4 - Added new Linux root (/) partition auto-discovery feature, based on
5 Freedesktop.org's Discoverable Partitions Spec (DPS)
6 (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
7 If no refind_linux.conf file or /etc/fstab file is found, and if a
8 partition with the correct DPS type code for the system architecture is
9 found, rEFInd adds "ro root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/{GUID}" to the kernel
10 options. This will not help on LVM setups, and will get it right for only
11 one installation on systems with multiple Linux installations, but it may
12 help some users, if/when the DPS type codes become more common.
14 - Fixed bug that caused a rEFInd crash if an empty refind_linux.conf
17 - The mkrlconf.sh script now checks the OS on which it's running, which
18 should help avoid confusion or problems by users who mistakenly run it
21 - rEFInd now skips checking for various BIOS-mode boot sector signatures
22 when running on a UEFI-based PC; these checks are run only on Macs. This
23 may reduce startup time on systems with many partitions.
25 - Fixed Debian debinstall script to work correctly on IA32 systems. It had
26 a bug that caused filesystem drivers and gptsync to not be packaged for
29 - Modified Debian postinst file to call install.sh with --localkeys option
30 if sbsign and openssl are available, even when NOT in Secure Boot mode or
31 if shim is not detected. This helps with my Ubuntu PPA when using custom
32 Secure Boot keys, since the PPA is delivered unsigned. (Users will have
33 to have added their own local keys to their firmware's db.) For
34 consistency, I've made the same change to the RPM .spec file.
39 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused inappropriate installation under the
40 name bootx64.efi (or bootia32.efi) under Linux, with a failure to update
41 the boot entries in NVRAM, has been fixed.
43 - Added identification of XFS as filesystem type in volume descriptions.
45 - More fixes to filesystem type detection code. Previous version sometimes
46 identified FAT or NTFS (or anything with a boot loader) as a whole-disk
47 device rather than the correct filesystem type.
49 - Added protections to the code to reduce the risk of crashes that might
50 occur when dereferencing NULL pointers in various situations.
52 - I'm deprecating the use of filesystem numbers (as in "fs0:") because
53 they're unreliable -- filesystem numbers can change between boots and
54 might not be the same as those used in an EFI shell or other program.
55 Sooner or later I'll remove code supporting this feature. In the
56 meantime, if it doesn't work for you, please switch to using filesystem
57 labels, partition labels, or partition GUIDs.
59 - Added detection of FreeBSD's BIOS-mode GPT boot loader. Previously,
60 rEFInd could detect FreeBSD's BIOS-mode MBR boot loader, which gave
61 FreeBSD an appropriate icon on Macs; but the BIOS-mode GPT boot loader
62 code is different, so some recent FreeBSD installations showed up with
63 generic grey diamond icons. This change creates FreeBSD icons instead.
65 - Added "Secure Boot [active|inactive]" notice to "about" menu for x86
66 (32-bit) systems, since there are now a few 32-bit UEFI systems that
67 support Secure Boot. (AFAIK, these are mostly tablets and convertibles
68 such as the ASUS T100.)
70 - Added KeyTool.efi and KeyTool-signed.efi to list of MOK managers. KeyTool
71 is the "super-deluxe" Secure Boot key and hash manager provided as part
72 of the efitools package.
74 - Fixed more instances of "invalid parameter" errors on some EFIs.
76 - Improved Secure Boot detection in install.sh.
78 - install.sh should no longer complain when copying Shim or MokManager over
84 - Removed special case of ignoring an HFS+ name of "HFS+ volume", since the
85 old rEFInd HFS+ driver that produced this name for all HFS+ volumes has
86 long since been updated to deliver a real name.
88 - Addition of new Windows 8 OS icon. On Macs and for BIOS/legacy boots, the
89 new icon is now used for Windows Vista, 7, and 8, while the old one is
90 used for earlier versions of Windows. For EFI-mode boots, the new icon is
93 - If the NTFS driver is loaded, rEFInd now scans NTFS volumes on Macs for
94 the presence of Windows boot files, and removes any NTFS volume that
95 lacks such files from the BIOS/legacy boot list. This should help
96 unclutter the display on Macs that contain NTFS data partitions.
