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7 <title>The rEFInd Boot Manager: Getting rEFInd</title>
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14 <h1>The rEFInd Boot Manager:<br />Getting rEFInd</h1>
15
16 <p class="subhead">by Roderick W. Smith, <a
17 href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
18
19 <p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
20 9/19/2015, referencing rEFInd 0.9.2</p>
21
22 <p>This Web page is provided free of charge and with no annoying outside ads; however, I did take time to prepare it, and Web hosting does cost money. If you find this Web page useful, please consider making a small donation to help keep this site up and running. Thanks!</p>
23
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52 <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_donations">
53 <input type="hidden" name="business" value="rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">
54 <input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US">
55 <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="0">
56 <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
57 <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="2.50">
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66 <td>
67 <form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
68 <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_donations">
69 <input type="hidden" name="business" value="rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">
70 <input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US">
71 <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="0">
72 <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
73 <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="5.00">
74 <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="rEFInd Boot Manager">
75 <input type="hidden" name="bn" value="PP-DonationsBF:btn_donate_LG.gif:NonHostedGuest">
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78 </form>
79 </td>
80
81 <td>
82 <form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
83 <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_donations">
84 <input type="hidden" name="business" value="rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">
85 <input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US">
86 <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="0">
87 <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
88 <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="10.00">
89 <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="rEFInd Boot Manager">
90 <input type="hidden" name="bn" value="PP-DonationsBF:btn_donate_LG.gif:NonHostedGuest">
91 <input type="image" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donate_LG.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!">
92 <img alt="Donate with PayPal" border="0" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1">
93 </form>
94 </td>
95
96 <td>
97 <form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
98 <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_donations">
99 <input type="hidden" name="business" value="rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">
100 <input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US">
101 <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="0">
102 <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
103 <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="20.00">
104 <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="rEFInd Boot Manager">
105 <input type="hidden" name="bn" value="PP-DonationsBF:btn_donate_LG.gif:NonHostedGuest">
106 <input type="image" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donate_LG.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!">
107 <img alt="Donate with PayPal" border="0" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1">
108 </form>
109 </td>
110
111 <td>
112 <form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
113 <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_donations">
114 <input type="hidden" name="business" value="rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">
115 <input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US">
116 <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="0">
117 <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
118 <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="rEFInd Boot Manager">
119 <input type="hidden" name="bn" value="PP-DonationsBF:btn_donate_LG.gif:NonHostedGuest">
120 <input type="image" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donate_LG.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!">
121 <img alt="Donate with PayPal" border="0" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1">
122 </form>
123 </td></tr>
124 </table>
125
126 <hr />
127
128 <p>This page is part of the documentation for the rEFInd boot manager. If a Web search has brought you here, you may want to start at the <a href="index.html">main page.</a></p>
129
130 <hr />
131
132 <p><b>Note:</b> I consider rEFInd to be <i>beta-quality software!</i> I'm discovering bugs (old and new) and fixing them every few days. That said, rEFInd is a usable program in its current form on many systems. If you have problems, feel free to drop me a line.</p>
133
134 <h2>Getting rEFInd from Sourceforge</h2>
135
136 <p>You can find the rEFInd source code and binary packages at <a href="http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/refind/">its SourceForge page.</a> Note that rEFInd is OS-independent&mdash;it runs before the OS, so you download the same binary package for any OS. You can obtain rEFInd in several different forms:</p>
137
138 <ul>
139
140 <li><b><a
141 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.9.2/refind-bin-0.9.2.zip/download">A
142 binary zip file</a></b>&mdash;Download this if you want to install
143 rEFInd and/or its filesystem drivers on an <i>x</i>86 or <i>x</i>86-64
144 computer and have no need to test rEFInd first by booting it on an
145 optical disc. This zip file package includes both <i>x</i>86 (aka IA32)
146 and <i>x</i>86-64 (aka <i>x</i>64, AMD64, or EM64T) versions of rEFInd.
