4 - Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility
7 - Added detection of German-language FAT (non-)boot sector created by
8 iPartition to keep it out of the Mac boot menu.
13 - Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian
14 packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run
15 any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the
16 hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run
17 install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64
18 references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of
19 concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else.
21 - Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of
22 the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively.
23 The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type
24 badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and
25 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If
26 the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified,
27 rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn
28 to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf.
30 - rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes.
31 This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it
32 can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a
33 graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so
34 scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128
35 OS icon) is not likely to look good.
37 - Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners:
38 Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll
39 be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the
40 behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the
41 banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display.
43 - Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate
44 RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for
45 existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi
46 rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages
47 were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note,
48 however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd
49 The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine;
50 it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that
56 - Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in
59 - Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
61 - Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a
62 Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to
63 "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery
64 utility on the second row of icons.
66 - The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files,
67 and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first
68 option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default
69 value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for
70 scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.)
72 - Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch,
73 via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the
74 foo.conf file as the main configuration file.
76 - Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with
77 duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so
78 would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given
81 - Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP
82 in Linux, if it's currently unmounted.
84 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
85 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
86 under some circumstances.
91 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
92 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
93 default_selection "fred,ginger"
94 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
95 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
97 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
98 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
99 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
100 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
101 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
102 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
103 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
104 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
105 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
106 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
107 depending on your computer.
109 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
110 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
111 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
112 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
113 screensaver will be disabled.
115 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
116 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
117 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
118 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
119 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
124 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
125 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
127 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
128 versions of OS X to fail.
130 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
131 drivers were present.
133 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
134 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
135 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
136 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
137 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
138 black a second or so later.
143 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
144 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
150 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
151 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
152 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
154 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
155 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
156 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
157 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
158 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
159 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
162 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
163 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
164 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
165 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
167 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
168 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
169 known case, but there may be others.)
174 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
177 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
182 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
183 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
185 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
186 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
188 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
189 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
191 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
192 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
193 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
194 HashTool-signed.efi".
196 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
198 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
201 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
207 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
209 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
210 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
211 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
213 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
214 volume specification, if present.
216 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
221 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
222 type for volumes that lack labels.
224 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
225 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
226 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
229 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
230 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
231 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
232 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
233 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
234 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
235 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
236 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
238 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
239 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
240 non-EFI loaders, etc.
242 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
248 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
249 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
251 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
254 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
255 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
256 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
257 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
259 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
260 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
261 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
262 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
267 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
268 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
269 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
270 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
272 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
274 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
275 directory names that contain spaces.
277 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
278 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
279 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
280 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
281 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
283 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
284 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
286 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
289 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
290 partitions to fill the MBR.
295 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
296 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
297 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
298 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
300 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
301 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
302 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
303 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
304 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
306 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
307 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
308 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
309 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
310 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
313 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
314 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
316 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
317 encountered when saving a screen shot.
319 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
320 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
321 sequence number, starting with "001".
326 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
329 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
330 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
332 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
333 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
334 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
336 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
337 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
338 accidentally trash their systems.
340 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
341 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
342 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
347 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
348 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
350 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
351 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
353 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
354 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
356 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
361 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
362 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
364 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
365 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
366 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
367 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
369 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
370 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
372 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
373 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
375 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
378 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
380 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
381 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
382 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
387 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
388 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
389 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
390 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
391 loader under the fallback name.
393 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
394 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
395 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
396 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
399 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
400 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
402 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
403 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
405 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
406 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
407 commented out or empty.
409 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
410 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
412 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
415 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
416 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
421 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
422 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
424 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
426 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
428 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
429 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
431 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
433 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
434 sized to cover these areas.
436 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
437 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
443 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
444 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
445 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
446 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
448 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
449 startup on some systems.
454 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
455 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
457 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
458 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
460 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
461 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
462 burned to USB flash disks.
464 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
465 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
466 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
468 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
469 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
470 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
471 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
472 from that installation.
474 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
475 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
478 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
479 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
484 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
485 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
486 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
488 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
489 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
490 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
491 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
492 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
494 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
495 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
496 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
497 Linux with the "make" command.
499 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
500 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
502 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
503 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
504 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
505 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
506 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
507 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
508 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
509 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
511 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
512 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
518 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
519 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
520 use on emergency discs.
522 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
523 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
524 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
525 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
526 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
527 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
528 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
529 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
532 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
534 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
535 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
536 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
537 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
538 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
541 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
544 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
545 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
546 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
547 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
549 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
550 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
551 a boot loader launch failed.
556 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
557 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
558 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
561 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
562 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
563 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
564 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
566 - Added ext4fs driver!
568 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
570 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
572 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
573 from a program that set the resolution itself.
