4 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
5 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
6 under some circumstances.
11 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
12 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
13 default_selection "fred,ginger"
14 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
15 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
17 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
18 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
19 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
20 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
21 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
22 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
23 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
24 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
25 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
26 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
27 depending on your computer.
29 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
30 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
31 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
32 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
33 screensaver will be disabled.
35 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
36 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
37 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
38 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
39 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
44 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
45 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
47 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
48 versions of OS X to fail.
50 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
53 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
54 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
55 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
56 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
57 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
58 black a second or so later.
63 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
64 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
70 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
71 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
72 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
74 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
75 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
76 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
77 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
78 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
79 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
82 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
83 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
84 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
85 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
87 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
88 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
89 known case, but there may be others.)
94 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
97 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
102 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
103 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
105 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
106 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
108 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
109 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
111 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
112 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
113 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
114 HashTool-signed.efi".
116 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
118 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
121 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
127 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
129 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
130 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
131 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
133 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
134 volume specification, if present.
136 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
141 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
142 type for volumes that lack labels.
144 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
145 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
146 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
149 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
150 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
151 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
152 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
153 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
154 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
155 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
156 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
158 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
159 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
160 non-EFI loaders, etc.
162 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
168 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
169 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
171 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
174 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
175 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
176 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
177 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
179 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
180 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
181 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
182 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
187 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
188 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
189 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
190 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
192 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
194 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
195 directory names that contain spaces.
197 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
198 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
199 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
200 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
201 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
203 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
204 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
206 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
209 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
210 partitions to fill the MBR.
215 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
216 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
217 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
218 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
220 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
221 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
222 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
223 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
224 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
226 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
227 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
228 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
229 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
230 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
233 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
234 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
236 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
237 encountered when saving a screen shot.
239 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
240 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
241 sequence number, starting with "001".
246 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
249 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
250 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
252 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
253 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
254 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
256 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
257 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
258 accidentally trash their systems.
260 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
261 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
262 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
267 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
268 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
270 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
271 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
273 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
274 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
276 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
281 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
282 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
284 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
285 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
286 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
287 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
289 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
290 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
292 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
293 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
295 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
298 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
300 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
301 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
302 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
307 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
308 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
309 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
310 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
311 loader under the fallback name.
313 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
314 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
315 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
316 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
319 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
320 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
322 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
323 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
325 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
326 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
327 commented out or empty.
329 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
330 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
332 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
335 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
336 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
341 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
342 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
344 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
346 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
348 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
349 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
351 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
353 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
354 sized to cover these areas.
356 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
357 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
363 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
364 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
365 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
366 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
368 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
369 startup on some systems.
374 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
375 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
377 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
378 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
380 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
381 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
382 burned to USB flash disks.
384 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
385 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
386 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
388 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
389 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
390 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
391 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
392 from that installation.
394 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
395 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
398 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
399 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
404 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
405 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
406 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
408 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
409 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
410 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
411 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
412 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
414 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
415 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
416 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
417 Linux with the "make" command.
419 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
420 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
422 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
423 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
424 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
425 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
426 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
427 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
428 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
429 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
431 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
432 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
438 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
439 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
440 use on emergency discs.
442 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
443 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
444 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
445 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
446 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
447 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
448 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
449 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
452 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
454 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
455 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
456 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
457 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
458 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
461 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
464 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
465 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
466 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
467 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
469 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
470 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
471 a boot loader launch failed.
476 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
477 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
478 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
481 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
482 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
483 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
484 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
486 - Added ext4fs driver!
488 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
490 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
492 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
493 from a program that set the resolution itself.
495 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
496 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
497 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
498 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
499 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
500 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
501 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
504 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
505 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
506 display even in graphics mode.
508 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
509 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
511 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
512 disables the boot options editor.
514 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
515 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
517 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
518 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
519 from the /etc/default/grub file.
521 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
522 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
524 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
525 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
526 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
527 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
528 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
529 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
531 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
534 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
535 ---------------------
537 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
542 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
543 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
544 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
545 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
547 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
548 configuration file from a primary one.
