4 - Minor code changes to ensure that rEFInd compiles with GCC 5.1. (Tested
5 with GNU-EFI on a Fedora 22 system; not yet tested with the TianoCore
8 - Added new "fold_linux_kernels" token to refind.conf. This option, when
9 active (the default) "folds" all Linux kernels in a directory into a
10 single entry on the rEFInd menu. The kernel with the most recent time
11 stamp is launched by default. To launch another kernel, you must press F2
12 or Insert; additional kernels appear as options on the first kernel's
13 submenu. To see the pre-0.9.0 behavior, you must set "fold_linux_kernels
14 false" (or one of its synonyms, "off" or "0"). The point of this option
15 is to help de-clutter the rEFInd main menu.
17 - Added new Linux root (/) partition auto-discovery feature, based on
18 Freedesktop.org's Discoverable Partitions Spec (DPS)
19 (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
20 If no refind_linux.conf file or /etc/fstab file is found, and if a
21 partition with the correct DPS type code for the system architecture is
22 found, rEFInd adds "ro root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/{GUID}" to the kernel
23 options. This will not help on LVM setups, and will get it right for only
24 one installation on systems with multiple Linux installations, but it may
25 help some users, if/when the DPS type codes become more common.
27 - Fixed bug that caused a rEFInd crash if an empty refind_linux.conf
30 - The mkrlconf.sh script now checks the OS on which it's running, which
31 should help avoid confusion or problems by users who mistakenly run it
34 - rEFInd now skips checking for various BIOS-mode boot sector signatures
35 when running on a UEFI-based PC; these checks are run only on Macs. This
36 may reduce startup time on systems with many partitions.
38 - Fixed Debian debinstall script to work correctly on IA32 systems. It had
39 a bug that caused filesystem drivers and gptsync to not be packaged for
42 - Modified Debian postinst file to call install.sh with --localkeys option
43 if sbsign and openssl are available, even when NOT in Secure Boot mode or
44 if shim is not detected. This helps with my Ubuntu PPA when using custom
45 Secure Boot keys, since the PPA is delivered unsigned. (Users will have
46 to have added their own local keys to their firmware's db.) For
47 consistency, I've made the same change to the RPM .spec file.
52 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused inappropriate installation under the
53 name bootx64.efi (or bootia32.efi) under Linux, with a failure to update
54 the boot entries in NVRAM, has been fixed.
56 - Added identification of XFS as filesystem type in volume descriptions.
58 - More fixes to filesystem type detection code. Previous version sometimes
59 identified FAT or NTFS (or anything with a boot loader) as a whole-disk
60 device rather than the correct filesystem type.
62 - Added protections to the code to reduce the risk of crashes that might
63 occur when dereferencing NULL pointers in various situations.
65 - I'm deprecating the use of filesystem numbers (as in "fs0:") because
66 they're unreliable -- filesystem numbers can change between boots and
67 might not be the same as those used in an EFI shell or other program.
68 Sooner or later I'll remove code supporting this feature. In the
69 meantime, if it doesn't work for you, please switch to using filesystem
70 labels, partition labels, or partition GUIDs.
72 - Added detection of FreeBSD's BIOS-mode GPT boot loader. Previously,
73 rEFInd could detect FreeBSD's BIOS-mode MBR boot loader, which gave
74 FreeBSD an appropriate icon on Macs; but the BIOS-mode GPT boot loader
75 code is different, so some recent FreeBSD installations showed up with
76 generic grey diamond icons. This change creates FreeBSD icons instead.
78 - Added "Secure Boot [active|inactive]" notice to "about" menu for x86
79 (32-bit) systems, since there are now a few 32-bit UEFI systems that
80 support Secure Boot. (AFAIK, these are mostly tablets and convertibles
81 such as the ASUS T100.)
83 - Added KeyTool.efi and KeyTool-signed.efi to list of MOK managers. KeyTool
84 is the "super-deluxe" Secure Boot key and hash manager provided as part
85 of the efitools package.
87 - Fixed more instances of "invalid parameter" errors on some EFIs.
89 - Improved Secure Boot detection in install.sh.