98 - Fixed bug that caused misidentification of both whole disks and NTFS
99 volumes as being FAT. (This bug affected the identification of devices
100 and locations in the rEFInd menu, not actual access to devices.)
102 - Code refactoring to clear out legacy-boot functions from the
103 ever-expanding refind/main.c file.
105 - Added new "badges" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf. This
106 option hides the device-type badges associated with the OS boot options.
108 - Reverted rEFIt commit r472, introduced in rEFInd 0.8.5 to support more
109 BMP images because I've received bug reports that it's causing existing
110 selection images to fail to load.
112 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused misidentification of installation
113 directory under OS X if an already-mounted ESP has spaces in its path.
115 - Fixed Mac-specific install.sh bug that could cause misidentification of
116 the ESP on disks with partition numbers of 10 or above.
122 - Added NTFS EFI filesystem driver.
124 - Minor improvements to filesystem driver framework code.
128 - Fixed bug in Btrfs driver's address reference.
130 - Improved install.sh to make it smarter about figuring out where to
131 install on Macs. Specifically, this version now upgrades existing
132 installations, if found (as it always has under Linux), rather than
133 blindly install to EFI/BOOT; it installs to EFI/refind if not existing
134 installation is found; it installs using the --shortform option to bless,
135 which seems to eliminate the 30-second delay problem; and it can handle
136 an HFS+ ESP, which it treats as a separate HFS+ volume (as if the user
137 had used --ownhfs). These changes do not affect behavior under Linux.
139 - Added missing check of architecture type for several tools.
141 - Applied rEFIt commit r472, which adds support for BMP images with negative
142 height fields, indicating that the image is NOT vertically flipped. This
143 commit and r467 were not incorporated in the original rEFInd because I
144 forked it from a Debian rEFIt package that had been patched to build
145 under GNU-EFI, and was apparently based on a slightly earlier version.
147 - Applied rEFIt commit r467, which improves Mac handling of legacy boots
148 from other than the first hard disk.
154 - Tweaked default for dont_scan_volumes: Removed "Recovery HD". This change
155 better suits the needs of OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") installations, but may
156 result in some stray Recovery HD entries on some Macs.
158 - Updated icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu.
160 - Added new configuration option, "enable_and_lock_vmx", which sets an
161 Intel CPU feature that's required for some types of virtualization to
162 work. Most EFIs enable setting this feature in their own setup utilities,
163 but some (such as most Macs) don't.
165 - If rEFInd can't locate an icons directory (either the default or one
166 specified by the icons_dir token), the program switches to text-only
169 - If a loader contains the string "grub" and no other clue to the loader's
170 OS association exists, search for os_grub.{png|icns} (which is not
171 provided with rEFInd) or os_linux.{png|icns}. (Previous versions provided
172 a generic loader icon for GRUB.)
174 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_files to not work with special-case
175 boot loaders (for OS X and Windows) when specifying the complete path to
176 the loader (e.g., EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi).
178 - Added support for the iPXE network boot tool (see BUILDING.txt for
179 building and basic use instructions).
184 - Added new feature: Setting "timeout = -1" in refind.conf causes rEFInd to
185 immediately boot the default option UNLESS a keypress is in the buffer
186 when rEFInd launches. In that case, if the keypress corresponds to a
187 shortcut key, the associated boot loader is launched; or if not, the menu
190 - Added new icons for Clover boot loader and for Mythbuntu Linux
193 - rEFInd now displays the partition's label, when one is available, when
194 offering a BIOS-mode boot option for a partition with no filesystem
195 driver. This works only on Macs doing BIOS-mode booting.
