4 - Fixed bug that caused misidentification of both whole disks and NTFS
5 volumes as being FAT. (This bug affected the identification of devices
6 and locations in the rEFInd menu, not actual access to devices.)
8 - Code refactoring to clear out legacy-boot functions from the
9 ever-expanding refind/main.c file.
11 - Added new "badges" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf. This
12 option hides the device-type badges associated with the OS boot options.
14 - Reverted rEFIt commit r472, introduced in rEFInd 0.8.5 to support more
15 BMP images because I've received bug reports that it's causing existing
16 selection images to fail to load.
18 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused misidentification of installation
19 directory under OS X if an already-mounted ESP has spaces in its path.
21 - Fixed install.sh bug that could cause misidentification of the ESP on
22 disks with partition numbers of 10 or above.
28 - Added NTFS EFI filesystem driver.
30 - Minor improvements to filesystem driver framework code.
34 - Fixed bug in Btrfs driver's address reference.
36 - Improved install.sh to make it smarter about figuring out where to
37 install on Macs. Specifically, this version now upgrades existing
38 installations, if found (as it always has under Linux), rather than
39 blindly install to EFI/BOOT; it installs to EFI/refind if not existing
40 installation is found; it installs using the --shortform option to bless,
41 which seems to eliminate the 30-second delay problem; and it can handle
42 an HFS+ ESP, which it treats as a separate HFS+ volume (as if the user
43 had used --ownhfs). These changes do not affect behavior under Linux.
45 - Added missing check of architecture type for several tools.
47 - Applied rEFIt commit r472, which adds support for BMP images with negative
48 height fields, indicating that the image is NOT vertically flipped. This
49 commit and r467 were not incorporated in the original rEFInd because I
50 forked it from a Debian rEFIt package that had been patched to build
51 under GNU-EFI, and was apparently based on a slightly earlier version.
53 - Applied rEFIt commit r467, which improves Mac handling of legacy boots
54 from other than the first hard disk.
60 - Tweaked default for dont_scan_volumes: Removed "Recovery HD". This change
61 better suits the needs of OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") installations, but may
62 result in some stray Recovery HD entries on some Macs.
64 - Updated icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu.
66 - Added new configuration option, "enable_and_lock_vmx", which sets an
67 Intel CPU feature that's required for some types of virtualization to
68 work. Most EFIs enable setting this feature in their own setup utilities,
69 but some (such as most Macs) don't.
71 - If rEFInd can't locate an icons directory (either the default or one
72 specified by the icons_dir token), the program switches to text-only
75 - If a loader contains the string "grub" and no other clue to the loader's
76 OS association exists, search for os_grub.{png|icns} (which is not
77 provided with rEFInd) or os_linux.{png|icns}. (Previous versions provided
78 a generic loader icon for GRUB.)
80 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_files to not work with special-case
81 boot loaders (for OS X and Windows) when specifying the complete path to
82 the loader (e.g., EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi).
84 - Added support for the iPXE network boot tool (see BUILDING.txt for
85 building and basic use instructions).
90 - Added new feature: Setting "timeout = -1" in refind.conf causes rEFInd to
91 immediately boot the default option UNLESS a keypress is in the buffer
92 when rEFInd launches. In that case, if the keypress corresponds to a
93 shortcut key, the associated boot loader is launched; or if not, the menu
96 - Added new icons for Clover boot loader and for Mythbuntu Linux
99 - rEFInd now displays the partition's label, when one is available, when
100 offering a BIOS-mode boot option for a partition with no filesystem
101 driver. This works only on Macs doing BIOS-mode booting.
103 - Removed GPLv2 code from the FSW core files. This was done because the
104 Btrfs driver is derived from the GRUB Btrfs driver, which is licensed
105 under the GPLv3. Ironically, the GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible
106 licenses, so ensuring that the Btrfs driver doesn't rely on GPLv2 code
107 was legally necessary. In most cases, I reverted to the original rEFIt
108 code, although I kept my own cache code; since I wrote it, I can
109 change its license to a BSD license.