91 - install.sh should no longer complain when copying Shim or MokManager over
97 - Removed special case of ignoring an HFS+ name of "HFS+ volume", since the
98 old rEFInd HFS+ driver that produced this name for all HFS+ volumes has
99 long since been updated to deliver a real name.
101 - Addition of new Windows 8 OS icon. On Macs and for BIOS/legacy boots, the
102 new icon is now used for Windows Vista, 7, and 8, while the old one is
103 used for earlier versions of Windows. For EFI-mode boots, the new icon is
106 - If the NTFS driver is loaded, rEFInd now scans NTFS volumes on Macs for
107 the presence of Windows boot files, and removes any NTFS volume that
108 lacks such files from the BIOS/legacy boot list. This should help
109 unclutter the display on Macs that contain NTFS data partitions.
111 - Fixed bug that caused misidentification of both whole disks and NTFS
112 volumes as being FAT. (This bug affected the identification of devices
113 and locations in the rEFInd menu, not actual access to devices.)
115 - Code refactoring to clear out legacy-boot functions from the
116 ever-expanding refind/main.c file.
118 - Added new "badges" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf. This
119 option hides the device-type badges associated with the OS boot options.
121 - Reverted rEFIt commit r472, introduced in rEFInd 0.8.5 to support more
122 BMP images because I've received bug reports that it's causing existing
123 selection images to fail to load.
125 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused misidentification of installation
126 directory under OS X if an already-mounted ESP has spaces in its path.
128 - Fixed Mac-specific install.sh bug that could cause misidentification of
129 the ESP on disks with partition numbers of 10 or above.
135 - Added NTFS EFI filesystem driver.
137 - Minor improvements to filesystem driver framework code.
141 - Fixed bug in Btrfs driver's address reference.
143 - Improved install.sh to make it smarter about figuring out where to
144 install on Macs. Specifically, this version now upgrades existing
145 installations, if found (as it always has under Linux), rather than
146 blindly install to EFI/BOOT; it installs to EFI/refind if not existing
147 installation is found; it installs using the --shortform option to bless,
148 which seems to eliminate the 30-second delay problem; and it can handle
149 an HFS+ ESP, which it treats as a separate HFS+ volume (as if the user
150 had used --ownhfs). These changes do not affect behavior under Linux.
152 - Added missing check of architecture type for several tools.
154 - Applied rEFIt commit r472, which adds support for BMP images with negative
155 height fields, indicating that the image is NOT vertically flipped. This
156 commit and r467 were not incorporated in the original rEFInd because I
157 forked it from a Debian rEFIt package that had been patched to build
158 under GNU-EFI, and was apparently based on a slightly earlier version.
160 - Applied rEFIt commit r467, which improves Mac handling of legacy boots
161 from other than the first hard disk.
167 - Tweaked default for dont_scan_volumes: Removed "Recovery HD". This change
168 better suits the needs of OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") installations, but may
169 result in some stray Recovery HD entries on some Macs.
171 - Updated icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu.
173 - Added new configuration option, "enable_and_lock_vmx", which sets an
174 Intel CPU feature that's required for some types of virtualization to
175 work. Most EFIs enable setting this feature in their own setup utilities,
176 but some (such as most Macs) don't.
178 - If rEFInd can't locate an icons directory (either the default or one
179 specified by the icons_dir token), the program switches to text-only
182 - If a loader contains the string "grub" and no other clue to the loader's
183 OS association exists, search for os_grub.{png|icns} (which is not
184 provided with rEFInd) or os_linux.{png|icns}. (Previous versions provided
185 a generic loader icon for GRUB.)
187 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_files to not work with special-case
188 boot loaders (for OS X and Windows) when specifying the complete path to
189 the loader (e.g., EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi).
191 - Added support for the iPXE network boot tool (see BUILDING.txt for
192 building and basic use instructions).
