4 - The refind-install script can now be run as a symbolic link in Linux.
5 This enables creating a /usr/sbin/refind-install link in Linux packages,
6 with the binaries stashed wherever the package system likes them. This
7 feature does NOT work in OS X, but there's relatively little need for it
13 - Fixed bug that caused refind-install to not unmount the ESP when it
16 - Modified refind-install and mkrlconf scripts to use /proc/cmdline as
17 source for default boot options EXCEPT when refind-install receives the
18 --root option. In that case, refind-install continues to use
19 /etc/default/grub as the source of default options. The idea behind this
20 change is that it's more reliable to get boot options from /proc/cmdline
21 when the targeted system is the one that's booted; but --root would be
22 used from emergency disks or live CDs, in which case the current boot
23 options would be completely wrong, so extracting boot options from GRUB
24 files is the best bet for getting close to the right options.
26 - Added "@/boot" to default also_scan_dirs setting. This makes kernels
27 show up on Btrfs volumes under Ubuntu (and perhaps others), at least when
28 the Btrfs driver is loaded.
30 - Added new System Integrity Protection (SIP) rotation feature for Macs
31 running OS X 10.11 or later. This feature is disabled by default, except
32 on CD-R and USB flash drive images, on which it's enabled. To enable it,
33 you must make TWO changes to refind.conf: Uncomment the new "csr_values"
34 item and add "csr_rotate" to the "showtools" line (uncommenting it, too,
35 if it's commented out). If desired, you can set more values on
36 "csr_values"; these are comma-delimited one-byte hexadecimal values that
37 define various SIP states. When SIP/CSR rotation is activated, a new
38 shield icon appears among the tools. Selecting it causes the next defined
39 value to be set and a confirmation message to appear for three seconds.
41 - Added display of current System Integrity Protection (SIP) mode to
44 - Added mountesp script for OS X to (you guessed it!) mount the ESP.
46 - Renamed support scripts: install.sh to refind-install, mvrefind.sh to
47 mvrefind, and mkrlconf.sh to mkrlconf.
49 - New icons! The old ones were getting to be a jumbled mess of styles,
50 particularly for OS tags. I used the AwOken icon set
51 (http://alecive.deviantart.com/art/AwOken-163570862) for the core icons,
52 then expanded from there by creating my own icons and modifying icons for
53 Debian and Elementary OS. I'm also trying to keep better track of
54 copyrights and licenses on icons. Between that and some icons being for
55 OSes that probably see very little use (FreeDOS and eComstation, for
56 instance), a few OS icons have been lost. If you prefer the old icons,
57 you can continue to use them by upgrading rEFInd, renaming icons-backup
58 to something else (say, icons-classic), and then adding an "icons" line
59 in refind.conf to point to the old icons directory.
61 - Changed from .zip to .tar.gz as source code archive format. I did this
62 because Linux is the only officially-supported build platform, and
63 tarballs are a more natural fit to a Linux environment. I'm leaving .zip,
64 .deb, and .rpm files as the formats for binary packages.
66 - Added detection of System Integrity Protection (SIP; aka "rootless") mode
67 to OS X portion of install.sh script. When detected, and if no existing
68 rEFInd installation is found, the script now prints a warning and brief
69 instructions of how to enter the Recovery mode to install rEFInd and
70 suggests aborting the installation. (The user can override and attempt
71 installation anyhow.) If SIP is detected along with an existing rEFInd
72 installation, the script moderates the warning and explains that an
73 update of a working rEFInd will probably succeed, but that re-installing
74 to fix a broken rEFInd will probably fail.
76 - Added new "spoof_osx_version" token, which takes an OS X version number
77 (such as "10.9") as an option. This feature, when enabled, causes rEFInd
78 to tell a Mac's firmware that the specified version of OS X is being
79 launched. This option is usually unnecessary, but it can help properly
80 initialize some hardware -- particularly secondary video devices. OTOH,
81 on some Macs it can cause hardware (notably keyboards and mice) to become
82 unresponsive, so you should not use this option unnecessarily.