111 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers immediately after loading
112 them. This didn't affect rEFInd's own drivers because they didn't include
113 the unload hooks, but it did affect some other drivers.
115 - Changed default scan_all_linux_kernels setting from "false" to "true",
116 and commented the option out in refind.conf-sample. This should not
117 affect most people, since refind.conf-sample had this option commented
118 out, and most rEFInd users either use it that way or don't have Linux
119 kernels installed at all. I've made this change because I want rEFInd to
120 "do the right thing" by default in as many cases as possible. For a while
121 now, rEFInd has been excluding non-bootable files from its menu, and most
122 kernels "in the wild" now include the EFI stub. Thus, enabling this
123 support by default seems worthwhile. If you prefer to not scan Linux
124 kernels by default, simply uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" line
125 and ensure it's set to "false".
130 - Removed stray bit of debugging code that caused a prompt to press a
131 key to appear at rEFInd startup.
136 - Changed behavior when default_selection is not set: It now boots the
137 previously-booted loader, assuming it's still available; if not, rEFInd
138 boots the first loader (as it does now). Behavior is unchanged if
139 default_selection is set. Note that this behavior depends on the ability
140 of rEFInd to store an EFI variable in NVRAM. It therefore fails on
141 systems with flaky NVRAM storage. You can view the previously-booted
143 /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740
144 variable under Linux.
146 - Added icon for Mageia Linux (os_mageia.png).
148 - Fixed bug that could misidentify a not-quite-GUID as a GUID in a
149 manual boot stanza's "volume" line.
151 - I've updated my personal build system, and therefore the rEFInd Makefiles
152 and related files, to use TianoCore UDK2014 rather than UDK2010.
154 - Added "deep_uefi_legacy_scan" token. When not set (the default), rEFInd
155 does not modify EFI NVRAM settings when scanning for BIOS-mode boot
156 loaders on UEFI-based (non-Mac) computers. Some computers require
157 uncommenting this setting for rEFInd to reliably detect some BIOS-mode
158 boot devices. Passing "0", "off", or "false" as an option resets it to
159 the default value (useful in a loaded secondary configuration file to
160 override a setting in the main file).
165 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders stored
166 on the root directory of a partition.
168 - Added two new bitmap fonts to those distributed with rEFInd: Ubuntu Mono
169 and Nimbus Mono. Both come in 12-, 14-, 16-, and 24-point sizes.
171 - Messages about pauses for scanning and re-scanning of boot loaders are
172 now suppressed when doing an initial delayed scan when scan_delay is 1
175 - Improved centering of legacy boot option descriptions on some systems'
178 - Fixed bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot to boot from an inappropriate
179 device if that device had an innately high boot priority (as set by the
182 - Changed icons from ICNS to PNG form. There are several reasons to do
183 this, all of them minor; but together they're enough to warrant a change.
184 PNG is more common, and therefore more accessible to most users --
185 particularly those who don't use OS X. The PNG files are smaller than
186 their ICNS equivalents. PNG supports a wider range of sizes (although I'm
187 not now using anything that ICNS doesn't support, I might in the future).
188 The icon-scaling support added a few versions ago makes ICNS's support
189 for multiple icon sizes relatively unimportant.
191 - Reversed order of search for icons by extension: rEFInd now searches
192 for PNG files before ICNS files, rather than the other way around. This
193 makes it possible to override a volume icon for rEFInd by giving it the
194 name .VolumeIcon.png, even when a .VolumeIcon.icns file exists on the
195 volume and is used by OS X.
197 - Fixed bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take higher-than-intended
198 precedence in icon setting for OS X.
200 - Chainloading to BIOS-mode boot loaders now works on UEFI-based PCs when
201 rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI, not just when built with Tianocore.