197 - Added new feature: Setting "timeout = -1" in refind.conf causes rEFInd to
198 immediately boot the default option UNLESS a keypress is in the buffer
199 when rEFInd launches. In that case, if the keypress corresponds to a
200 shortcut key, the associated boot loader is launched; or if not, the menu
203 - Added new icons for Clover boot loader and for Mythbuntu Linux
206 - rEFInd now displays the partition's label, when one is available, when
207 offering a BIOS-mode boot option for a partition with no filesystem
208 driver. This works only on Macs doing BIOS-mode booting.
210 - Removed GPLv2 code from the FSW core files. This was done because the
211 Btrfs driver is derived from the GRUB Btrfs driver, which is licensed
212 under the GPLv3. Ironically, the GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible
213 licenses, so ensuring that the Btrfs driver doesn't rely on GPLv2 code
214 was legally necessary. In most cases, I reverted to the original rEFIt
215 code, although I kept my own cache code; since I wrote it, I can
216 change its license to a BSD license.
218 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers immediately after loading
219 them. This didn't affect rEFInd's own drivers because they didn't include
220 the unload hooks, but it did affect some other drivers.
222 - Changed default scan_all_linux_kernels setting from "false" to "true",
223 and commented the option out in refind.conf-sample. This should not
224 affect most people, since refind.conf-sample had this option commented
225 out, and most rEFInd users either use it that way or don't have Linux
226 kernels installed at all. I've made this change because I want rEFInd to
227 "do the right thing" by default in as many cases as possible. For a while
228 now, rEFInd has been excluding non-bootable files from its menu, and most
229 kernels "in the wild" now include the EFI stub. Thus, enabling this
230 support by default seems worthwhile. If you prefer to not scan Linux
231 kernels by default, simply uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" line
232 and ensure it's set to "false".
237 - Removed stray bit of debugging code that caused a prompt to press a
238 key to appear at rEFInd startup.
243 - Changed behavior when default_selection is not set: It now boots the
244 previously-booted loader, assuming it's still available; if not, rEFInd
245 boots the first loader (as it does now). Behavior is unchanged if
246 default_selection is set. Note that this behavior depends on the ability
247 of rEFInd to store an EFI variable in NVRAM. It therefore fails on
248 systems with flaky NVRAM storage. You can view the previously-booted
250 /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740
251 variable under Linux.
253 - Added icon for Mageia Linux (os_mageia.png).
255 - Fixed bug that could misidentify a not-quite-GUID as a GUID in a
256 manual boot stanza's "volume" line.
258 - I've updated my personal build system, and therefore the rEFInd Makefiles
259 and related files, to use TianoCore UDK2014 rather than UDK2010.
261 - Added "deep_uefi_legacy_scan" token. When not set (the default), rEFInd
262 does not modify EFI NVRAM settings when scanning for BIOS-mode boot
263 loaders on UEFI-based (non-Mac) computers. Some computers require
264 uncommenting this setting for rEFInd to reliably detect some BIOS-mode
265 boot devices. Passing "0", "off", or "false" as an option resets it to
266 the default value (useful in a loaded secondary configuration file to
267 override a setting in the main file).
272 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders stored
273 on the root directory of a partition.
275 - Added two new bitmap fonts to those distributed with rEFInd: Ubuntu Mono
276 and Nimbus Mono. Both come in 12-, 14-, 16-, and 24-point sizes.
278 - Messages about pauses for scanning and re-scanning of boot loaders are
279 now suppressed when doing an initial delayed scan when scan_delay is 1
282 - Improved centering of legacy boot option descriptions on some systems'
285 - Fixed bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot to boot from an inappropriate
286 device if that device had an innately high boot priority (as set by the
289 - Changed icons from ICNS to PNG form. There are several reasons to do
290 this, all of them minor; but together they're enough to warrant a change.
291 PNG is more common, and therefore more accessible to most users --
292 particularly those who don't use OS X. The PNG files are smaller than
293 their ICNS equivalents. PNG supports a wider range of sizes (although I'm
294 not now using anything that ICNS doesn't support, I might in the future).
295 The icon-scaling support added a few versions ago makes ICNS's support
296 for multiple icon sizes relatively unimportant.
298 - Reversed order of search for icons by extension: rEFInd now searches
299 for PNG files before ICNS files, rather than the other way around. This
300 makes it possible to override a volume icon for rEFInd by giving it the
301 name .VolumeIcon.png, even when a .VolumeIcon.icns file exists on the
302 volume and is used by OS X.