84 - Worked around an EFI bug that affected my 32-bit Mac Mini: That system
85 seems to have a broken EFI, or possibly a buggy CPU, that causes some
86 (but not all) conversions from floating-point to integer numbers to hang
87 the computer. Such operations were performed only in rEFInd's
88 graphics-resizing code, and so would manifest only when icons or
89 background images were resized. My fix eliminates the use of
90 floating-point operations in the affected function, which eliminates the
91 crashes. There may be some degradation in the quality of resized images,
92 though, particularly on 32-bit systems. (64-bit systems use larger
93 integers, which enable greater precision in my floating-point
96 - Under OS X, install.sh can now be run from the recovery system. This may
97 help work around OS X 10.11's problems with System Integrity Protection,
98 since it should be possible to reboot into the recovery system to install
99 rEFInd without disabling SIP for the main installation, even for just one
105 - Added "--keepname" option to install.sh. This option causes install.sh
106 to keep refind_x64.efi named as such rather than rename it as grubx64.efi
107 when using Shim. This option is meaningful only if the --shim option is
108 also used. This option passes the refind_x64.efi filename as an option to
109 Shim, which overrides the default filename of grubx64.efi. A big caveat:
110 Only Shim 0.7 and later supports this feature. (Shim 0.4 also works if a
111 refind_x64.efi is referred to as "\refind_x64.efi" on the command line,
112 but the need for a leading backslash to refer to a file in the same
113 directory as Shim is so confusing and wrong that I cannot in good
114 conscience support it.) I've not seen signed Shim binaries between 0.4
115 and 0.7, so I don't know if any of them might work.
117 - Implemented a workaround for a bug in Shim 0.8 that prevented
118 authentication of more than one binary. If any filesystem drivers were
119 installed, the first one would be verified, leaving rEFInd unable to
120 launch anything else unless it was signed by a key in the computer's main
126 - When rEFInd identifies the root (/) partition via the Freedesktop.org
127 Discoverable Partitions Specification, it now checks two of the
128 partition's attributes, as per the DPS (see
129 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
130 - The partition's read-only attribute determines whether to pass a "rw"
131 or "ro" option to the kernel.
132 - If the partition's do-not-automount flag is set, rEFInd will not pass
133 it as a "root=" option to the kernel. This flag can be used to remove
134 all but one partition from consideration as a root (/) partition if a
135 system has more than one with the correct type code.
137 - Improved Freedesktop.org Discoverable Partitions Specification support:
138 Previously, if no refind_linux.conf file was present but an /etc/fstab
139 file was found, rEFInd ignored the Discoverable Partitions Specification
140 filesystem-type codes. This was fine if /etc/fstab contained a valid "/"
141 filesystem specification, but if that was absent, the result was no
142 "root=" specification being present. Under these circumstances
143 (refind_linux.conf absent, /etc/fstab present but lacking a "/" entry),
144 rEFInd now tries to identify a device to specify as "root=" via the
145 Discoverable Partitions Specification.
147 - Fixed bug that caused "Found match!" and a prompt to press a key to
148 continue to be printed if any partition used the Freedesktop.org
149 Discoverable Partitions Specification root-partition GUID. (This
150 was leftover debugging/testing code that I somehow missed deleting.)
152 - Added icon for Elementary OS.
154 - Added /etc/lsb-release to files scanned for clues about the Linux
155 distribution. This file differentiates Mint and Elementary OS from Ubuntu
156 better than does /etc/os-release, and may also help with other
157 closely-related distributions.
159 - Improvements to handling of case-insensitive string comparisons. These
160 are buggy on some EFIs, and such bugs affect things like dont_scan_*
161 blacklists, removal of rEFInd's own directory from scanning, matching of
162 keyword names in refind.conf, and even loading of icons. I've replaced
163 many calls to problematic functions with safer calls, which should help a
164 lot. There may still be problems on some systems with some computers,
165 though; as far as I can tell, the bugs are buried deep in some EFI
166 firmware, so I can only replace some of the most direct calls to
167 potentially buggy system calls.
172 - New icon for Kali Linux, submitted by Francesco D'Eugenio.