206 - The "dont_scan_volumes" parameter now also works with legacy-boot
207 volumes. Unlike with EFI volumes, where the option you pass must exactly
208 match an entire volume name, when applied to legacy-boot volumes, it
209 matches any part of the description that appears beneath the item when
210 you select it in the rEFInd main menu.
212 - Can now boot in legacy mode from second (and probably later) hard disks!
214 - rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware name string shown in the
215 system information screen to 65 characters. This is done because at least
216 one EFI presents a longer string by default, and this causes the entire
217 information display to come up empty on 800x600 displays.
219 - rEFInd now uses the partition's name (as stored in the GPT data
220 structures) as a fallback for the filesystem's name if the latter can't
221 be found. Exceptions are if the partition name is one of three generic
222 names used by GPT fdisk: "Microsoft basic data", "Linux filesystem", or
223 "Apple HFS/HFS+". These are ignored in favor of the descriptive fallback
224 (e.g., "20 GiB Btrfs volume")
226 - It's now possible to specify a volume by partition GUID number in a
227 manual boot stanza. This should be more reliable (albeit also more
228 awkward) than using a filesystem number (such as fs0: or fs1:).
230 - Fixed memory-allocation bug that could cause error message displays,
231 and possibly hangs, when re-scanning boot loaders.
236 - Attempt to fix rEFInd perpetually re-scanning after ejecting a disc on
239 - Added check to remove redundant (or non-functional if Secure Boot is
240 active) kernel entries for Ubuntu, which is now including two versions of
241 kernels, one signed and the other unsigned.
243 - Fixed bug in install.sh that could cause it to display error messages
244 if the dmraid utility was not installed.
246 - The HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name.
248 - Fixed some EFI filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups under
249 some circumstances. These bugs could affect any of the filesystem
252 - Added "gdisk" option to the "showtools" configuration file token. When
253 active, this adds gdisk.efi or gdisk_{arch}.efi, if present in the
254 EFI\tools directory, to the tools row.
256 - Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility
263 - Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian
264 packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run
265 any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the
266 hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run
267 install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64
268 references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of
269 concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else.
271 - Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of
272 the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively.
273 The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type
274 badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and
275 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If
276 the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified,
277 rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn
278 to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf.
280 - rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes.
281 This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it
282 can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a
283 graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so
284 scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128
285 OS icon) is not likely to look good.
287 - Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners:
288 Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll
289 be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the
290 behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the
291 banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display.
293 - Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate
294 RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for
295 existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi
296 rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages
297 were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note,
298 however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd
299 The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine;
300 it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that
301 problems might arise.
306 - Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in
309 - Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
311 - Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a
312 Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to
313 "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery
314 utility on the second row of icons.
316 - The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files,
317 and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first
318 option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default
319 value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for
320 scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.)
322 - Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch,
323 via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the
324 foo.conf file as the main configuration file.
326 - Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with
327 duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so
328 would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given
331 - Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP
332 in Linux, if it's currently unmounted.
334 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
335 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
336 under some circumstances.
341 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
342 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
343 default_selection "fred,ginger"
344 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
345 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
347 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
348 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
349 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
350 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
351 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
352 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
353 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
354 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
355 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
356 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
357 depending on your computer.
359 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
360 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
361 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
362 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
363 screensaver will be disabled.
365 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
366 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
367 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
368 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
369 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
374 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
375 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
377 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
378 versions of OS X to fail.
380 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
381 drivers were present.
383 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
384 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
385 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
386 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
387 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
388 black a second or so later.
393 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
394 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
400 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
401 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
402 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
404 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
405 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
406 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
407 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
408 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
409 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
412 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
413 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
414 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
415 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
417 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
418 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
419 known case, but there may be others.)
424 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
427 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
432 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
433 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
435 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
436 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
438 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
439 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
441 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
442 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
443 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
444 HashTool-signed.efi".
446 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
448 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
451 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
457 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
459 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
460 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
461 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
463 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
464 volume specification, if present.
