9 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
10 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
12 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
15 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
16 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
17 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
18 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
20 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
21 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
22 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
23 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
28 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
29 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
30 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
31 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
33 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
35 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
36 directory names that contain spaces.
38 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
39 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
40 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
41 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
42 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
44 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
45 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
47 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
50 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
51 partitions to fill the MBR.
56 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
57 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
58 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
59 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
61 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
62 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
63 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
64 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
65 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
67 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
68 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
69 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
70 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
71 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
74 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
75 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
77 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
78 encountered when saving a screen shot.
80 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
81 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
82 sequence number, starting with "001".
87 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
90 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
91 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
93 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
94 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
95 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
97 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
98 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
99 accidentally trash their systems.
101 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
102 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
103 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
108 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
109 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
111 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
112 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
114 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
115 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
117 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
122 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
123 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
125 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
126 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
127 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
128 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
130 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
131 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
133 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
134 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
136 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
139 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
141 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
142 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
143 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
148 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
149 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
150 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
151 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
152 loader under the fallback name.
154 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
155 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
156 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
157 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
160 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
161 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
163 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
164 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
166 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
167 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
168 commented out or empty.
170 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
171 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
173 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
176 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
177 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
182 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
183 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
185 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
187 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
189 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
190 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
192 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
194 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
195 sized to cover these areas.
197 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
198 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
204 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
205 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
206 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
207 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
209 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
210 startup on some systems.
215 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
216 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
218 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
219 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
221 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
222 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
223 burned to USB flash disks.
225 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
226 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
227 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
229 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
230 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
231 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
232 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
233 from that installation.
235 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
236 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
239 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
240 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
245 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
246 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
247 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
249 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
250 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
251 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
252 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
253 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
255 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
256 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
257 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
258 Linux with the "make" command.
260 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
261 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
263 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
264 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
265 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
266 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
267 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
268 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
269 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
270 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
272 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
273 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
279 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
280 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
281 use on emergency discs.
283 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
284 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
285 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
286 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
287 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
288 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
289 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
290 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
293 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
295 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
296 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
297 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
298 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
299 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
302 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
305 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
306 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
307 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
308 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
310 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
311 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
312 a boot loader launch failed.
317 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
318 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
319 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
322 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
323 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
324 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
325 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
327 - Added ext4fs driver!
329 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
331 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
333 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
334 from a program that set the resolution itself.
336 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
337 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
338 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
339 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
340 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
341 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
342 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
345 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
346 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
347 display even in graphics mode.
349 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
350 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
352 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
353 disables the boot options editor.
355 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
356 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
358 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
359 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
360 from the /etc/default/grub file.
362 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
363 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
365 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
366 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
367 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
368 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
369 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
370 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
372 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
375 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
376 ---------------------
378 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
383 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
384 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
385 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
386 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
388 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
389 configuration file from a primary one.
391 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
392 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
393 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
394 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
395 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
396 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
397 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
400 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
401 on systems with Secure Boot active.
403 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
404 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
407 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
408 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
410 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
411 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
412 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
417 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
418 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
419 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
420 This example results in the following string being passed as an
422 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
424 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
425 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
426 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
427 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
428 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
429 for them makes sense.
431 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
432 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
433 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
434 EFI shells are also so limited.)
436 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
437 were not actually edited.
439 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
440 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
441 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
442 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
443 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
445 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
446 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
447 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
448 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
449 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
450 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
451 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
452 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
454 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
455 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
456 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
458 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
459 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
460 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
462 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
463 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
464 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
465 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
467 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
468 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
469 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
471 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
472 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
477 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
479 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
480 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
481 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
483 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
484 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
485 told isn't working as planned).
487 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
488 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
489 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
490 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
495 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
497 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
500 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
501 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
502 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
503 done this for two reasons:
504 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
505 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
506 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
507 default for them should help them.
508 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
509 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
510 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
511 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
512 default configurations.
514 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
519 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
521 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
526 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
529 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
532 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
533 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
536 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
541 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
542 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
544 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
545 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
546 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
547 graphics or text mode itself.)
549 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
550 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
551 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
552 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
553 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
554 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
555 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
557 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
559 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
560 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
561 "linux.conf" themselves.
566 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
567 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
570 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
571 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
572 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
573 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
574 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
575 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
576 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
577 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
580 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
581 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
586 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
587 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
588 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
589 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
592 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
593 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
595 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
597 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
598 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
601 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
602 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
607 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
608 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
609 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
610 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
611 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
612 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
613 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
615 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
616 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
617 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
619 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
620 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
621 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
622 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
624 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
625 file when launched from rEFInd.
630 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
631 received reports that it's not working as intended.
633 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
634 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
635 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
636 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
637 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
638 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
640 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
641 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
646 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
647 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
648 sample configuration file for a full description.
650 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
651 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
652 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
653 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
654 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
656 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
657 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
660 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
661 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
666 - Improved menu navigation:
667 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
668 down arrows move between rows.
669 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
670 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
671 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
672 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
674 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
675 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
676 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
681 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
682 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
683 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
684 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
685 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
686 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
689 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
692 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
694 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
695 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
702 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
703 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
705 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
706 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
707 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
708 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
709 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
710 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
711 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
712 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
713 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
714 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
715 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
717 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
718 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
719 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
720 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
721 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
723 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
724 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
729 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
730 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
731 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
732 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
733 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
734 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
736 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
737 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
738 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
739 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
740 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
741 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
742 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
743 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
744 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
745 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
746 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
747 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
748 that resets the video mode.
750 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
751 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
752 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
753 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
754 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
757 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
758 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
759 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
760 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
761 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
762 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
764 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
765 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
766 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
768 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
769 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
770 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
771 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
776 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
777 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
778 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
779 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
780 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
781 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
782 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
783 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
784 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
785 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
786 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
787 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
788 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
789 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
792 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
794 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
795 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
796 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
797 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
798 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
799 directories you like.
804 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
805 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
806 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
807 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
808 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
809 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
810 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
811 should work when a volume is unnamed.
813 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
814 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
815 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
820 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
821 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
823 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
824 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
825 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
826 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
827 documented the name....
829 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
830 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
831 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
833 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
834 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
835 directory) on certain systems.
837 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
838 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
843 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
844 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
845 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
846 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
847 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
848 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
849 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
850 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
851 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
852 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
853 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
856 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
857 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
858 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
859 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
862 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
863 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
865 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
868 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
869 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
870 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
871 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
872 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
874 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
875 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
876 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
877 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
878 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
879 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
884 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
885 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
886 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
887 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
888 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
889 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
890 small sample of computers.
892 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
893 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
894 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
895 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
896 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
898 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
903 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
904 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
905 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
906 versionless initrd file.
908 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
909 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
912 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
913 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
914 than this, but such systems are very rare.
919 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
920 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
921 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
922 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
924 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
925 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
926 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
927 directory as the kernel.
929 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
930 entries in refind.conf file.
932 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
933 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
939 - Initial public release