575 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
576 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
577 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
578 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
579 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
580 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
581 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
584 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
585 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
586 display even in graphics mode.
588 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
589 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
591 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
592 disables the boot options editor.
594 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
595 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
597 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
598 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
599 from the /etc/default/grub file.
601 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
602 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
604 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
605 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
606 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
607 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
608 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
609 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
611 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
614 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
615 ---------------------
617 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
622 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
623 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
624 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
625 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
627 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
628 configuration file from a primary one.
630 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
631 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
632 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
633 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
634 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
635 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
636 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
639 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
640 on systems with Secure Boot active.
642 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
643 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
646 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
647 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
649 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
650 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
651 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
656 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
657 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
658 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
659 This example results in the following string being passed as an
661 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
663 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
664 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
665 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
666 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
667 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
668 for them makes sense.
670 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
671 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
672 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
673 EFI shells are also so limited.)
675 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
676 were not actually edited.
678 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
679 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
680 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
681 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
682 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
684 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
685 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
686 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
687 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
688 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
689 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
690 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
691 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
693 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
694 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
695 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
697 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
698 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
699 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
701 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
702 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
703 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
704 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
706 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
707 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
708 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
710 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
711 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
716 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
718 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
719 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
720 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
722 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
723 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
724 told isn't working as planned).
726 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
727 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
728 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
729 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
734 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
736 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
739 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
740 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
741 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
742 done this for two reasons:
743 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
744 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
745 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
746 default for them should help them.
747 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
748 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
749 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
750 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
751 default configurations.
753 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
758 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
760 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
765 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
768 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
771 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
772 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
775 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
780 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
781 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
783 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
784 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
785 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
786 graphics or text mode itself.)
788 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
789 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
790 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
791 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
792 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
793 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
794 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
796 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
798 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
799 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
800 "linux.conf" themselves.
805 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
806 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
809 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
810 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
811 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
812 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
813 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
814 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
815 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
816 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
819 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
820 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
825 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
826 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
827 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
828 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
831 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
832 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
834 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
836 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
837 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
840 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
841 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
846 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
847 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
848 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
849 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
850 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
851 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
852 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
854 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
855 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
856 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
858 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
859 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
860 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
861 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
863 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
864 file when launched from rEFInd.
869 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
870 received reports that it's not working as intended.
872 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
873 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
874 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
875 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
876 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
877 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
879 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
880 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
885 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
886 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
887 sample configuration file for a full description.
889 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
890 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
891 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
892 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
893 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
895 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
896 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
899 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
900 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
905 - Improved menu navigation:
906 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
907 down arrows move between rows.
908 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
909 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
910 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
911 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
913 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
914 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
915 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
920 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
921 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
922 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
923 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
924 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
925 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
928 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
931 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
933 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
934 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
941 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
942 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
944 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
945 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
946 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
947 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
948 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
949 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
950 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
951 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
952 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
953 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
954 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
956 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
957 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
958 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
959 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
960 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
962 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
963 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
968 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
969 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
970 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
971 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
972 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
973 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
975 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
976 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
977 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
978 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
979 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
980 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
981 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
982 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
983 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
984 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
985 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
986 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
987 that resets the video mode.
989 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
990 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
991 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
992 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
993 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
996 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
997 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
998 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
999 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
1000 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
1001 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
1003 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
1004 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
1005 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
1007 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
1008 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
1009 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
1010 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
1015 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
1016 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
1017 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
1018 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
1019 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
1020 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
1021 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
1022 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
1023 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
1024 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
1025 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
1026 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
1027 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
1028 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
1031 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
1033 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
1034 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
1035 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
1036 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
1037 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
1038 directories you like.
1043 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
1044 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
1045 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
1046 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
1047 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
1048 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
1049 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
1050 should work when a volume is unnamed.
1052 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
1053 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
1054 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
1059 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
1060 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
1062 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
1063 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
1064 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
1065 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
1066 documented the name....
1068 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
1069 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
1070 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
1072 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
1073 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
1074 directory) on certain systems.
1076 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
1077 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1082 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1083 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1084 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1085 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1086 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1087 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1088 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1089 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1090 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1091 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1092 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1095 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1096 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1097 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1098 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1101 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1102 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1104 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1107 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1108 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1109 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1110 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1111 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1113 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1114 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1115 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1116 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1117 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1118 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1123 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1124 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1125 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1126 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1127 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1128 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1129 small sample of computers.
1131 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1132 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1133 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1134 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1135 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1137 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1142 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1143 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1144 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1145 versionless initrd file.
1147 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1148 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1151 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1152 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1153 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1158 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1159 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1160 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1161 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1163 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1164 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1165 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1166 directory as the kernel.
1168 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1169 entries in refind.conf file.
1171 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1172 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1178 - Initial public release