197 - Removed GPLv2 code from the FSW core files. This was done because the
198 Btrfs driver is derived from the GRUB Btrfs driver, which is licensed
199 under the GPLv3. Ironically, the GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible
200 licenses, so ensuring that the Btrfs driver doesn't rely on GPLv2 code
201 was legally necessary. In most cases, I reverted to the original rEFIt
202 code, although I kept my own cache code; since I wrote it, I can
203 change its license to a BSD license.
205 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers immediately after loading
206 them. This didn't affect rEFInd's own drivers because they didn't include
207 the unload hooks, but it did affect some other drivers.
209 - Changed default scan_all_linux_kernels setting from "false" to "true",
210 and commented the option out in refind.conf-sample. This should not
211 affect most people, since refind.conf-sample had this option commented
212 out, and most rEFInd users either use it that way or don't have Linux
213 kernels installed at all. I've made this change because I want rEFInd to
214 "do the right thing" by default in as many cases as possible. For a while
215 now, rEFInd has been excluding non-bootable files from its menu, and most
216 kernels "in the wild" now include the EFI stub. Thus, enabling this
217 support by default seems worthwhile. If you prefer to not scan Linux
218 kernels by default, simply uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" line
219 and ensure it's set to "false".
224 - Removed stray bit of debugging code that caused a prompt to press a
225 key to appear at rEFInd startup.
230 - Changed behavior when default_selection is not set: It now boots the
231 previously-booted loader, assuming it's still available; if not, rEFInd
232 boots the first loader (as it does now). Behavior is unchanged if
233 default_selection is set. Note that this behavior depends on the ability
234 of rEFInd to store an EFI variable in NVRAM. It therefore fails on
235 systems with flaky NVRAM storage. You can view the previously-booted
237 /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740
238 variable under Linux.
240 - Added icon for Mageia Linux (os_mageia.png).
242 - Fixed bug that could misidentify a not-quite-GUID as a GUID in a
243 manual boot stanza's "volume" line.
245 - I've updated my personal build system, and therefore the rEFInd Makefiles
246 and related files, to use TianoCore UDK2014 rather than UDK2010.
248 - Added "deep_uefi_legacy_scan" token. When not set (the default), rEFInd
249 does not modify EFI NVRAM settings when scanning for BIOS-mode boot
250 loaders on UEFI-based (non-Mac) computers. Some computers require
251 uncommenting this setting for rEFInd to reliably detect some BIOS-mode
252 boot devices. Passing "0", "off", or "false" as an option resets it to
253 the default value (useful in a loaded secondary configuration file to
254 override a setting in the main file).
259 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders stored
260 on the root directory of a partition.
262 - Added two new bitmap fonts to those distributed with rEFInd: Ubuntu Mono
263 and Nimbus Mono. Both come in 12-, 14-, 16-, and 24-point sizes.
265 - Messages about pauses for scanning and re-scanning of boot loaders are
266 now suppressed when doing an initial delayed scan when scan_delay is 1
269 - Improved centering of legacy boot option descriptions on some systems'
272 - Fixed bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot to boot from an inappropriate
273 device if that device had an innately high boot priority (as set by the
276 - Changed icons from ICNS to PNG form. There are several reasons to do
277 this, all of them minor; but together they're enough to warrant a change.
278 PNG is more common, and therefore more accessible to most users --
279 particularly those who don't use OS X. The PNG files are smaller than
280 their ICNS equivalents. PNG supports a wider range of sizes (although I'm
281 not now using anything that ICNS doesn't support, I might in the future).
282 The icon-scaling support added a few versions ago makes ICNS's support
283 for multiple icon sizes relatively unimportant.
285 - Reversed order of search for icons by extension: rEFInd now searches
286 for PNG files before ICNS files, rather than the other way around. This
287 makes it possible to override a volume icon for rEFInd by giving it the
288 name .VolumeIcon.png, even when a .VolumeIcon.icns file exists on the
289 volume and is used by OS X.
291 - Fixed bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take higher-than-intended
292 precedence in icon setting for OS X.
294 - Chainloading to BIOS-mode boot loaders now works on UEFI-based PCs when
295 rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI, not just when built with Tianocore.