174 - Minor code changes to ensure that rEFInd compiles with GCC 5.1. (Tested
175 with GNU-EFI on a Fedora 22 system; not yet tested with the TianoCore
178 - Added new "fold_linux_kernels" token to refind.conf. This option, when
179 active (the default) "folds" all Linux kernels in a directory into a
180 single entry on the rEFInd menu. The kernel with the most recent time
181 stamp is launched by default. To launch another kernel, you must press F2
182 or Insert; additional kernels appear as options on the first kernel's
183 submenu. To see the pre-0.9.0 behavior, you must set "fold_linux_kernels
184 false" (or one of its synonyms, "off" or "0"). The point of this option
185 is to help de-clutter the rEFInd main menu.
187 - Added new Linux root (/) partition auto-discovery feature, based on
188 Freedesktop.org's Discoverable Partitions Spec (DPS)
189 (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
190 If no refind_linux.conf file or /etc/fstab file is found, and if a
191 partition with the correct DPS type code for the system architecture is
192 found, rEFInd adds "ro root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/{GUID}" to the kernel
193 options. This will not help on LVM setups, and will get it right for only
194 one installation on systems with multiple Linux installations, but it may
195 help some users, if/when the DPS type codes become more common.
197 - Fixed bug that caused a rEFInd crash if an empty refind_linux.conf
198 file was encountered.
200 - The mkrlconf.sh script now checks the OS on which it's running, which
201 should help avoid confusion or problems by users who mistakenly run it
204 - rEFInd now skips checking for various BIOS-mode boot sector signatures
205 when running on a UEFI-based PC; these checks are run only on Macs. This
206 may reduce startup time on systems with many partitions.
208 - Fixed Debian debinstall script to work correctly on IA32 systems. It had
209 a bug that caused filesystem drivers and gptsync to not be packaged for
212 - Modified Debian postinst file to call install.sh with --localkeys option
213 if sbsign and openssl are available, even when NOT in Secure Boot mode or
214 if shim is not detected. This helps with my Ubuntu PPA when using custom
215 Secure Boot keys, since the PPA is delivered unsigned. (Users will have
216 to have added their own local keys to their firmware's db.) For
217 consistency, I've made the same change to the RPM .spec file.
222 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused inappropriate installation under the
223 name bootx64.efi (or bootia32.efi) under Linux, with a failure to update
224 the boot entries in NVRAM, has been fixed.
226 - Added identification of XFS as filesystem type in volume descriptions.
228 - More fixes to filesystem type detection code. Previous version sometimes
229 identified FAT or NTFS (or anything with a boot loader) as a whole-disk
230 device rather than the correct filesystem type.
232 - Added protections to the code to reduce the risk of crashes that might
233 occur when dereferencing NULL pointers in various situations.
235 - I'm deprecating the use of filesystem numbers (as in "fs0:") because
236 they're unreliable -- filesystem numbers can change between boots and
237 might not be the same as those used in an EFI shell or other program.
238 Sooner or later I'll remove code supporting this feature. In the
239 meantime, if it doesn't work for you, please switch to using filesystem
240 labels, partition labels, or partition GUIDs.
242 - Added detection of FreeBSD's BIOS-mode GPT boot loader. Previously,
243 rEFInd could detect FreeBSD's BIOS-mode MBR boot loader, which gave
244 FreeBSD an appropriate icon on Macs; but the BIOS-mode GPT boot loader
245 code is different, so some recent FreeBSD installations showed up with
246 generic grey diamond icons. This change creates FreeBSD icons instead.
248 - Added "Secure Boot [active|inactive]" notice to "about" menu for x86
249 (32-bit) systems, since there are now a few 32-bit UEFI systems that
250 support Secure Boot. (AFAIK, these are mostly tablets and convertibles
251 such as the ASUS T100.)
253 - Added KeyTool.efi and KeyTool-signed.efi to list of MOK managers. KeyTool
254 is the "super-deluxe" Secure Boot key and hash manager provided as part
255 of the efitools package.
257 - Fixed more instances of "invalid parameter" errors on some EFIs.
259 - Improved Secure Boot detection in install.sh.
261 - install.sh should no longer complain when copying Shim or MokManager over
267 - Removed special case of ignoring an HFS+ name of "HFS+ volume", since the
268 old rEFInd HFS+ driver that produced this name for all HFS+ volumes has
269 long since been updated to deliver a real name.
