The rEFInd Boot Manager:
Revisions

by Roderick W. Smith, rodsmith@rodsbooks.com

Last Web page update: 11/8/2015

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This page is part of the documentation for the rEFInd boot manager. If a Web search has brought you here, you may want to start at the main page.

The following summarizes changes in rEFInd's public releases:

• 0.10.0 (11/8/2015)—I've given this version an extra-large version number bump because of some highly user-visible changes, especially for Mac users. Changes include:
  • I've swapped out the old icons for new ones. I've replaced the old icons because the OS icons were becoming a hopeless mish-mash of styles and because I wanted to consolidate the icon collection to use a more limited set of original sources for record-keeping purposes. If you prefer the old icons, you can continue to use them. After upgrading, rename icons-backup to something else (say, icons-classic) and add a line to refind.conf to reference the new directory, as in icons_dir icons-classic.
  • A new feature, spoof_osx_version, causes rEFInd to tell a Mac that it's about to launch OS X. This alters how some Macs initialize hardware, which can make secondary video chipsets work on some Macs. See the comments in refind.conf-sample or on the Using rEFInd page for details. This feature has no effect on UEFI-based PCs.
  • Another new feature enables you to adjust a Mac's System Integrity Protection (SIP) settings from within rEFInd. To use this feature, you must adjust two lines in refind.conf: The new csr_values line sets hexadecimal values through which you can rotate using a new second-row tag that's activated by the new scanfor line option of csr_rotate. Thus, you must add or change both the scanfor and csr_values lines. See the new rEFInd and System Integrity Protection page for information on how to use this new feature. Although this feature can work on UEFI-based PCs if they contain the necessary NVRAM variable, such systems are unlikely to have this variable, and it's unlikely to be useful even if it's present.
  • If the SIP NVRAM variable is set, rEFInd now displays its current value in the About screen.
  • I've renamed several support scripts: install.sh to refind-install, mvrefind.sh to mvrefind, and mkrlconf.sh to mkrlconf. I've also added man pages for mvrefind and mkrlconf.
  • Under OS X, refind-install now checks the machine's SIP status and warns the user if it's active. To help with such installations, the script can also now be run from a boot of the Recovery HD.
  • Under Linux, refind-install and mkrlconf now use /proc/cmdline as a source for the default boot options for Linux kernels, rather than trying to extract them from GRUB configuration files—except when the --root option is used, in which case the script continues to use the GRUB configuration files as a source of boot options. This change should help rEFInd pick up exotic boot options that GRUB computes at boot time, such as Btrfs subvolume options.
  • I've added a new script, called mountesp, which mounts the ESP on Macs, using the same algorithm used by refind-install. This should help Mac users who want to edit their rEFInd configurations.
  • I've changed the default also_scan_dirs setting from boot to boot,@/boot. This change helps rEFInd pick up kernels from Btrfs volumes.
  • I've changed from .zip to a tarball (.tar.gz) as the file format for the source code package. This change simply reflects the fact that Linux is the only supported build environment for rEFInd, and tarballs are more in line with that platform than are .zip files. The primary binary file format remains a .zip file, with Debian packages and RPMs also available.
  • My 32-bit Mac Mini suffered from a bug that caused rEFInd's icon-resizing code to hang in a conversion from floating-point to integer values. I've therefore adjusted the icon-resizing code to avoid doing floating-point computations. This change has a drawback, though: It causes some images to acquire artifacts when resized, particularly on 32-bit systems. If you run into such a problem, you should scale your icon(s) or banner/background image so that it does not need to be resized. Sorry, but between a system crash and minor graphics artifacts, the graphics artifacts are the lesser of two evils.
• 0.9.2 (9/19/2015)—Soon after releasing 0.9.1, I started receiving bug reports about problems with it and Shim 0.8. (See this thread for one such report.) It turns out that the problem was not a new bug in rEFInd, but rather a change from Shim 0.7 to Shim 0.8 that made it next to useless with rEFInd. Specifically, Shim 0.8 now de-registers itself from the EFI after a follow-on program launches another one. This is done to avoid problems in a boot path in which Shim launches fallback.efi, which in turn launches another Shim. This creates a new problem, though: rEFInd can validate just one binary before it's "cut off" from Shim. Since rEFInd's drivers are binaries, if you use a single driver, that means that you won't be able to launch anything that requires validation via Shim. I quickly discovered a workaround, which I've implemented in this release. I consider this a "band-aid" patch, though, because it relies on a quirk of Shim's logic to bypass its de-registration. As such, the workaround in this release may break with a future Shim. A true fix will take longer to develop. I want to release this workaround version to head off further problems in the near term, though. This version also introduces a new feature, which is also Shim-related: Since version 0.7, Shim has supported launching binaries other than grubx64.efi by passing them on the command line. (Actually, Shim 0.4 supported this, but it required a broken path specification.) I've added support for this feature to install.sh: Adding the --keepname option to install.sh causes the script to preserve rEFInd's regular filename and to register the approprirate follow-on parameters to have Shim launch rEFInd by that name. This works, but is likely to be more delicate than using the default Shim follow-on name of grubx64.efi. The advantage, of course, is that rEFInd needn't "lie" about its name, which makes for less confusion in filenames. For the moment, the RPM and Debian packages I build do not use this new naming feature, since I can't be sure what version of Shim might be picked up. These changes do not affect users who do not use Secure Boot.