304 - Fixed bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take higher-than-intended
305 precedence in icon setting for OS X.
307 - Chainloading to BIOS-mode boot loaders now works on UEFI-based PCs when
308 rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI, not just when built with Tianocore.
313 - The "dont_scan_volumes" parameter now also works with legacy-boot
314 volumes. Unlike with EFI volumes, where the option you pass must exactly
315 match an entire volume name, when applied to legacy-boot volumes, it
316 matches any part of the description that appears beneath the item when
317 you select it in the rEFInd main menu.
319 - Can now boot in legacy mode from second (and probably later) hard disks!
321 - rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware name string shown in the
322 system information screen to 65 characters. This is done because at least
323 one EFI presents a longer string by default, and this causes the entire
324 information display to come up empty on 800x600 displays.
326 - rEFInd now uses the partition's name (as stored in the GPT data
327 structures) as a fallback for the filesystem's name if the latter can't
328 be found. Exceptions are if the partition name is one of three generic
329 names used by GPT fdisk: "Microsoft basic data", "Linux filesystem", or
330 "Apple HFS/HFS+". These are ignored in favor of the descriptive fallback
331 (e.g., "20 GiB Btrfs volume")
333 - It's now possible to specify a volume by partition GUID number in a
334 manual boot stanza. This should be more reliable (albeit also more
335 awkward) than using a filesystem number (such as fs0: or fs1:).
337 - Fixed memory-allocation bug that could cause error message displays,
338 and possibly hangs, when re-scanning boot loaders.
343 - Attempt to fix rEFInd perpetually re-scanning after ejecting a disc on
346 - Added check to remove redundant (or non-functional if Secure Boot is
347 active) kernel entries for Ubuntu, which is now including two versions of
348 kernels, one signed and the other unsigned.
350 - Fixed bug in install.sh that could cause it to display error messages
351 if the dmraid utility was not installed.
353 - The HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name.
355 - Fixed some EFI filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups under
356 some circumstances. These bugs could affect any of the filesystem
359 - Added "gdisk" option to the "showtools" configuration file token. When
360 active, this adds gdisk.efi or gdisk_{arch}.efi, if present in the
361 EFI\tools directory, to the tools row.
363 - Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility
370 - Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian
371 packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run
372 any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the
373 hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run
374 install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64
375 references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of
376 concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else.
378 - Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of
379 the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively.
380 The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type
381 badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and
382 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If
383 the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified,
384 rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn
385 to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf.
387 - rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes.
388 This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it
389 can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a
390 graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so
391 scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128
392 OS icon) is not likely to look good.
394 - Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners:
395 Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll
396 be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the
397 behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the
398 banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display.
400 - Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate
401 RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for
402 existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi
403 rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages
404 were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note,
405 however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd
406 The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine;
407 it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that
408 problems might arise.
413 - Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in
416 - Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
418 - Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a
419 Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to
420 "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery
421 utility on the second row of icons.
423 - The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files,
424 and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first
425 option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default
426 value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for
427 scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.)
429 - Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch,
430 via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the
431 foo.conf file as the main configuration file.
433 - Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with
434 duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so
435 would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given
438 - Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP
439 in Linux, if it's currently unmounted.
441 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
442 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
443 under some circumstances.
448 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
449 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
450 default_selection "fred,ginger"
451 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
452 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
454 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
455 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
456 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
457 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
458 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
459 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
460 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
461 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
462 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
463 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
464 depending on your computer.
466 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
467 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
468 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
469 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
470 screensaver will be disabled.
472 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
473 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
474 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
475 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
476 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
481 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
482 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
484 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
485 versions of OS X to fail.
487 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
488 drivers were present.
490 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
491 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
492 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
493 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
494 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
495 black a second or so later.
500 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
501 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
507 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
508 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
509 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
511 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
512 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
513 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
514 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
515 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
516 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
519 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
520 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
521 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
522 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
524 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
525 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
526 known case, but there may be others.)