147 Which you install depends on your architecture, as described on the <a
148 href="installing.html">Installing rEFInd</a> page. Some users of Arch
149 Linux have reported problems booting some specific Arch Linux kernels
150 with rEFInd and some other tools. For them, a <a
151 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.9.2/refind-bin-gnuefi-0.9.2.zip/download">variant
152 package</a> exists in which the <i>x</i>86-64 binary was compiled with
153 GNU-EFI rather than the usual TianoCore EDK2. This change helps some
154 users with this problem.</li>
155
156 <li><b><a
157 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.9.2/refind-0.9.2-1.x86_64.rpm/download">A
158 binary RPM file</a></b>&mdash;If you use an RPM-based <i>x</i>86-64
159 Linux system such as Fedora or openSUSE, you can install the binary RPM
160 package rather than use the binary zip file. (I don't provide an
161 equivalent 32-bit package.) This package runs the <tt>install.sh</tt>
162 script (described on the <a href="installing.html">Installing
163 rEFInd</a> page) as part of the installation process. Distribution
164 maintainers can examine the <tt>refind.spec</tt> file in the source
165 package and tweak it to their needs. The <a
166 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.9.2/refind-0.9.2-1.src.rpm/download">source
167 RPM file</a> might or might not build on your system as-is; it relies
168 on assumptions about the locations of the GNU-EFI development
169 files.</li>
170
171 <li><b><a
172 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.9.2/refind_0.9.2-1_amd64.deb/download">A
173 binary Debian package</a></b>&mdash;If you use an <i>x</i>86-64 version
174 of Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, or another Debian-based distribution, you can
175 install from this package, which was converted from the binary RPM
176 package using <tt>alien</tt>. Note that an <a href="#ppa">Ubuntu
177 PPA</a> is available, which may install more smoothly and will cause
178 rEFInd to automatically update with other packages.</li>
179
180 <p class="sidebar"><b>Note:</b> At the moment, neither the bootable CD-R image file nor the bootable USB flash drive image file supports booting with Secure Boot active. The x86-64 version of the <a href="http://en.altlinux.org/Rescue">ALT Linux Rescue disc</a> uses a Secure Boot-enabled rEFInd, though, so you may find that useful in some situations.</p>
181
182 <li><b><a
183 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.9.2/refind-cd-0.9.2.zip/download">A
184 CD-R image file</a></b>&mdash;This download contains the same files as
185 the binary zip file, but you can burn it to a CD-R to test rEFInd
186 (and its filesystem drivers) without installing it first. (It boots on
187 UEFI PCs, but fails on some older Macs.) If you like it, you can then
188 copy the files from the CD-R to your hard disk. The files are named in
189 such a way that the disc should boot on either 64-bit (<i>x</i>86-64)
190 or 32-bit (<i>x</i>86) EFI computers. I've included an open source EFI
191 shell program on this disc that's not included in the binary zip file,
192 so that you can access an EFI shell from a bootable disc even if you
193 don't have an EFI shell available from your regular hard disk. This can
194 be an extremely valuable diagnostic tool if you know how to use an EFI
195 shell.</li>
196
197 <p class="sidebar"><b>Tip:</b> If you want to make your own bootable USB
198 flash drive, download the binary zip file or CD-R image file, prepare a USB
199 flash drive with a FAT32 partition, and then use the <tt>install.sh</tt>
200 program's <tt>--usedefault</tt> option, and perhaps the
201 <tt>--alldrivers</tt> option, as in <tt class="userinput">bash install.sh
202 --usedefault /dev/sdd1 --alldrivers</tt> to install to the first partition
203 on <tt>/dev/sdd</tt>. This procedure should work even on a BIOS-booted
204 computer.</p>
205
206 <li><b><a
207 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.9.2/refind-flashdrive-0.9.2.zip/download">A
208 USB flash drive image file</a></b>&mdash;Although you can create
209 your own rEFInd USB flash drive, you may find it easier to download
210 this version and copy it to your USB drive with <tt>dd</tt> or some
211 other low-level disk copying utility.</li>
212
213 <li><b><a
214 href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.9.2/refind-src-0.9.2.zip/download">A
215 source code zip file</a></b>&mdash;This is useful if you want to compile
216 the software locally. Note that I use Linux with the <a
217 href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/tianocore/">TianoCore EFI
218 Development Kit 2 (EDK2)</a> to build my binary packages (above),
219 although the <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnu-efi">GNU-EFI</a>
220 development tools are also supported.</li>
221
222 <li><b><a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/refind/code">Source code via
223 git</a></b>&mdash;If you want to peruse the source code in your Web
224 browser or get the very latest version (including pre-release bug fixes
225 and updates), you can use the Sourceforge git repository. This access
226 method is most useful to programmers, or at least to those who are