271 - Addition of new Windows 8 OS icon. On Macs and for BIOS/legacy boots, the
272 new icon is now used for Windows Vista, 7, and 8, while the old one is
273 used for earlier versions of Windows. For EFI-mode boots, the new icon is
276 - If the NTFS driver is loaded, rEFInd now scans NTFS volumes on Macs for
277 the presence of Windows boot files, and removes any NTFS volume that
278 lacks such files from the BIOS/legacy boot list. This should help
279 unclutter the display on Macs that contain NTFS data partitions.
281 - Fixed bug that caused misidentification of both whole disks and NTFS
282 volumes as being FAT. (This bug affected the identification of devices
283 and locations in the rEFInd menu, not actual access to devices.)
285 - Code refactoring to clear out legacy-boot functions from the
286 ever-expanding refind/main.c file.
288 - Added new "badges" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf. This
289 option hides the device-type badges associated with the OS boot options.
291 - Reverted rEFIt commit r472, introduced in rEFInd 0.8.5 to support more
292 BMP images because I've received bug reports that it's causing existing
293 selection images to fail to load.
295 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused misidentification of installation
296 directory under OS X if an already-mounted ESP has spaces in its path.
298 - Fixed Mac-specific install.sh bug that could cause misidentification of
299 the ESP on disks with partition numbers of 10 or above.
305 - Added NTFS EFI filesystem driver.
307 - Minor improvements to filesystem driver framework code.
311 - Fixed bug in Btrfs driver's address reference.
313 - Improved install.sh to make it smarter about figuring out where to
314 install on Macs. Specifically, this version now upgrades existing
315 installations, if found (as it always has under Linux), rather than
316 blindly install to EFI/BOOT; it installs to EFI/refind if not existing
317 installation is found; it installs using the --shortform option to bless,
318 which seems to eliminate the 30-second delay problem; and it can handle
319 an HFS+ ESP, which it treats as a separate HFS+ volume (as if the user
320 had used --ownhfs). These changes do not affect behavior under Linux.
322 - Added missing check of architecture type for several tools.
324 - Applied rEFIt commit r472, which adds support for BMP images with negative
325 height fields, indicating that the image is NOT vertically flipped. This
326 commit and r467 were not incorporated in the original rEFInd because I
327 forked it from a Debian rEFIt package that had been patched to build
328 under GNU-EFI, and was apparently based on a slightly earlier version.
330 - Applied rEFIt commit r467, which improves Mac handling of legacy boots
331 from other than the first hard disk.
337 - Tweaked default for dont_scan_volumes: Removed "Recovery HD". This change
338 better suits the needs of OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") installations, but may
339 result in some stray Recovery HD entries on some Macs.
341 - Updated icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu.
343 - Added new configuration option, "enable_and_lock_vmx", which sets an
344 Intel CPU feature that's required for some types of virtualization to
345 work. Most EFIs enable setting this feature in their own setup utilities,
346 but some (such as most Macs) don't.
348 - If rEFInd can't locate an icons directory (either the default or one
349 specified by the icons_dir token), the program switches to text-only
352 - If a loader contains the string "grub" and no other clue to the loader's
353 OS association exists, search for os_grub.{png|icns} (which is not
354 provided with rEFInd) or os_linux.{png|icns}. (Previous versions provided
355 a generic loader icon for GRUB.)
357 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_files to not work with special-case
358 boot loaders (for OS X and Windows) when specifying the complete path to
359 the loader (e.g., EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi).
361 - Added support for the iPXE network boot tool (see BUILDING.txt for
362 building and basic use instructions).
367 - Added new feature: Setting "timeout = -1" in refind.conf causes rEFInd to
368 immediately boot the default option UNLESS a keypress is in the buffer
369 when rEFInd launches. In that case, if the keypress corresponds to a
370 shortcut key, the associated boot loader is launched; or if not, the menu
373 - Added new icons for Clover boot loader and for Mythbuntu Linux
376 - rEFInd now displays the partition's label, when one is available, when
377 offering a BIOS-mode boot option for a partition with no filesystem
378 driver. This works only on Macs doing BIOS-mode booting.