466 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
471 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
472 type for volumes that lack labels.
474 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
475 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
476 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
479 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
480 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
481 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
482 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
483 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
484 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
485 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
486 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
488 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
489 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
490 non-EFI loaders, etc.
492 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
498 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
499 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
501 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
504 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
505 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
506 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
507 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
509 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
510 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
511 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
512 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
517 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
518 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
519 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
520 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
522 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
524 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
525 directory names that contain spaces.
527 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
528 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
529 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
530 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
531 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
533 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
534 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
536 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
539 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
540 partitions to fill the MBR.
545 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
546 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
547 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
548 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
550 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
551 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
552 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
553 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
554 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
556 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
557 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
558 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
559 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
560 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
563 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
564 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
566 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
567 encountered when saving a screen shot.
569 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
570 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
571 sequence number, starting with "001".
576 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
579 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
580 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
582 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
583 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
584 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
586 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
587 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
588 accidentally trash their systems.
590 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
591 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
592 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
597 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
598 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
600 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
601 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
603 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
604 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
606 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
611 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
612 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
614 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
615 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
616 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
617 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
619 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
620 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
622 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
623 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
625 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
628 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
630 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
631 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
632 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
637 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
638 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
639 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
640 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
641 loader under the fallback name.
643 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
644 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
645 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
646 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
649 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
650 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
652 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
653 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
655 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
656 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
657 commented out or empty.
659 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
660 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
662 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
665 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
666 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
671 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
672 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
674 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
676 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
678 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
679 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
681 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
683 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
684 sized to cover these areas.
686 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
687 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
693 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
694 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
695 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
696 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
698 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
699 startup on some systems.
704 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
705 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
707 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
708 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
710 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
711 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
712 burned to USB flash disks.
714 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
715 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
716 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
718 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
719 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
720 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
721 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
722 from that installation.
724 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
725 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
728 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
729 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
734 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
735 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
736 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
738 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
739 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
740 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
741 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
742 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
744 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
745 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
746 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
747 Linux with the "make" command.
749 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
750 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
752 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
753 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
754 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
755 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
756 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
757 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
758 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
759 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
761 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
762 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
768 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
769 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
770 use on emergency discs.
772 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
773 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
774 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
775 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
776 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
777 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
778 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
779 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
782 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
784 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
785 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
786 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
787 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
788 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
791 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
794 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
795 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
796 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
797 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
799 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
800 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
801 a boot loader launch failed.
806 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
807 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
808 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
811 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
812 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
813 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
814 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
816 - Added ext4fs driver!
818 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
820 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
822 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
823 from a program that set the resolution itself.
825 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
826 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
827 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
828 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
829 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
830 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
831 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
834 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
835 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
836 display even in graphics mode.
838 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
839 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
841 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
842 disables the boot options editor.
844 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
845 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
847 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
848 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
849 from the /etc/default/grub file.
851 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
852 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
854 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
855 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
856 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
857 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
858 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
859 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
861 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
864 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
865 ---------------------
867 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
872 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
873 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
874 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
875 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
877 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
878 configuration file from a primary one.
880 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
881 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
882 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
883 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
884 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
885 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
886 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
889 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
890 on systems with Secure Boot active.
892 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
893 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
896 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
897 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
899 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
900 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
901 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
906 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
907 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
908 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
909 This example results in the following string being passed as an
911 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
913 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
914 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
915 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
916 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
917 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
918 for them makes sense.
920 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
921 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
922 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
923 EFI shells are also so limited.)
925 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
926 were not actually edited.
928 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
929 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
930 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
931 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
932 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
934 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
935 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
936 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
937 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
938 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
939 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
940 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
941 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
943 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
944 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
945 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
947 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
948 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
949 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
951 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
952 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
953 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
954 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
956 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
957 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
958 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
960 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
961 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
966 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
968 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
969 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
970 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
972 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
973 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
974 told isn't working as planned).