531 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
534 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
539 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
540 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
542 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
543 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
545 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
546 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
548 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
549 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
550 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
551 HashTool-signed.efi".
553 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
555 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
558 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
564 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
566 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
567 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
568 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
570 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
571 volume specification, if present.
573 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
578 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
579 type for volumes that lack labels.
581 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
582 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
583 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
586 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
587 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
588 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
589 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
590 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
591 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
592 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
593 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
595 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
596 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
597 non-EFI loaders, etc.
599 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
605 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
606 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
608 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
611 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
612 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
613 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
614 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
616 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
617 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
618 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
619 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
624 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
625 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
626 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
627 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
629 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
631 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
632 directory names that contain spaces.
634 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
635 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
636 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
637 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
638 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
640 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
641 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
643 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
646 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
647 partitions to fill the MBR.
652 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
653 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
654 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
655 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
657 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
658 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
659 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
660 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
661 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
663 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
664 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
665 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
666 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
667 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
670 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
671 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
673 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
674 encountered when saving a screen shot.
676 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
677 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
678 sequence number, starting with "001".
683 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
686 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
687 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
689 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
690 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
691 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
693 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
694 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
695 accidentally trash their systems.
697 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
698 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
699 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
704 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
705 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
707 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
708 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
710 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
711 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
713 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
718 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
719 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
721 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
722 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
723 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
724 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
726 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
727 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
729 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
730 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
732 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
735 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
737 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
738 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
739 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
744 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
745 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
746 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
747 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
748 loader under the fallback name.
750 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
751 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
752 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
753 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
756 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
757 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
759 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
760 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
762 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
763 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
764 commented out or empty.
766 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
767 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
769 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
772 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
773 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
778 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
779 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
781 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
783 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
785 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
786 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
788 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
790 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
791 sized to cover these areas.
793 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
794 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
800 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
801 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
802 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
803 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
805 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
806 startup on some systems.
811 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
812 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
814 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
815 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
817 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
818 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
819 burned to USB flash disks.
821 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
822 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
823 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
825 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
826 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
827 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
828 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
829 from that installation.
831 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
832 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
835 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
836 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
841 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
842 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
843 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
845 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
846 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
847 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
848 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
849 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
851 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
852 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
853 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
854 Linux with the "make" command.
856 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
857 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
859 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
860 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
861 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
862 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
863 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
864 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
865 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
866 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
868 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
869 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
875 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
876 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
877 use on emergency discs.
879 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
880 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
881 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
882 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
883 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
884 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
885 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
886 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
889 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
891 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
892 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
893 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
894 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
895 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
898 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
901 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
902 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
903 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
904 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
906 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
907 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
908 a boot loader launch failed.
913 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
914 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
915 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
918 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
919 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
920 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
921 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
923 - Added ext4fs driver!
925 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
927 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
929 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
930 from a program that set the resolution itself.
932 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
933 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
934 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
935 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
936 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
937 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
938 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
941 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
942 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
943 display even in graphics mode.
945 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
946 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
948 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
949 disables the boot options editor.
951 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
952 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
954 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
955 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
956 from the /etc/default/grub file.
958 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
959 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
961 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
962 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
963 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
964 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
965 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
966 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
968 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
971 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
972 ---------------------
974 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
979 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
980 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
981 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
982 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
984 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
985 configuration file from a primary one.
987 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
988 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
989 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
990 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
991 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
992 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
993 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
996 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
997 on systems with Secure Boot active.
999 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
1000 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
1003 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
1004 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
1006 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
1007 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
1008 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
1013 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
1014 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
1015 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
1016 This example results in the following string being passed as an
1018 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
1020 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
1021 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
1022 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
1023 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
1024 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
1025 for them makes sense.
1027 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
1028 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
1029 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
1030 EFI shells are also so limited.)
1032 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
1033 were not actually edited.
1035 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
1036 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
1037 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
1038 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
1039 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
1041 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
1042 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
1043 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
1044 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
1045 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
1046 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
1047 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
1048 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
1050 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
1051 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
1052 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
1054 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
1055 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
1056 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
1058 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
1059 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
1060 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
1061 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
1063 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
1064 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
1065 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
1067 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
1068 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
1073 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
1075 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
1076 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
1077 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
1079 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
1080 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
1081 told isn't working as planned).