• 0.9.1 (9/13/2015)—This version has improved the Discoverable Partitions Specification (DPS) support in a number of ways that should make it more reliable when /etc/fstab omits references to the root (/) partition or when the GPT read-only or do-not-automount options are used to control these features. A stray DPS-related debugging print command has also been removed. I've improved rEFInd's ability to guess the Linux distribution by having it examine /etc/lsb-release as well as /etc/os_release, and I've added an icon for Elementary OS. Finally, I've made improvements to rEFInd's handling of case-insensitive string comparisons, which were buggy on some EFIs, particularly when rEFInd was compiled with GNU-EFI. rEFInd is still at the mercy of the EFI and support libraries, but many problem cases should now be resolved.
• 0.9.0 (7/26/2015—This version gets a bump up to 0.9.0 mainly because of a highly user-visible new feature: kernel folding. With kernel folding active, multiple Linux kernels in a single directory appear as just one main-menu entry, which launches the most recent kernel (by file timestamp) by default. Older kernels appear on the first one's submenu (accessed by hitting F2 or Insert). You can disable this new feature by setting fold_linux_kernels false in refind.conf. Another new feature is support for the Discoverable Partitions Spec, which enables rEFInd to locate the Linux root (/) partition without a refind_linux.conf or /etc/fstab entry. I know of no distribution that automatically sets up its partitions in this way, but if and when this starts to happen, rEFInd will be ready. Other changes are relatively minor: The Debian postinst script now calls install.sh with --localkeys if sbsign and openssl are available, which helps if using the Ubuntu PPA on a system with custom Secure Boot keys; I've fixed a packaging bug that prevented IA32 versions of filesystem drivers and gptsync to not be built in the PPA; mkrlconf.sh now refuses to run under OS X; rEFInd now skips checking for BIOS-mode boot code on UEFI-based PCs, which should speed it up a little; I've fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to crash if it found an existing but empty refind_linux.conf file; I've made minor code changes to enable rEFInd to build under GCC 5.1; and I've added a new icon for Kali Linux (provided by Francesco D'Eugenio).
• 0.8.7 (3/1/2015)—This release provides bug fixes and refinements to existing features. Several changes should reduce the odds of rEFInd crashing because of assorted problems. Other changes improve Secure Boot handling, including improved Secure Boot detection in install.sh, recognition of KeyTool.efi and KeyTool-signed.efi as MOK manager utilities, and reporting of Secure Boot status for x86 (IA-32) systems in the rEFInd information screen. Filesystem detection is improved (again), and XFS has been added as a known filesystem. Detection of FreeBSD's BIOS-mode boot loader is improved, which should give more Mac users the right OS icon when booting FreeBSD in BIOS mode. A bug in install.sh that caused inappropriate installation to the filename bootx64.efi or bootia32.efi, and failure to update the computer's boot list, has been squashed. Finally, I'm deprecating the use of fsx: notation for referring to filesystems. The numbering of filesystems is simply unreliable, and better alternatives (the use of partition GUIDs, partition names, and filesystem names) have been added in previous releases. The fsx: code remains in rEFInd, and if it's working for you, you can continue to use it; but sooner or later I'll remove that code, so you're advised to change your manual boot stanzas and other options that use it before that happens.
• 0.8.6 (2/8/2015)—Most (but not all) of this release's changes focus on Windows dual-booting and Mac-specific issues. There's a new Windows 8 icon, which is now used by default as the Windows icon, although the old icon remains available and is used for Windows XP and earlier boots on Macs. If the NTFS driver is loaded, rEFInd will now exclude non-bootable NTFS volumes from the Mac boot list (this change does not affect UEFI-based PCs). A bug that caused misidentification of whole disks and NTFS volumes as being FAT has been fixed (again, this problem affected Macs, not PCs). A couple of Mac-specific install.sh bugs have been fixed, resulting in more reliable identification of the ESP and of the installation directory. Previous versions ignored a volume name of "HFS+ volume" because that name was produced by earlier versions of the rEFInd HFS+ driver for all HFS+ volumes; but the current HFS+ driver produces a real volume name, so I've removed that special case from the code. I've removed the r472 rEFIt commit, introduced in 0.8.5, because it was causing some BMP files to fail to load. Finally, the hideui token in refind.conf now accepts a value of badges, which has the effect of hiding the disk-type badges associated with OS launch icons.