300 - The "dont_scan_volumes" parameter now also works with legacy-boot
301 volumes. Unlike with EFI volumes, where the option you pass must exactly
302 match an entire volume name, when applied to legacy-boot volumes, it
303 matches any part of the description that appears beneath the item when
304 you select it in the rEFInd main menu.
306 - Can now boot in legacy mode from second (and probably later) hard disks!
308 - rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware name string shown in the
309 system information screen to 65 characters. This is done because at least
310 one EFI presents a longer string by default, and this causes the entire
311 information display to come up empty on 800x600 displays.
313 - rEFInd now uses the partition's name (as stored in the GPT data
314 structures) as a fallback for the filesystem's name if the latter can't
315 be found. Exceptions are if the partition name is one of three generic
316 names used by GPT fdisk: "Microsoft basic data", "Linux filesystem", or
317 "Apple HFS/HFS+". These are ignored in favor of the descriptive fallback
318 (e.g., "20 GiB Btrfs volume")
320 - It's now possible to specify a volume by partition GUID number in a
321 manual boot stanza. This should be more reliable (albeit also more
322 awkward) than using a filesystem number (such as fs0: or fs1:).
324 - Fixed memory-allocation bug that could cause error message displays,
325 and possibly hangs, when re-scanning boot loaders.
330 - Attempt to fix rEFInd perpetually re-scanning after ejecting a disc on
333 - Added check to remove redundant (or non-functional if Secure Boot is
334 active) kernel entries for Ubuntu, which is now including two versions of
335 kernels, one signed and the other unsigned.
337 - Fixed bug in install.sh that could cause it to display error messages
338 if the dmraid utility was not installed.
340 - The HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name.
342 - Fixed some EFI filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups under
343 some circumstances. These bugs could affect any of the filesystem
346 - Added "gdisk" option to the "showtools" configuration file token. When
347 active, this adds gdisk.efi or gdisk_{arch}.efi, if present in the
348 EFI\tools directory, to the tools row.
350 - Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility
357 - Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian
358 packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run
359 any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the
360 hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run
361 install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64
362 references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of
363 concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else.
365 - Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of
366 the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively.
367 The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type
368 badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and
369 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If
370 the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified,
371 rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn
372 to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf.
374 - rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes.
375 This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it
376 can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a
377 graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so
378 scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128
379 OS icon) is not likely to look good.
381 - Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners:
382 Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll
383 be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the
384 behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the
385 banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display.
387 - Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate
388 RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for
389 existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi
390 rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages
391 were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note,
392 however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd
393 The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine;
394 it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that
395 problems might arise.
400 - Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in
403 - Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
405 - Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a
406 Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to
407 "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery
408 utility on the second row of icons.
410 - The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files,
411 and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first
412 option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default
413 value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for
414 scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.)
416 - Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch,
417 via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the
418 foo.conf file as the main configuration file.
420 - Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with
421 duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so
422 would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given
425 - Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP
426 in Linux, if it's currently unmounted.
428 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
429 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
430 under some circumstances.
435 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
436 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
437 default_selection "fred,ginger"
438 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
439 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
441 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
442 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
443 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
444 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
445 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
446 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
447 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
448 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
449 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
450 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
451 depending on your computer.
453 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
454 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
455 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
456 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
457 screensaver will be disabled.
459 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
460 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
461 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
462 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
463 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
468 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
469 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
471 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
472 versions of OS X to fail.
474 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
475 drivers were present.
477 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
478 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
479 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
480 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
481 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
482 black a second or so later.
487 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
488 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
494 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
495 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
496 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
498 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
499 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
500 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
501 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
502 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
503 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
506 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
507 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
508 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
509 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
511 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
512 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
513 known case, but there may be others.)
518 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
521 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
526 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
527 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
529 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
530 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
532 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
533 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
535 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
536 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
537 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
538 HashTool-signed.efi".
540 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
542 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
545 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
551 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
553 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
554 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
555 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
557 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
558 volume specification, if present.