1083 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
1084 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
1085 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
1086 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
1091 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
1093 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
1096 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
1097 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
1098 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
1099 done this for two reasons:
1100 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
1101 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
1102 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
1103 default for them should help them.
1104 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
1105 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
1106 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
1107 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
1108 default configurations.
1110 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
1115 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
1117 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
1122 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
1125 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
1128 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
1129 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
1132 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
1137 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
1138 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
1140 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
1141 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
1142 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
1143 graphics or text mode itself.)
1145 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
1146 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
1147 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
1148 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
1149 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
1150 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
1151 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
1153 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
1155 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
1156 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
1157 "linux.conf" themselves.
1162 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
1163 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
1166 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
1167 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
1168 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
1169 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
1170 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
1171 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
1172 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
1173 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
1176 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
1177 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
1182 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
1183 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
1184 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
1185 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
1188 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
1189 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
1191 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
1193 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
1194 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
1197 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
1198 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
1203 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
1204 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
1205 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
1206 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
1207 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
1208 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
1209 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
1211 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
1212 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
1213 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
1215 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
1216 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
1217 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
1218 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
1220 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
1221 file when launched from rEFInd.
1226 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
1227 received reports that it's not working as intended.
1229 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
1230 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
1231 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
1232 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
1233 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
1234 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
1236 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
1237 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
1242 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
1243 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
1244 sample configuration file for a full description.
1246 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
1247 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
1248 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
1249 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
1250 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
1252 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
1253 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
1256 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
1257 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
1262 - Improved menu navigation:
1263 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
1264 down arrows move between rows.
1265 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
1266 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
1267 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
1268 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
1270 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
1271 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
1272 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
1277 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
1278 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
1279 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
1280 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
1281 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
1282 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
1285 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
1288 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
1290 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
1291 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
1298 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
1299 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
1301 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
1302 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
1303 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
1304 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
1305 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
1306 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
1307 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
1308 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
1309 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
1310 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
1311 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
1313 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
1314 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
1315 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
1316 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
1317 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
1319 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
1320 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
1325 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
1326 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
1327 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
1328 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
1329 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
1330 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
1332 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
1333 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
1334 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
1335 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
1336 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
1337 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
1338 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
1339 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
1340 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
1341 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
1342 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
1343 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
1344 that resets the video mode.
1346 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
1347 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
1348 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
1349 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
1350 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
1353 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
1354 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
1355 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
1356 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
1357 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
1358 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
1360 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
1361 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
1362 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
1364 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
1365 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
1366 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
1367 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
1372 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
1373 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
1374 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
1375 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
1376 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
1377 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
1378 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
1379 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
1380 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
1381 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
1382 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
1383 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
1384 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
1385 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
1388 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
1390 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
1391 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
1392 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
1393 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
1394 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
1395 directories you like.
1400 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
1401 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
1402 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
1403 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
1404 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
1405 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
1406 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
1407 should work when a volume is unnamed.
1409 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
1410 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
1411 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
1416 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
1417 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
1419 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
1420 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
1421 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
1422 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
1423 documented the name....
1425 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
1426 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
1427 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
1429 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
1430 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
1431 directory) on certain systems.
1433 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
1434 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1439 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1440 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1441 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1442 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1443 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1444 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1445 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1446 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1447 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1448 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1449 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1452 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1453 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1454 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1455 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1458 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1459 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1461 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1464 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1465 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1466 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1467 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1468 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1470 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1471 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1472 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1473 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1474 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1475 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1480 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1481 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1482 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1483 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1484 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1485 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1486 small sample of computers.
1488 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1489 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1490 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1491 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1492 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1494 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1499 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1500 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1501 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1502 versionless initrd file.
1504 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1505 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1508 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1509 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1510 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1515 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1516 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1517 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1518 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1520 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1521 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1522 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1523 directory as the kernel.
1525 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1526 entries in refind.conf file.
1528 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1529 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1535 - Initial public release