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   7   <title>The rEFInd Boot Manager: The Future of rEFInd</title>
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  12   <h1>The rEFInd Boot Manager:<br />The Future of rEFInd</h1>
  13
  14   <p class="subhead">by Roderick W. Smith, <a
  15 href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
  16
  17   <p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update: 4/19/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.2.7</p>
  18
  19
  20 <p>I'm a technical writer and consultant specializing in Linux technologies. This Web page is provided free of charge and with no annoying outside ads; however, I did take time to prepare it, and Web hosting does cost money. If you find this Web page useful, please consider making a small donation to help keep this site up and running. Thanks!</p>
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  85
  86 <hr />
  87
  88 <p>This page is part of the documentation for the rEFInd boot manager. If a Web search has brought you here, you may want to start at the <a href="index.html">main page.</a></p>
  89
  90 <hr />
  91
  92 <p>rEFInd is far from perfect. It's based on rEFIt, which has a <a href="https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=161917&atid=821764">list of active bugs</a> on its project page on Sourceforge. I have not studied this bug list in detail for rEFInd's first release, although I've probably fixed a few of those bugs because I encountered them myself. Other bugs I may never fix because I lack the necessary hardware for testing.</p>
  93
  94 <p>This page exists to document some of rEFInd's known bugs and limitations, as well as features I hope to add in the future. Some of the items on this list are things that you may be able to help with, so if you'd like to contribute, feel free to drop me a line!</p>
  95
  96 <p>Without further ado, then, and in no particular order:</p>
  97
  98 <ul>
  99
 100 <li>Testing! rEFIt was complex enough that changes such as the ones I've made have the potential to disrupt the program's operation in unexpected ways. I can only test on a handful of systems with a limited number of configurations. Therefore, if you try rEFInd and run into bugs, please report them to me!</li>
 101
 102 <li>I have little talent with graphics manipulation programs, so rEFInd's boot logo, such as it is, is pretty weak. If you have artistic talent and would like to create a rEFInd logo, please feel free to send it to me. I won't make any final decision about changes until at least June 30 of 2012.</li>
 103
 104 <li>rEFIt's original design, and hence rEFInd's design, enables easy
 105 theming by replacing icon files. If you'd like to design a new theme for
 106 rEFInd, feel free to submit it. I might or might not replace the icons it
 107 uses now (most of which come from the Oxygen Icons package), but I may
 108 provide a way to make selecting a theme from one of several installed
 109 themes easy, and provide links to themes on this Web site (or even host
 110 them on the project's Sourceforge page). For more information on designing themes for rEFInd, see the <a href="themes.html">Theming rEFInd</a> page.</li>
 111
 112 <li>The code could be more flexible in its handling of the sizes of various graphical elements, and particularly drawn text. Prior to version 0.2.2, submenu text was invisible on UEFI-based PCs with 800x600 and smaller displays because of an inability to properly crop the graphics fields that hold the text. With version 0.2.2, I've put a band-aid on this problem by reducing the field size so that it now works on 800x600 displays, but smaller displays still suffer from this problem. This is just an example of the inflexibility of certain layout issues within rEFInd.</li>
 113
 114 <li>I'd like to add a configuration option to set the screen resolution. Many computers seem to default to 800x600, even when the hardware can handle much higher resolutions. A higher resolution would enable fitting more OS tags on the screen at once. I haven't yet looked into the system calls that would enable such changes.</li>
 115
 116 <li>Although the ICNS file format used by rEFInd supports multiple image sizes, if a size that rEFInd needs isn't present in the file, rEFInd can't use the icon. The ability to scale images to the desired size would be useful.</li>
 117
 118 <li>EFI supports network boots. rEFInd doesn't, but it would be nice if it would.</li>
 119
 120 <li>I would like to be able to specify the volume on which a boot loader resides using a partition GUID value, but extracting a GUID from the partition data is harder than extracting the volume's label or counting up the filesystem numbers.</li>
 121
 122 <li>It would be useful to be able to specify paths to boot loaders and/or initial RAM disks relative to the rEFInd directory (or the boot loader's directory, in the case of initrds).</li>
 123
 124 <li>There's currently no way to create a manual boot stanza for a BIOS-booted OS. This isn't a big priority for me personally, but I can see how it could be for some people.</li>
 125
 126 <li>I'd like to find a way to get rEFInd to launch BIOS boot loaders on UEFI-based systems. This option currently works only on Macs&mdash;or at least, I've not gotten it to work on any of my UEFI-based PCs.</li>
 127
 128 <li>Returning from a program (such as an EFI shell or a boot loader that fails) produces an error message about a failure when "(re)opening our installation volume" on some computers. (Among mine, only a 32-bit Mac Mini produces this message.) In some cases, rEFInd then hangs. I don't fully understand its cause or why it doesn't appear on most systems. This needs investigating and fixing.</li>
 129
 130 <li>The Page Up and Page Down keys work in a rather strange way&mdash;a result of an admittedly quick fix on my part to a problem with a data structure that makes implementation of scrolling harder than it ought to be.</li>
 131
 132 <li>I'd like to find a way to enable users to enter customizations for boot options and then save them to the <tt>refind.conf</tt> file.</li>
 133
 134 <li>It should be possible to override specific auto-detected boot loader settings&mdash;say, to disable one specific boot loader or change its icon.</li>
 135
 136 <li>A way to read boot options set via <tt>efibootmgr</tt>, <tt>bless</tt>, or similar options from NVRAM to add to the boot set would be useful.</li>
 137
 138 <li>A way to examine and change the NVRAM settings could be useful. This would enable a CD-based boot of rEFInd to fix a broken disk boot. Perhaps this could be done via a separate tool that could be launched much like the shell or <tt>gptsync</tt>.</li>
 139
 140 <li>I'd like to find a way to have rEFInd re-scan removable media when they're inserted.</li>
 141
 142 <li>The code is in need of review to search for memory leaks and similar problems.</p>
 143
 144 </ul>
 145
 146 <hr />
 147
 148 <p>copyright &copy; 2012 by Roderick W. Smith</p>
 149
 150 <p>This document is licensed under the terms of the <a href="FDL-1.3.txt">GNU Free Documentation License (FDL), version 1.3.</a></p>
 151
 152 <p>If you have problems with or comments about this Web page, please e-mail me at <a href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com.</a> Thanks.</p>
 153
 154 <p><a href="index.html">Go to the main rEFInd page</a></p>
 155
 156 <p><a href="using.html">Learn about problems with and the future of rEFInd</a></p>
 157
 158   <p><a href="http://www.rodsbooks.com/">Return</a> to my main Web page.</p>
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