227 familiar with programming tools. Note that if you need to ask "what's
228 git?", this is probably not the best way for you to obtain rEFInd.</li>
229
230 </ul>
231
232 <p>If you're using a platform other than <i>x</i>86 or <i>x</i>86-64, you can give rEFInd a try; however, you'll need to build it from source code yourself or track down a binary from another source. (Perhaps by the time you read this it will be included in Linux distributions built for unusual CPUs.)</p>
233
234 <p>To extract the files from the zip file images I've provided, you'll need a tool such as <tt>unzip</tt>, which is included with Linux and Mac OS X. Numerous Windows utilities also support this format, such as <a href="http://www.pkware.com/software/pkzip/">PKZIP</a> and <a href="http://www.7-zip.org/">7-Zip.</a></p>
235
236 <p>You should be able to create a bootable USB flash drive from either the binary zip file or the CD-R image file; just treat the flash drive as if it were a hard disk and install rEFInd as described on the <a href="installing.html">installation page.</a> Using the fallback boot loader name of <tt>EFI/boot/bootx64.efi</tt> is likely to be the most useful way to install rEFInd to a removable medium.</p>
237
238 <h2>Getting rEFInd from Your OS's Repositories</h2>
239
240 <p>I know of a small number of pre-packaged versions of rEFInd, either in official OS repositories or in ancillary repositories:</p>
241
242 <ul>
243
244 <li><a name="ppa"><b>Ubuntu</b></a>&mdash;Although an official Ubuntu
245 package isn't available, I've created a <a
246 href="https://launchpad.net/~rodsmith/+archive/refind">rEFInd PPA</a>
247 for Ubuntu. To use it, open a Terminal window and type <tt
248 class="userinput">sudo apt-add-repository ppa:rodsmith/refind</tt>,
249 then <tt class="userinput">sudo apt-get update</tt>. You can then type
250 <tt class="userinput">sudo apt-get install refind</tt> to install the
251 package. Thereafter, the rEFInd version will update along with your
252 other software. This package is built with GNU-EFI and is not signed
253 with a Secure Boot key; however, the install script (which launches
254 automatically when you install the package) should sign the binary with
255 a locally-generated key if it detects that your system uses Secure
256 Boot. Thus, if you've previously installed one of my binaries on a
257 Secure Boot system and added its key as a MOK, you'll have to add your
258 local key when you reboot.</li>
259
260 <li><b>Arch Linux</b>&mdash;You can obtain rEFInd from the Arch
261 repositories, in both a stable version (the <tt>refind-efi</tt> package
262 installable via <tt>pacman</tt>) and an experimental release built from
263 rEFInd's git repository in the Arch User Repository (AUR), under the
264 name <tt>refind-efi-git</tt>. The git release is likely to include
265 pre-release bug fixes and new features, but those features may be
266 poorly tested or undocumented.</li>
267
268 <li><b>ALT Linux</b>&mdash;This RPM-based distribution is experimenting
269 with using rEFInd on EFI-based computers. As I write, the ALT
270 developers haven't yet nailed down booting from an optical disc (it's a
271 tricky and delicate task, especially when preparing a "hybrid" image),
272 but they're working on the problem. They have an RPM of rEFInd; see <a
273 href="http://packages.altlinux.org/en/Sisyphus/srpms/refind">this
274 page</a> for details.</li>
275
276 <li><b>Slackware</b>&mdash;As far as I know, an official rEFInd package is
277 not available as part of Slackware; however, a <a
278 href="http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.1/system/refind/?search=refind">Slackware
279 package from SlackBuilds</a> is available.</li>
280
281 <li><b><a href="http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/">Fat
282 Dog</a></b>&mdash;This variant of Puppy Linux uses a combination of
283 rEFInd and GRUB 2 to boot its installation medium in EFI mode and
284 provides a rEFInd package in its repository set.</li>
285
286 <li><b>The <a href="http://nixos.org/nixpkgs/">Nix Packages
287 collection</a></b>&mdash;This site creates packages for a number of
288 OSes using its own packaging system.</li>
289
290 </ul>
291
292 <p>To the best of my knowledge, no other Linux distribution yet includes rEFInd in its repositories. That's likely to change in time. If you hear of rEFInd being included in an OS's official package set, feel free to <a href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">drop me a line.</a></p>
293
294 <hr />
295
296 <p>copyright &copy; 2012&ndash;2015 by Roderick W. Smith</p>
297
298 <p>This document is licensed under the terms of the <a href="FDL-1.3.txt">GNU Free Documentation License (FDL), version 1.3.</a></p>
299
300 <p>If you have problems with or comments about this Web page, please e-mail me at <a href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com.</a> Thanks.</p>
301
302 <p><a href="index.html">Go to the main rEFInd page</a></p>
303
304 <p><a href="installing.html">Learn how to install rEFInd</a></p>
305
306 <p><a href="http://www.rodsbooks.com/">Return</a> to my main Web page.</p>
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