560 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
565 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
566 type for volumes that lack labels.
568 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
569 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
570 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
573 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
574 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
575 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
576 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
577 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
578 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
579 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
580 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
582 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
583 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
584 non-EFI loaders, etc.
586 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
592 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
593 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
595 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
598 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
599 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
600 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
601 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
603 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
604 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
605 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
606 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
611 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
612 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
613 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
614 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
616 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
618 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
619 directory names that contain spaces.
621 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
622 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
623 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
624 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
625 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
627 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
628 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
630 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
633 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
634 partitions to fill the MBR.
639 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
640 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
641 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
642 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
644 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
645 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
646 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
647 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
648 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
650 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
651 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
652 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
653 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
654 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
657 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
658 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
660 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
661 encountered when saving a screen shot.
663 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
664 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
665 sequence number, starting with "001".
670 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
673 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
674 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
676 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
677 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
678 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
680 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
681 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
682 accidentally trash their systems.
684 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
685 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
686 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
691 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
692 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
694 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
695 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
697 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
698 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
700 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
705 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
706 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
708 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
709 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
710 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
711 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
713 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
714 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
716 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
717 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
719 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
722 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
724 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
725 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
726 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
731 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
732 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
733 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
734 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
735 loader under the fallback name.
737 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
738 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
739 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
740 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
743 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
744 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
746 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
747 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
749 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
750 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
751 commented out or empty.
753 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
754 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
756 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
759 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
760 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
765 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
766 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
768 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
770 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
772 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
773 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
775 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
777 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
778 sized to cover these areas.
780 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
781 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
787 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
788 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
789 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
790 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
792 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
793 startup on some systems.
798 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
799 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
801 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
802 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
804 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
805 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
806 burned to USB flash disks.
808 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
809 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
810 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
812 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
813 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
814 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
815 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
816 from that installation.
818 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
819 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
822 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
823 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
828 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
829 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
830 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
832 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
833 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
834 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
835 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
836 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
838 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
839 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
840 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
841 Linux with the "make" command.
843 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
844 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
846 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
847 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
848 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
849 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
850 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
851 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
852 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
853 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
855 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
856 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
862 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
863 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
864 use on emergency discs.
866 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
867 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
868 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
869 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
870 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
871 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
872 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
873 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
876 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
878 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
879 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
880 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
881 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
882 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
885 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
888 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
889 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
890 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
891 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
893 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
894 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
895 a boot loader launch failed.
900 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
901 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
902 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
905 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
906 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
907 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
908 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
910 - Added ext4fs driver!
912 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
914 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
916 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
917 from a program that set the resolution itself.
919 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
920 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
921 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
922 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
923 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
924 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
925 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
928 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
929 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
930 display even in graphics mode.
932 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
933 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
935 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
936 disables the boot options editor.
938 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
939 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
941 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
942 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
943 from the /etc/default/grub file.
945 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
946 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
948 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
949 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
950 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
951 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
952 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
953 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
955 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
958 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
959 ---------------------
961 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
966 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
967 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
968 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
969 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
971 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
972 configuration file from a primary one.
974 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
975 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
976 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
977 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
978 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
979 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
980 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
983 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
984 on systems with Secure Boot active.
986 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
987 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
990 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
991 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
993 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
994 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
995 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
1000 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
1001 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
1002 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
1003 This example results in the following string being passed as an
1005 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
1007 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
1008 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
1009 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
1010 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
1011 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
1012 for them makes sense.
1014 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
1015 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
1016 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
1017 EFI shells are also so limited.)
1019 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
1020 were not actually edited.
1022 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
1023 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
1024 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
1025 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
1026 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
1028 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
1029 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
1030 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
1031 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
1032 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
1033 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
1034 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
1035 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
1037 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
1038 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
1039 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
1041 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
1042 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
1043 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
1045 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
1046 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
1047 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
1048 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
1050 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
1051 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
1052 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
1054 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
1055 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
1060 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
1062 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
1063 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
1064 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
1066 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
1067 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
1068 told isn't working as planned).
