4 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
5 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
6 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
8 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
9 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
10 told isn't working as planned).
12 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
13 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
14 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
15 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
20 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
22 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
25 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
26 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
27 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
28 done this for two reasons:
29 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
30 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
31 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
32 default for them should help them.
33 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
34 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
35 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
36 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
37 default configurations.
39 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
44 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
46 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
51 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
54 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
57 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
58 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
61 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
66 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
67 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
69 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
70 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
71 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
72 graphics or text mode itself.)
74 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
75 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
76 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
77 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
78 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
79 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
80 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
82 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
84 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
85 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
86 "linux.conf" themselves.
91 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
92 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
95 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
96 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
97 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
98 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
99 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
100 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
101 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
102 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
105 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
106 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
111 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
112 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
113 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
114 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
117 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
118 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
120 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
122 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
123 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
126 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
127 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
132 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
133 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
134 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
135 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
136 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
137 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
138 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
140 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
141 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
142 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
144 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
145 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
146 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
147 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
149 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
150 file when launched from rEFInd.
155 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
156 received reports that it's not working as intended.
158 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
159 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
160 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
161 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
162 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
163 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
165 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
166 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
171 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
172 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
173 sample configuration file for a full description.
175 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
176 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
177 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
178 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
179 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
181 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
182 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
185 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
186 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
191 - Improved menu navigation:
192 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
193 down arrows move between rows.
194 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
195 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
196 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
197 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
199 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
200 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
201 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
206 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
207 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
208 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
209 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
210 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
211 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
214 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
217 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
219 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
220 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
227 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
228 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
230 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
231 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
232 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
233 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
234 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
235 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
236 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
237 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
238 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
239 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
240 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
242 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
243 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
244 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
245 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
246 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
248 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
249 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
254 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
255 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
256 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
257 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
258 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
259 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
261 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
262 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
263 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
264 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
265 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
266 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
267 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
268 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
269 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
270 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
271 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
272 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
273 that resets the video mode.
275 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
276 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
277 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
278 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
279 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
282 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
283 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
284 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
285 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
286 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
287 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
289 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
290 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
291 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
293 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
294 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
295 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
296 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
301 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
302 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
303 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
304 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
305 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
306 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
307 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
308 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
309 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
310 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
311 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
312 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
313 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
314 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
317 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
319 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
320 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
321 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
322 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
323 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
324 directories you like.
329 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
330 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
331 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
332 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
333 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
334 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
335 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
336 should work when a volume is unnamed.
338 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
339 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
340 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
345 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
346 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
348 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
349 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
350 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
351 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
352 documented the name....
354 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
355 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
356 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
358 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
359 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
360 directory) on certain systems.
362 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
363 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
368 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
369 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
370 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
371 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
372 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
373 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
374 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
375 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
376 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
377 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
378 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
381 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
382 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
383 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
384 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
387 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
388 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
390 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
393 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
394 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
395 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
396 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
397 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
399 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
400 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
401 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
402 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
403 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
404 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
409 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
410 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
411 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
412 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
413 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
414 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
415 small sample of computers.
417 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
418 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
419 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
420 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
421 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
423 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
428 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
429 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
430 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
431 versionless initrd file.
433 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
434 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
437 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
438 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
439 than this, but such systems are very rare.
444 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
445 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
446 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
447 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
449 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
450 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
451 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
452 directory as the kernel.
454 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
455 entries in refind.conf file.
457 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
458 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
464 - Initial public release