976 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
977 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
978 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
979 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
984 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
986 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
989 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
990 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
991 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
992 done this for two reasons:
993 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
994 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
995 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
996 default for them should help them.
997 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
998 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
999 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
1000 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
1001 default configurations.
1003 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
1008 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
1010 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
1015 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
1018 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
1021 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
1022 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
1025 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
1030 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
1031 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
1033 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
1034 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
1035 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
1036 graphics or text mode itself.)
1038 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
1039 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
1040 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
1041 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
1042 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
1043 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
1044 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
1046 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
1048 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
1049 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
1050 "linux.conf" themselves.
1055 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
1056 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
1059 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
1060 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
1061 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
1062 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
1063 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
1064 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
1065 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
1066 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
1069 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
1070 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
1075 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
1076 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
1077 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
1078 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
1081 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
1082 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
1084 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
1086 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
1087 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
1090 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
1091 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
1096 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
1097 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
1098 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
1099 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
1100 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
1101 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
1102 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
1104 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
1105 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
1106 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
1108 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
1109 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
1110 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
1111 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
1113 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
1114 file when launched from rEFInd.
1119 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
1120 received reports that it's not working as intended.
1122 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
1123 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
1124 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
1125 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
1126 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
1127 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
1129 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
1130 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
1135 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
1136 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
1137 sample configuration file for a full description.
1139 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
1140 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
1141 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
1142 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
1143 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
1145 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
1146 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
1149 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
1150 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
1155 - Improved menu navigation:
1156 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
1157 down arrows move between rows.
1158 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
1159 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
1160 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
1161 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
1163 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
1164 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
1165 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
1170 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
1171 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
1172 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
1173 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
1174 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
1175 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
1178 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
1181 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
1183 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
1184 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
1191 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
1192 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
1194 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
1195 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
1196 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
1197 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
1198 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
1199 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
1200 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
1201 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
1202 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
1203 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
1204 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
1206 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
1207 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
1208 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
1209 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
1210 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
1212 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
1213 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
1218 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
1219 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
1220 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
1221 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
1222 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
1223 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
1225 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
1226 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
1227 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
1228 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
1229 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
1230 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
1231 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
1232 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
1233 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
1234 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
1235 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
1236 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
1237 that resets the video mode.
1239 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
1240 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
1241 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
1242 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
1243 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
1246 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
1247 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
1248 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
1249 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
1250 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
1251 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
1253 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
1254 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
1255 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
1257 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
1258 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
1259 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
1260 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
1265 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
1266 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
1267 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
1268 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
1269 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
1270 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
1271 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
1272 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
1273 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
1274 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
1275 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
1276 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
1277 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
1278 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
1281 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
1283 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
1284 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
1285 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
1286 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
1287 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
1288 directories you like.
1293 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
1294 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
1295 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
1296 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
1297 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
1298 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
1299 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
1300 should work when a volume is unnamed.
1302 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
1303 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
1304 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
1309 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
1310 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
1312 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
1313 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
1314 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
1315 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
1316 documented the name....
1318 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
1319 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
1320 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
1322 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
1323 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
1324 directory) on certain systems.
1326 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
1327 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1332 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1333 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1334 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1335 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1336 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1337 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1338 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1339 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1340 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1341 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1342 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1345 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1346 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1347 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1348 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1351 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1352 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1354 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1357 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1358 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1359 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1360 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1361 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1363 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1364 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1365 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1366 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1367 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1368 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1373 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1374 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1375 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1376 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1377 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1378 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1379 small sample of computers.
1381 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1382 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1383 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1384 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1385 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1387 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1392 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1393 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1394 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1395 versionless initrd file.
1397 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1398 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1401 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1402 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1403 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1408 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1409 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1410 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1411 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1413 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1414 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1415 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1416 directory as the kernel.
1418 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1419 entries in refind.conf file.
1421 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1422 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1428 - Initial public release