1070 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
1071 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
1072 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
1073 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
1078 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
1080 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
1083 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
1084 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
1085 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
1086 done this for two reasons:
1087 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
1088 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
1089 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
1090 default for them should help them.
1091 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
1092 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
1093 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
1094 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
1095 default configurations.
1097 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
1102 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
1104 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
1109 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
1112 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
1115 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
1116 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
1119 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
1124 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
1125 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
1127 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
1128 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
1129 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
1130 graphics or text mode itself.)
1132 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
1133 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
1134 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
1135 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
1136 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
1137 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
1138 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
1140 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
1142 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
1143 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
1144 "linux.conf" themselves.
1149 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
1150 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
1153 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
1154 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
1155 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
1156 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
1157 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
1158 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
1159 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
1160 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
1163 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
1164 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
1169 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
1170 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
1171 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
1172 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
1175 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
1176 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
1178 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
1180 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
1181 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
1184 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
1185 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
1190 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
1191 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
1192 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
1193 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
1194 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
1195 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
1196 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
1198 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
1199 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
1200 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
1202 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
1203 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
1204 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
1205 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
1207 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
1208 file when launched from rEFInd.
1213 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
1214 received reports that it's not working as intended.
1216 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
1217 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
1218 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
1219 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
1220 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
1221 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
1223 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
1224 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
1229 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
1230 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
1231 sample configuration file for a full description.
1233 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
1234 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
1235 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
1236 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
1237 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
1239 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
1240 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
1243 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
1244 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
1249 - Improved menu navigation:
1250 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
1251 down arrows move between rows.
1252 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
1253 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
1254 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
1255 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
1257 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
1258 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
1259 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
1264 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
1265 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
1266 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
1267 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
1268 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
1269 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
1272 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
1275 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
1277 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
1278 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
1285 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
1286 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
1288 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
1289 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
1290 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
1291 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
1292 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
1293 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
1294 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
1295 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
1296 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
1297 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
1298 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
1300 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
1301 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
1302 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
1303 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
1304 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
1306 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
1307 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
1312 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
1313 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
1314 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
1315 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
1316 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
1317 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
1319 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
1320 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
1321 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
1322 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
1323 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
1324 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
1325 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
1326 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
1327 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
1328 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
1329 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
1330 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
1331 that resets the video mode.
1333 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
1334 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
1335 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
1336 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
1337 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
1340 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
1341 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
1342 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
1343 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
1344 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
1345 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
1347 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
1348 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
1349 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
1351 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
1352 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
1353 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
1354 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
1359 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
1360 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
1361 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
1362 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
1363 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
1364 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
1365 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
1366 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
1367 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
1368 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
1369 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
1370 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
1371 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
1372 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
1375 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
1377 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
1378 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
1379 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
1380 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
1381 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
1382 directories you like.
1387 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
1388 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
1389 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
1390 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
1391 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
1392 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
1393 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
1394 should work when a volume is unnamed.
1396 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
1397 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
1398 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
1403 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
1404 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
1406 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
1407 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
1408 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
1409 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
1410 documented the name....
1412 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
1413 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
1414 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
1416 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
1417 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
1418 directory) on certain systems.
1420 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
1421 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1426 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1427 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1428 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1429 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1430 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1431 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1432 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1433 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1434 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1435 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1436 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1439 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1440 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1441 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1442 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1445 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1446 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1448 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1451 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1452 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1453 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1454 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1455 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1457 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1458 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1459 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1460 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1461 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1462 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1467 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1468 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1469 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1470 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1471 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1472 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1473 small sample of computers.
1475 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1476 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1477 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1478 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1479 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1481 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1486 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1487 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1488 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1489 versionless initrd file.
1491 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1492 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1495 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1496 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1497 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1502 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1503 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1504 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1505 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1507 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1508 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1509 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1510 directory as the kernel.
1512 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1513 entries in refind.conf file.
1515 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1516 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1522 - Initial public release