550 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
551 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
552 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
553 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
554 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
555 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
556 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
559 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
560 on systems with Secure Boot active.
562 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
563 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
566 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
567 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
569 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
570 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
571 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
576 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
577 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
578 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
579 This example results in the following string being passed as an
581 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
583 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
584 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
585 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
586 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
587 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
588 for them makes sense.
590 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
591 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
592 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
593 EFI shells are also so limited.)
595 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
596 were not actually edited.
598 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
599 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
600 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
601 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
602 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
604 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
605 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
606 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
607 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
608 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
609 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
610 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
611 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
613 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
614 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
615 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
617 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
618 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
619 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
621 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
622 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
623 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
624 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
626 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
627 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
628 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
630 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
631 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
636 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
638 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
639 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
640 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
642 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
643 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
644 told isn't working as planned).
646 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
647 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
648 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
649 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
654 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
656 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
659 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
660 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
661 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
662 done this for two reasons:
663 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
664 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
665 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
666 default for them should help them.
667 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
668 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
669 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
670 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
671 default configurations.
673 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
678 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
680 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
685 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
688 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
691 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
692 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
695 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
700 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
701 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
703 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
704 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
705 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
706 graphics or text mode itself.)
708 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
709 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
710 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
711 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
712 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
713 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
714 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
716 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
718 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
719 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
720 "linux.conf" themselves.
725 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
726 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
729 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
730 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
731 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
732 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
733 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
734 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
735 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
736 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
739 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
740 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
745 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
746 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
747 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
748 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
751 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
752 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
754 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
756 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
757 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
760 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
761 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
766 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
767 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
768 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
769 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
770 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
771 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
772 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
774 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
775 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
776 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
778 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
779 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
780 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
781 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
783 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
784 file when launched from rEFInd.
789 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
790 received reports that it's not working as intended.
792 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
793 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
794 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
795 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
796 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
797 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
799 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
800 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
805 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
806 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
807 sample configuration file for a full description.
809 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
810 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
811 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
812 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
813 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
815 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
816 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
819 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
820 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
825 - Improved menu navigation:
826 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
827 down arrows move between rows.
828 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
829 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
830 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
831 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
833 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
834 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
835 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
840 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
841 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
842 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
843 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
844 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
845 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
848 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
851 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
853 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
854 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
861 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
862 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
864 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
865 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
866 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
867 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
868 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
869 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
870 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
871 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
872 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
873 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
874 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
876 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
877 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
878 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
879 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
880 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
882 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
883 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
888 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
889 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
890 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
891 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
892 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
893 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
895 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
896 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
897 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
898 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
899 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
900 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
901 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
902 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
903 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
904 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
905 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
906 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
907 that resets the video mode.
909 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
910 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
911 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
912 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
913 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
916 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
917 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
918 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
919 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
920 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
921 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
923 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
924 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
925 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
927 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
928 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
929 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
930 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
935 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
936 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
937 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
938 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
939 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
940 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
941 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
942 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
943 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
944 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
945 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
946 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
947 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
948 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
951 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
953 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
954 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
955 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
956 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
957 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
958 directories you like.
963 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
964 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
965 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
966 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
967 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
968 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
969 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
970 should work when a volume is unnamed.
972 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
973 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
974 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
979 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
980 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
982 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
983 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
984 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
985 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
986 documented the name....
988 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
989 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
990 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
992 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
993 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
994 directory) on certain systems.
996 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
997 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1002 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1003 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1004 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1005 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1006 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1007 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1008 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1009 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1010 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1011 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1012 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1015 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1016 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1017 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1018 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1021 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1022 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1024 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1027 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1028 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1029 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1030 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1031 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1033 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1034 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1035 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1036 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1037 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1038 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1043 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1044 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1045 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1046 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1047 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1048 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1049 small sample of computers.
1051 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1052 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1053 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1054 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1055 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1057 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1062 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1063 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1064 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1065 versionless initrd file.
1067 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1068 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1071 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1072 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1073 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1078 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1079 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1080 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1081 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1083 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1084 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1085 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1086 directory as the kernel.
1088 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1089 entries in refind.conf file.
1091 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1092 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1098 - Initial public release