• 0.8.5 (2/1/2015)—The biggest single change with this version is a new NTFS driver contributed by Samuel Liao, who also contributed the Btrfs driver. Samuel also contributed some miscellaneous driver fixes and a change to the way the keyboard is handled, which improves responsiveness on some systems. This version also improves the way install.sh works under OS X. In particular, it tweaks the bless command in a way that may eliminate startup delays and it does a better job of detecting and replacing existing rEFInd installations (on the ESP), rather than blindly writing to EFI/BOOT. Finally, this version applies commits from late in rEFIt's history: r467, which improves handling of BIOS/legacy boots from the second and subsequent disks on Macs; and r472, which enables handling BMP images that are not vertically flipped. These commits were not present in rEFInd from the start because the starting point for rEFInd was a Debian source package taken from a slightly earlier version.
• 0.8.4 (12/8/2014)—OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") made changes that necessitated alterations to both rEFInd's install.sh script and rEFInd defaults. Specifically, Yosemite now uses a form of logical volume management (LVM) that makes installing rEFInd to the OS X root directory impossible, so the default location is changed to the ESP. Changes to the default for dont_scan_volumes are necessary to make the new location for the OS X boot loader show up. Another big change is in the new (but experimental) support for network booting, with the help of iPXE. See the BUILDING.txt file in the source package for details on how to build and install the necessary files. A new option for refind.conf, enable_and_lock_vmx, sets the VMX bit on Intel CPUs, which is necessary for booting some hypervisors, such as Hyper-V. This feature can be set on many computers' EFIs, but some, such as Macs, lack this ability. (Do not set this option on AMD CPUs or older Intel CPUs that lack this feature, though!) If rEFInd can't find its icons directory, it now drops back to text mode. A bug in dont_scan_files has been fixed, enabling you to specify a complete path to certain special-case boot loaders to omit them from scans. Finally, I've updated the icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu.
• 0.8.3 (7/6/2014)—This version introduces a number of minor bug fixes and feature improvements. The most user-visible of these are that on Macs, rEFInd now displays a partition's label for BIOS-bootable OSes on filesystems that rEFInd can't read; and you can now pass timeout = -1 in refind.conf to have rEFInd boot the default OS immediately unless there's a keypress when rEFInd loads, in which case that keypress is read as a shortcut key. A change that's less likely to be noticed is that the default setting for scan_all_linux_kernels is now true. Since this option had been uncommented in the sample configuration file, this change will not affect most people. I've fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers as soon as they were loaded. This didn't affect rEFInd's drivers because they ignored the relevant EFI calls; but this was preventing some other drivers from working. I've added two new icons, one for Mythbuntu and the other for the Clover boot manager. Finally, I've removed Oracle's GPLv2 code from the core filesystem driver code, since it was incompatible with the GPLv3 used by the Btrfs driver. This change shouldn't affect the operation of the drivers, but there's a slim chance that it will.
• 0.8.2 (6/8/2014)—I've continued to refine the UEFI BIOS-mode boot code with this version; it now uses the BIOS-mode boot entries provided by the firmware by default, and actively scans for new entries only if the deep_uefi_legacy_scan token is present in refind.conf. This change is motivated by reports I've received of BIOS-mode boot entries multiplying on some systems; however, a deep scan is required to detect the second and subsequent disks on other computers. A second important change is that the default selection is now the last-booted item rather than the first item in the list. You can still set a fixed default via the default_selection token, and in fact if you provide a list that begins with +, the default will be the previously-booted item unless it can't be found, in which case the subsequent items in the list will be tried. Minor changes include the addition of an icon for Mageia Linux, a minor bug fix in GUID-parsing code, and an update of my personal build system from TianoCore UDK2010.SR1.UP1.P1 to UDK2014. This last item will affect anybody else who uses TianoCore to build rEFInd, since some default paths have changed, so you may need to update yourself or adjust the path in Make.tiano.
• 0.8.1 (5/15/2014)—The biggest code change in this version is that rEFInd's UEFI-style BIOS-mode boot code now works when rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI as well as when built with Tianocore. This change won't affect users of my binary builds, which have long been made with Tianocore, but if your distribution builds rEFInd with GNU-EFI, it might interest you. Some user-noticeable bug fixes include a fix to a bug that could cause rEFInd to omit boot loaders on a partition's root directory, a fix to a bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take a higher-than-intended precedence on OS X boot volumes, a fix to a bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot from the wrong device in UEFI mode, and improved centering of BIOS-mode boot descriptions on the screen. Other changes include two new optional bitmap fonts (Ubuntu Mono and Nimbus Mono), omission of messages about scanning of boot loaders when scan_delay is set to 1, a change to the search order for icons (PNG files now override ICNS files), and a conversion of all the icons in the icons directory from ICNS to PNG format. Note that this last change may necessitate changing manual boot stanzas if you refer to icons in the default icon directory, depending on how you upgrade rEFInd.