380 - Removed GPLv2 code from the FSW core files. This was done because the
381 Btrfs driver is derived from the GRUB Btrfs driver, which is licensed
382 under the GPLv3. Ironically, the GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible
383 licenses, so ensuring that the Btrfs driver doesn't rely on GPLv2 code
384 was legally necessary. In most cases, I reverted to the original rEFIt
385 code, although I kept my own cache code; since I wrote it, I can
386 change its license to a BSD license.
388 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers immediately after loading
389 them. This didn't affect rEFInd's own drivers because they didn't include
390 the unload hooks, but it did affect some other drivers.
392 - Changed default scan_all_linux_kernels setting from "false" to "true",
393 and commented the option out in refind.conf-sample. This should not
394 affect most people, since refind.conf-sample had this option commented
395 out, and most rEFInd users either use it that way or don't have Linux
396 kernels installed at all. I've made this change because I want rEFInd to
397 "do the right thing" by default in as many cases as possible. For a while
398 now, rEFInd has been excluding non-bootable files from its menu, and most
399 kernels "in the wild" now include the EFI stub. Thus, enabling this
400 support by default seems worthwhile. If you prefer to not scan Linux
401 kernels by default, simply uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" line
402 and ensure it's set to "false".
407 - Removed stray bit of debugging code that caused a prompt to press a
408 key to appear at rEFInd startup.
413 - Changed behavior when default_selection is not set: It now boots the
414 previously-booted loader, assuming it's still available; if not, rEFInd
415 boots the first loader (as it does now). Behavior is unchanged if
416 default_selection is set. Note that this behavior depends on the ability
417 of rEFInd to store an EFI variable in NVRAM. It therefore fails on
418 systems with flaky NVRAM storage. You can view the previously-booted
420 /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740
421 variable under Linux.
423 - Added icon for Mageia Linux (os_mageia.png).
425 - Fixed bug that could misidentify a not-quite-GUID as a GUID in a
426 manual boot stanza's "volume" line.
428 - I've updated my personal build system, and therefore the rEFInd Makefiles
429 and related files, to use TianoCore UDK2014 rather than UDK2010.
431 - Added "deep_uefi_legacy_scan" token. When not set (the default), rEFInd
432 does not modify EFI NVRAM settings when scanning for BIOS-mode boot
433 loaders on UEFI-based (non-Mac) computers. Some computers require
434 uncommenting this setting for rEFInd to reliably detect some BIOS-mode
435 boot devices. Passing "0", "off", or "false" as an option resets it to
436 the default value (useful in a loaded secondary configuration file to
437 override a setting in the main file).
442 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders stored
443 on the root directory of a partition.
445 - Added two new bitmap fonts to those distributed with rEFInd: Ubuntu Mono
446 and Nimbus Mono. Both come in 12-, 14-, 16-, and 24-point sizes.
448 - Messages about pauses for scanning and re-scanning of boot loaders are
449 now suppressed when doing an initial delayed scan when scan_delay is 1
452 - Improved centering of legacy boot option descriptions on some systems'
455 - Fixed bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot to boot from an inappropriate
456 device if that device had an innately high boot priority (as set by the
459 - Changed icons from ICNS to PNG form. There are several reasons to do
460 this, all of them minor; but together they're enough to warrant a change.
461 PNG is more common, and therefore more accessible to most users --
462 particularly those who don't use OS X. The PNG files are smaller than
463 their ICNS equivalents. PNG supports a wider range of sizes (although I'm
464 not now using anything that ICNS doesn't support, I might in the future).
465 The icon-scaling support added a few versions ago makes ICNS's support
466 for multiple icon sizes relatively unimportant.
468 - Reversed order of search for icons by extension: rEFInd now searches
469 for PNG files before ICNS files, rather than the other way around. This
470 makes it possible to override a volume icon for rEFInd by giving it the
471 name .VolumeIcon.png, even when a .VolumeIcon.icns file exists on the
472 volume and is used by OS X.
474 - Fixed bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take higher-than-intended
475 precedence in icon setting for OS X.
