 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
946 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
948 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
949 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
950 non-EFI loaders, etc.
952 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
958 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
959 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
961 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
964 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
965 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
966 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
967 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
969 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
970 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
971 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
972 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
977 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
978 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
979 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
980 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
982 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
984 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
985 directory names that contain spaces.
987 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
988 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
989 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
990 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
991 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
993 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
994 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
996 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
999 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
1000 partitions to fill the MBR.
1005 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
1006 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
1007 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
1008 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
1010 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
1011 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
1012 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
1013 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
1014 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
1016 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
1017 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
1018 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
1019 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
1020 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
1023 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
1024 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
1026 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
1027 encountered when saving a screen shot.
1029 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
1030 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
1031 sequence number, starting with "001".
1036 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
1039 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
1040 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
1042 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
1043 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
1044 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
1046 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
1047 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
1048 accidentally trash their systems.
1050 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
1051 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
1052 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
1057 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
1058 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
1060 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
1061 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
1063 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
1064 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
1066 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
1071 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
1072 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
1074 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
1075 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
1076 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
1077 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
1079 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
1080 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
1082 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
1083 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
1085 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
1086 also_scan_dirs list.
1088 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
1090 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
1091 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
1092 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
1097 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
1098 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
1099 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
1100 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
1101 loader under the fallback name.
1103 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
1104 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
1105 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
1106 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
1109 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
1110 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
1112 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
1113 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
1115 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
1116 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
1117 commented out or empty.
1119 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
1120 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
1122 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
1123 manual boot stanzas.
1125 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
1126 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
1131 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
1132 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
1134 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
1136 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
1138 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
1139 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
1141 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
1143 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
1144 sized to cover these areas.
1146 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
1147 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
1153 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
1154 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
1155 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
1156 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
1158 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
1159 startup on some systems.
1164 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
1165 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
1167 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
1168 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
1170 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
1171 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
1172 burned to USB flash disks.
1174 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
1175 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
1176 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
1178 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
1179 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
1180 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
1181 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
1182 from that installation.
1184 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
1185 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
1188 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
1189 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
1194 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
1195 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
1196 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
1198 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
1199 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
1200 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
1201 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
1202 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
1204 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
1205 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
1206 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
1207 Linux with the "make" command.
1209 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
1210 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
1212 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
1213 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
1214 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
1215 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
1216 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
1217 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
1218 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
1219 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
1221 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
1222 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
1228 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
1229 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
1230 use on emergency discs.
1232 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
1233 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
1234 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
1235 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
1236 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
1237 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
1238 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
1239 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
1242 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
1244 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
1245 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
1246 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
1247 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
1248 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
1251 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
1254 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
1255 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
1256 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
1257 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
1259 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
1260 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
1261 a boot loader launch failed.
1266 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
1267 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
1268 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
1271 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
1272 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
1273 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
1274 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
1276 - Added ext4fs driver!
1278 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
1280 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
1282 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
1283 from a program that set the resolution itself.
1285 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
1286 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
1287 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
1288 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
1289 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
1290 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
1291 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
1294 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
1295 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
1296 display even in graphics mode.
1298 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
1299 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
1301 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
1302 disables the boot options editor.
1304 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
1305 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
1307 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
1308 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
1309 from the /etc/default/grub file.
1311 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
1312 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
1314 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
1315 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
1316 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
1317 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
1318 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
1319 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
1321 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
1324 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
1325 ---------------------
1327 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
1332 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
1333 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
1334 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
1335 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
1337 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
1338 configuration file from a primary one.
1340 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
1341 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
1342 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
1343 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
1344 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
1345 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
1346 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
1349 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
1350 on systems with Secure Boot active.
1352 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
1353 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
1356 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
1357 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
1359 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
1360 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
1361 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
1366 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
1367 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
1368 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
1369 This example results in the following string being passed as an
1371 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
1373 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
1374 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
1375 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
1376 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
1377 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
1378 for them makes sense.
1380 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
1381 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
1382 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
1383 EFI shells are also so limited.)
1385 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
1386 were not actually edited.
