4 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
6 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
8 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
9 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
11 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
13 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
14 sized to cover these areas.
16 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
17 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
23 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
24 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
25 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
26 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
28 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
29 startup on some systems.
34 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
35 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
37 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
38 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
40 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
41 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
42 burned to USB flash disks.
44 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
45 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
46 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
48 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
49 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
50 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
51 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
52 from that installation.
54 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
55 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
58 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
59 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
64 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
65 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
66 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
68 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
69 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
70 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
71 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
72 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
74 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
75 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
76 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
77 Linux with the "make" command.
79 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
80 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
82 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
83 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
84 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
85 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
86 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
87 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
88 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
89 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
91 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
92 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
98 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
99 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
100 use on emergency discs.
102 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
103 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
104 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
105 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
106 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
107 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
108 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
109 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
112 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
114 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
115 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
116 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
117 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
118 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
121 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
124 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
125 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
126 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
127 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
129 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
130 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
131 a boot loader launch failed.
136 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
137 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
138 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
141 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
142 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
143 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
144 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
146 - Added ext4fs driver!
148 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
150 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
152 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
153 from a program that set the resolution itself.
155 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
156 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
157 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
158 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
159 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
160 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
161 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
164 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
165 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
166 display even in graphics mode.
168 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
169 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
171 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
172 disables the boot options editor.
174 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
175 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
177 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
178 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
179 from the /etc/default/grub file.
181 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
182 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
184 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
185 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
186 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
187 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
188 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
189 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
191 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
194 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
195 ---------------------
197 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
202 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
203 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
204 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
205 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
207 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
208 configuration file from a primary one.
210 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
211 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
212 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
213 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
214 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
215 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
216 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
219 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
220 on systems with Secure Boot active.
222 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
223 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
226 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
227 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
229 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
230 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
231 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
236 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
237 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
238 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
239 This example results in the following string being passed as an
241 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
243 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
244 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
245 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
246 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
247 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
248 for them makes sense.
250 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
251 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
252 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
253 EFI shells are also so limited.)
255 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
256 were not actually edited.
258 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
259 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
260 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
261 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
262 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
264 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
265 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
266 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
267 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
268 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
269 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
270 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
271 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
273 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
274 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
275 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
277 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
278 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
279 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
281 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
282 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
283 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
284 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
286 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
287 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
288 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
290 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
291 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
296 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
298 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
299 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
300 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
302 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
303 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
304 told isn't working as planned).
306 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
307 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
308 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
309 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
314 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
316 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
319 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
320 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
321 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
322 done this for two reasons:
323 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
324 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
325 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
326 default for them should help them.
327 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
328 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
329 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
330 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
331 default configurations.
333 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
338 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
340 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
345 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
348 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
351 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
352 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
355 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
360 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
361 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
363 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
364 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
365 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
366 graphics or text mode itself.)
368 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
369 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
370 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
371 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
372 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
373 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
374 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
376 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
378 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
379 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
380 "linux.conf" themselves.
385 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
386 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
389 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
390 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
391 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
392 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
393 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
394 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
395 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
396 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
399 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
400 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
405 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
406 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
407 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
408 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
411 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
412 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
414 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
416 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
417 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
420 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
421 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
426 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
427 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
428 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
429 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
430 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
431 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
432 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
434 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
435 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
436 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
438 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
439 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
440 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
441 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
443 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
444 file when launched from rEFInd.
449 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
450 received reports that it's not working as intended.
452 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
453 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
454 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
455 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
456 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
457 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
459 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
460 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
465 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
466 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
467 sample configuration file for a full description.
469 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
470 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
471 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
472 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
473 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
475 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
476 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
479 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
480 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
485 - Improved menu navigation:
486 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
487 down arrows move between rows.
488 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
489 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
490 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
491 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
493 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
494 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
495 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
500 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
501 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
502 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
503 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
504 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
505 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
508 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
511 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
513 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
514 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
521 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
522 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
524 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
525 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
526 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
527 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
528 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
529 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
530 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
531 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
532 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
533 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
534 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
536 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
537 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
538 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
539 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
540 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
542 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
543 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
548 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
549 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
550 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
551 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
552 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
553 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
555 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
556 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
557 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
558 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
559 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
560 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
561 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
562 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
563 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
564 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
565 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
566 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
567 that resets the video mode.
569 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
570 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
571 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
572 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
573 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
576 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
577 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
578 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
579 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
580 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
581 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
583 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
584 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
585 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
587 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
588 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
589 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
590 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
595 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
596 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
597 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
598 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
599 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
600 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
601 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
602 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
603 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
604 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
605 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
606 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
607 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
608 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
611 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
613 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
614 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
615 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
616 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
617 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
618 directories you like.
623 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
624 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
625 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
626 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
627 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
628 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
629 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
630 should work when a volume is unnamed.
632 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
633 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
634 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
639 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
640 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
642 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
643 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
644 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
645 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
646 documented the name....
648 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
649 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
650 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
652 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
653 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
654 directory) on certain systems.
656 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
657 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
662 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
663 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
664 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
665 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
666 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
667 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
668 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
669 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
670 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
671 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
672 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
675 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
676 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
677 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
678 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
681 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
682 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
684 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
687 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
688 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
689 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
690 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
691 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
693 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
694 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
695 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
696 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
697 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
698 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
703 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
704 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
705 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
706 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
707 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
708 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
709 small sample of computers.
711 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
712 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
713 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
714 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
715 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
717 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
722 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
723 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
724 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
725 versionless initrd file.
727 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
728 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
731 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
732 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
733 than this, but such systems are very rare.
738 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
739 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
740 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
741 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
743 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
744 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
745 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
746 directory as the kernel.
748 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
749 entries in refind.conf file.
751 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
752 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
758 - Initial public release