477 - Chainloading to BIOS-mode boot loaders now works on UEFI-based PCs when
478 rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI, not just when built with Tianocore.
483 - The "dont_scan_volumes" parameter now also works with legacy-boot
484 volumes. Unlike with EFI volumes, where the option you pass must exactly
485 match an entire volume name, when applied to legacy-boot volumes, it
486 matches any part of the description that appears beneath the item when
487 you select it in the rEFInd main menu.
489 - Can now boot in legacy mode from second (and probably later) hard disks!
491 - rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware name string shown in the
492 system information screen to 65 characters. This is done because at least
493 one EFI presents a longer string by default, and this causes the entire
494 information display to come up empty on 800x600 displays.
496 - rEFInd now uses the partition's name (as stored in the GPT data
497 structures) as a fallback for the filesystem's name if the latter can't
498 be found. Exceptions are if the partition name is one of three generic
499 names used by GPT fdisk: "Microsoft basic data", "Linux filesystem", or
500 "Apple HFS/HFS+". These are ignored in favor of the descriptive fallback
501 (e.g., "20 GiB Btrfs volume")
503 - It's now possible to specify a volume by partition GUID number in a
504 manual boot stanza. This should be more reliable (albeit also more
505 awkward) than using a filesystem number (such as fs0: or fs1:).
507 - Fixed memory-allocation bug that could cause error message displays,
508 and possibly hangs, when re-scanning boot loaders.
513 - Attempt to fix rEFInd perpetually re-scanning after ejecting a disc on
516 - Added check to remove redundant (or non-functional if Secure Boot is
517 active) kernel entries for Ubuntu, which is now including two versions of
518 kernels, one signed and the other unsigned.
520 - Fixed bug in install.sh that could cause it to display error messages
521 if the dmraid utility was not installed.
523 - The HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name.
525 - Fixed some EFI filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups under
526 some circumstances. These bugs could affect any of the filesystem
529 - Added "gdisk" option to the "showtools" configuration file token. When
530 active, this adds gdisk.efi or gdisk_{arch}.efi, if present in the
531 EFI\tools directory, to the tools row.
533 - Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility
540 - Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian
541 packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run
542 any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the
543 hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run
544 install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64
545 references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of
546 concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else.
548 - Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of
549 the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively.
550 The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type
551 badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and
552 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If
553 the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified,
554 rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn
555 to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf.
557 - rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes.
558 This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it
559 can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a
560 graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so
561 scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128
562 OS icon) is not likely to look good.
564 - Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners:
565 Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll
566 be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the
567 behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the
568 banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display.
570 - Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate
571 RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for
572 existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi
573 rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages
574 were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note,
575 however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd
576 The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine;
577 it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that
578 problems might arise.
583 - Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in
586 - Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
588 - Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a
589 Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to
590 "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery
591 utility on the second row of icons.
593 - The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files,
594 and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first
595 option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default
596 value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for
597 scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.)
599 - Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch,
600 via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the
601 foo.conf file as the main configuration file.
603 - Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with
604 duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so
605 would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given
608 - Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP
609 in Linux, if it's currently unmounted.
611 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
612 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
613 under some circumstances.
618 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
619 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
620 default_selection "fred,ginger"
621 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
622 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
624 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
625 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
626 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
627 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
628 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
629 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
630 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
631 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
632 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
633 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
634 depending on your computer.
636 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
637 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
638 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
639 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
640 screensaver will be disabled.
642 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
643 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
644 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
645 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
646 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
651 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
652 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
654 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
655 versions of OS X to fail.
657 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
658 drivers were present.
660 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
661 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
662 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
663 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
664 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
665 black a second or so later.
670 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
671 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
677 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
678 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
679 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
681 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
682 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
683 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
684 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
685 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
686 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
689 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
690 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
691 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
692 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
694 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
695 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
696 known case, but there may be others.)
701 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
704 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
709 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
710 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
712 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
713 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
715 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
716 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
718 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
719 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
720 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
721 HashTool-signed.efi".
723 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
725 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
728 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
734 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
736 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
737 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
738 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
740 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
741 volume specification, if present.
