4 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12
5 to eject all such media.
7 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
8 file when launched from rEFInd.
13 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
14 received reports that it's not working as intended.
16 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
17 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
18 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
19 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
20 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
21 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
23 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
24 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
29 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
30 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
31 sample configuration file for a full description.
33 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
34 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
35 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
36 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
37 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
39 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
40 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
43 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
44 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
49 - Improved menu navigation:
50 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
51 down arrows move between rows.
52 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
53 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
54 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
55 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
57 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
58 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
59 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
64 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
65 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
66 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
67 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
68 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
69 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
72 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
75 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
77 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
78 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
85 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
86 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
88 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
89 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
90 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
91 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
92 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
93 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
94 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
95 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
96 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
97 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
98 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
100 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
101 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
102 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
103 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
104 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
106 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
107 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
112 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
113 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
114 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
115 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
116 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
117 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
119 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
120 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
121 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
122 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
123 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
124 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
125 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
126 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
127 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
128 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
129 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
130 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
131 that resets the video mode.
133 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
134 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
135 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
136 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
137 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
140 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
141 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
142 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
143 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
144 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
145 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
147 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
148 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
149 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
151 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
152 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
153 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
154 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
159 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
160 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
161 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
162 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
163 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
164 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
165 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
166 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
167 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
168 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
169 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
170 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
171 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
172 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
175 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
177 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
178 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
179 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
180 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
181 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
182 directories you like.
187 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
188 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
189 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
190 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
191 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
192 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
193 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
194 should work when a volume is unnamed.
196 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
197 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
198 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
203 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
204 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
206 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
207 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
208 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
209 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
210 documented the name....
212 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
213 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
214 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
216 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
217 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
218 directory) on certain systems.
220 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
221 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
226 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
227 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
228 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
229 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
230 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
231 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
232 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
233 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
234 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
235 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
236 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
239 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
240 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
241 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
242 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
245 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
246 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
248 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
251 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
252 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
253 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
254 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
255 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
257 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
258 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
259 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
260 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
261 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
262 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
267 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
268 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
269 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
270 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
271 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
272 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
273 small sample of computers.
275 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
276 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
277 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
278 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
279 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
281 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
286 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
287 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
288 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
289 versionless initrd file.
291 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
292 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
295 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
296 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
297 than this, but such systems are very rare.
302 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
303 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
304 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
305 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
307 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
308 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
309 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
310 directory as the kernel.
312 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
313 entries in refind.conf file.
315 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
316 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
322 - Initial public release