1388 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
1389 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
1390 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
1391 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
1392 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
1394 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
1395 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
1396 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
1397 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
1398 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
1399 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
1400 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
1401 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
1403 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
1404 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
1405 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
1407 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
1408 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
1409 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
1411 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
1412 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
1413 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
1414 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
1416 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
1417 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
1418 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
1420 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
1421 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
1426 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
1428 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
1429 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
1430 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
1432 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
1433 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
1434 told isn't working as planned).
1436 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
1437 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
1438 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
1439 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
1444 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
1446 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
1449 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
1450 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
1451 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
1452 done this for two reasons:
1453 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
1454 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
1455 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
1456 default for them should help them.
1457 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
1458 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
1459 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
1460 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
1461 default configurations.
1463 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
1468 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
1470 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
1475 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
1478 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
1481 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
1482 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
1485 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
1490 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
1491 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
1493 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
1494 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
1495 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
1496 graphics or text mode itself.)
1498 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
1499 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
1500 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
1501 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
1502 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
1503 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
1504 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
1506 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
1508 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
1509 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
1510 "linux.conf" themselves.
1515 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
1516 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
1519 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
1520 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
1521 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
1522 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
1523 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
1524 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
1525 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
1526 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
1529 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
1530 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
1535 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
1536 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
1537 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
1538 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
1541 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
1542 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
1544 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
1546 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
1547 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
1550 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
1551 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
1556 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
1557 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
1558 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
1559 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
1560 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
1561 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
1562 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
1564 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
1565 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
1566 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
1568 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
1569 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
1570 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
1571 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
1573 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
1574 file when launched from rEFInd.
1579 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
1580 received reports that it's not working as intended.
1582 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
1583 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
1584 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
1585 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
1586 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
1587 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
1589 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
1590 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
1595 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
1596 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
1597 sample configuration file for a full description.
1599 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
1600 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
1601 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
1602 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
1603 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
1605 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
1606 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
1609 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
1610 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
1615 - Improved menu navigation:
1616 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
1617 down arrows move between rows.
1618 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
1619 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
1620 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
1621 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
1623 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
1624 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
1625 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
1630 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
1631 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
1632 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
1633 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
1634 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
1635 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
1638 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
1641 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
1643 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
1644 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
1651 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
1652 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
1654 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
1655 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
1656 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
1657 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
1658 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
1659 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
1660 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
1661 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
1662 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
1663 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
1664 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
1666 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
1667 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
1668 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
1669 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
1670 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
1672 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
1673 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
1678 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
1679 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
1680 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
1681 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
1682 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
1683 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
1685 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
1686 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
1687 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
1688 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
1689 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
1690 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
1691 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
1692 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
1693 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
1694 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
1695 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
1696 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
1697 that resets the video mode.
1699 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
1700 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
1701 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
1702 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
1703 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
1706 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
1707 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
1708 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
1709 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
1710 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
1711 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
1713 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
1714 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
1715 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
1717 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
1718 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
1719 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
1720 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
1725 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
1726 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
1727 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
1728 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
1729 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
1730 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
1731 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
1732 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
1733 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
1734 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
1735 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
1736 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
1737 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
1738 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
1741 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
1743 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
1744 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
1745 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
1746 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
1747 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
1748 directories you like.
1753 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
1754 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
1755 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
1756 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
1757 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
1758 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
1759 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
1760 should work when a volume is unnamed.
1762 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
1763 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
1764 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
1769 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
1770 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
1772 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
1773 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
1774 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
1775 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
1776 documented the name....
1778 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
1779 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
1780 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
1782 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
1783 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
1784 directory) on certain systems.
1786 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
1787 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1792 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1793 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1794 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1795 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1796 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1797 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1798 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1799 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1800 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1801 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1802 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1805 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1806 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1807 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1808 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1811 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1812 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1814 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1817 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1818 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1819 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1820 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1821 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1823 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1824 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1825 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1826 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1827 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1828 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1833 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1834 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1835 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1836 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1837 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1838 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1839 small sample of computers.
1841 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1842 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1843 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1844 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1845 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1847 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1852 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1853 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1854 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1855 versionless initrd file.
1857 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1858 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1861 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1862 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1863 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1868 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1869 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1870 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1871 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1873 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1874 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1875 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1876 directory as the kernel.
1878 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1879 entries in refind.conf file.
1881 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1882 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1888 - Initial public release