743 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
748 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
749 type for volumes that lack labels.
751 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
752 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
753 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
756 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
757 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
758 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
759 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
760 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
761 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
762 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
763 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
765 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
766 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
767 non-EFI loaders, etc.
769 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
775 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
776 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
778 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
781 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
782 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
783 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
784 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
786 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
787 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
788 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
789 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
794 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
795 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
796 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
797 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
799 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
801 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
802 directory names that contain spaces.
804 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
805 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
806 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
807 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
808 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
810 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
811 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
813 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
816 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
817 partitions to fill the MBR.
822 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
823 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
824 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
825 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
827 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
828 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
829 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
830 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
831 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
833 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
834 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
835 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
836 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
837 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
840 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
841 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
843 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
844 encountered when saving a screen shot.
846 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
847 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
848 sequence number, starting with "001".
853 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
856 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
857 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
859 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
860 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
861 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
863 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
864 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
865 accidentally trash their systems.
867 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
868 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
869 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
874 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
875 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
877 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
878 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
880 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
881 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
883 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
888 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
889 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
891 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
892 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
893 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
894 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
896 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
897 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
899 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
900 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
902 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
905 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
907 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
908 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
909 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
914 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
915 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
916 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
917 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
918 loader under the fallback name.
920 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
921 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
922 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
923 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
926 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
927 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
929 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
930 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
932 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
933 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
934 commented out or empty.
936 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
937 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
939 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
942 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
943 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
948 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
949 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
951 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
953 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
955 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
956 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
958 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
960 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
961 sized to cover these areas.
963 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
964 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
970 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
971 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
972 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
973 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
975 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
976 startup on some systems.
981 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
982 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
984 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
985 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
987 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
988 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
989 burned to USB flash disks.
991 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
992 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
993 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
995 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
996 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
997 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
998 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
999 from that installation.
1001 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
1002 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
1005 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
1006 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
1011 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
1012 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
1013 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
1015 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
1016 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
1017 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
1018 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
1019 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
1021 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
1022 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
1023 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
1024 Linux with the "make" command.
1026 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
1027 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
1029 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
1030 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
1031 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
1032 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
1033 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
1034 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
1035 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
1036 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
1038 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
1039 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
1045 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
1046 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
1047 use on emergency discs.
1049 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
1050 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
1051 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
1052 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
1053 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
1054 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
1055 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
1056 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
1059 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
1061 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
1062 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
1063 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
1064 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
1065 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
1068 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
1071 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
1072 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
1073 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
1074 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
1076 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
1077 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
1078 a boot loader launch failed.
1083 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
1084 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
1085 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
1088 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
1089 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
1090 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
1091 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
1093 - Added ext4fs driver!
1095 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
1097 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
1099 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
1100 from a program that set the resolution itself.
1102 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
1103 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
1104 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
1105 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
1106 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
1107 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
1108 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
1111 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
1112 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
1113 display even in graphics mode.
1115 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
1116 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
1118 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
1119 disables the boot options editor.
1121 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
1122 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
1124 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
1125 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
1126 from the /etc/default/grub file.
1128 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
1129 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
1131 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
1132 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
1133 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
1134 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
1135 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
1136 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
1138 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
1141 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
1142 ---------------------
1144 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
1149 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
1150 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
1151 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
1152 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
1154 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
1155 configuration file from a primary one.
1157 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
1158 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
1159 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
1160 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
1161 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
1162 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
1163 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
1166 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
1167 on systems with Secure Boot active.
1169 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
1170 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
1173 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
1174 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
1176 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
1177 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
1178 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
1183 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
1184 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
1185 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
1186 This example results in the following string being passed as an
1188 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
1190 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
1191 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
1192 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
1193 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
1194 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
1195 for them makes sense.
1197 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
1198 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
1199 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
1200 EFI shells are also so limited.)
1202 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
1203 were not actually edited.
1205 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
1206 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
1207 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
1208 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
1209 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
1211 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
1212 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
1213 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
1214 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
1215 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
1216 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
1217 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
1218 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
1220 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
1221 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
1222 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
1224 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
1225 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
1226 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
1228 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
1229 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
1230 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
1231 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
1233 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
1234 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
1235 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
1237 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
1238 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
1243 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
1245 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
1246 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
1247 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
1249 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
1250 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
1251 told isn't working as planned).
1253 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
1254 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
1255 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
1256 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
1261 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
1263 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
1266 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
1267 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
1268 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
1269 done this for two reasons:
1270 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
1271 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
1272 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
1273 default for them should help them.
1274 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
1275 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
1276 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
1277 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
1278 default configurations.
1280 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
1285 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
1287 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
1292 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
1295 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
1298 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
1299 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
1302 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
1307 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
1308 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
1310 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
1311 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
1312 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
1313 graphics or text mode itself.)
1315 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
1316 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
1317 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
1318 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
1319 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
1320 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
1321 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
1323 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
1325 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
1326 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
1327 "linux.conf" themselves.
1332 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
1333 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
1336 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
1337 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
1338 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
1339 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
1340 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
1341 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
1342 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
1343 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
1346 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
1347 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
1352 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
1353 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
1354 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
1355 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
1358 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
1359 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
1361 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
1363 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
1364 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
1367 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
1368 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
1373 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
1374 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
1375 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
1376 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
1377 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
1378 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
1379 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
1381 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
1382 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
1383 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
1385 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
1386 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
1387 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
1388 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
1390 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
1391 file when launched from rEFInd.
1396 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
1397 received reports that it's not working as intended.
1399 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
1400 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
1401 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
1402 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
1403 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
1404 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
1406 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
1407 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
1412 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
1413 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
1414 sample configuration file for a full description.
1416 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
1417 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
1418 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
1419 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
1420 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
1422 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
1423 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
1426 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
1427 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
1432 - Improved menu navigation:
1433 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
1434 down arrows move between rows.
1435 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
1436 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
1437 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
1438 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
1440 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
1441 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
1442 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
1447 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
1448 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
1449 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
1450 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
1451 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
1452 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
1455 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
1458 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
1460 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
1461 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
1468 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
1469 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
1471 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
1472 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
1473 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
1474 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
1475 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
1476 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
1477 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
1478 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
1479 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
1480 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
1481 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
1483 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
1484 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
1485 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
1486 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
1487 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
1489 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
1490 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
1495 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
1496 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
1497 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
1498 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
1499 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
1500 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
1502 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
1503 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
1504 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
1505 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
1506 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
1507 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
1508 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
1509 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
1510 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
1511 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
1512 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
1513 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
1514 that resets the video mode.
1516 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
1517 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
1518 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
1519 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
1520 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
1523 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
1524 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
1525 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
1526 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
1527 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
1528 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
1530 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
1531 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
1532 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
1534 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
1535 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
1536 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
1537 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
1542 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
1543 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
1544 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
1545 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
1546 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
1547 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
1548 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
1549 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
1550 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
1551 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
1552 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
1553 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
1554 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
1555 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
1558 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
1560 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
1561 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
1562 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
1563 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
1564 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
1565 directories you like.
1570 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
1571 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
1572 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
1573 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
1574 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
1575 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
1576 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
1577 should work when a volume is unnamed.
1579 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
1580 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
1581 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
1586 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
1587 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
1589 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
1590 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
1591 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
1592 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
1593 documented the name....
1595 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
1596 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
1597 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
1599 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
1600 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
1601 directory) on certain systems.
1603 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
1604 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1609 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1610 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1611 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1612 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1613 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1614 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1615 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1616 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1617 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1618 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1619 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1622 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1623 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1624 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1625 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1628 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1629 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1631 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1634 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1635 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1636 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1637 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1638 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1640 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1641 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1642 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1643 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1644 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1645 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1650 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1651 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1652 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1653 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1654 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1655 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1656 small sample of computers.
1658 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1659 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1660 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1661 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1662 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1664 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1669 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1670 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1671 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1672 versionless initrd file.
1674 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1675 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1678 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1679 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1680 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1685 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1686 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1687 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1688 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1690 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1691 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1692 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1693 directory as the kernel.
1695 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1696 entries in refind.conf file.
1698 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1699 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1705 - Initial public release