• 0.8.0 (5/4/2014)—The biggest changes with this version relate to BIOS/CSM/legacy support, particularly on UEFI-based PCs. This version can now boot from the second (or later) hard disk on such computers, and is more likely to be able to cope with removable disks. On both Macs and PCs, you can also now use dont_scan_volumes to remove a legacy-boot option from the boot list, so long as it has a unique name (as shown in rEFInd's main menu when you highlight the option). This version also introduces the ability to use partition names and partition GUIDs to refer to devices (in dont_scan_volumes, displayed in the rEFInd menu, and so on). Note that partition names are stored in GPT data structures. These are different from filesystem names, which are stored in filesystem data structures. rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware identity string shown in the "About" screen, to prevent problems with the string overrunning the space available on an 800x600 display. Finally, I've fixed a memory-allocation bug that caused error message displays on some systems when re-scanning boot loaders. This bug might conceivably have caused some systems to hang when re-scanning, too.
• 0.7.9 (4/20/2014)—This version includes a number of bug fixes: install.sh no longer displays error messages if the dmraid utility isn't available; the HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name; filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups have been fixed; a redundant "utility" in the MOK utility's description has been removed; and an (as-yet untested) attempt to fix a continuous-rescanning problem after ejecting a disc on some computers has been implemented. In addition, rEFInd now removes redundant kernel entries on Ubuntu systems to keep the menu uncluttered and a new gdisk option has been added to the showtools item. (An EFI version of my gdisk utility can be built with the help of the UEFI GPT fdisk library.)
• 0.7.8 (3/9/2014—This version emphasizes changes to icon and banner graphics handling. Internally, rEFInd can now scale graphics, which previous versions could not do. To make use of this feature, three new refind.conf tokens now exist: big_icon_size and small_icon_size set the sizes of big (first-row OS) and small (second-row tool) icons; and banner_scale tells rEFInd to draw banners to a 1:1 scale (noscale, the default) or to scale the banner to fill the screen (fillscreen). See Table 1 on the configuration page of this document for more on these new options. I've also adjusted the post-installation script used by the RPM and Debian packages to search for existing Shim programs called shimx64.efi, not just shim.efi (as had been done before). This should help when installing a package on distributions that use the shimx64.efi filename, such as Ubuntu. Finally, I'm providing a preliminary set of Debian packaging files, which may help distribution maintainers to adopt rEFInd.
• 0.7.7 (1/3/2014)—A new configuration file token, windows_recovery_files, leads this list of changes; you can use it to specify files that boot Windows recovery tools. If you include the windows_recovery option on the showtools line, these files will then be represented by a small Windows recovery badge on the second row rather than as a full-sized OS loader, thus reducing clutter and making the purpose of this loader clearer. You can also now specify a complete path to dont_scan_files items, including a volume specifier. The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files, scan_driver_dirs, and windows_recovery_files tokens can all now accept + as their first option, which causes subsequent list items to be added to their defaults rather than replacing them. The configuration file can now be specified at program launch by passing a -c option, as in -c myconf.conf; you can use this feature to set up a manual boot stanza that launches rEFInd with modified boot options. Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with filesystem UUIDs that have already been seen. This is an effort to reduce clutter from such partitions that are components of RAID 1 arrays. The install.sh script now attempts to locate and mount an unmounted ESP when run under Linux. Finally, I've fixed a bug in both install.sh and mkrlconf.sh that caused the generated refind_linux.conf file to contain a stray line break and unnecessary PARTUUID= specification on some systems.
• 0.7.6 (12/15/2013)—The biggest changes in this version relate to the default_selection setting. You can now provide multiple default selections by listing them within quotes and separated by commas, as in default_selection "ubuntu,fedora" which boots ubuntu if it's present and fedora if ubuntu is not present but fedora is. This should be helpful with removable disks. You can also include two times, in 24-hour format, following a default_selection specification, as in default_selection Maintenance 1:00 2:00, which boots Maintenance by default between 1:00 and 2:00. If another default_selection without a time specification preceded this line, the earlier one will still apply at other times. Another change to the main program is that you can now set screensaver -1 to have rEFInd come up with its screen blanked. You'll probably want to combine this with a short timeout value to have rEFInd boot your default OS quickly unless you press a key first. Finally, I've added a new option to the install.sh script: --ownhfs target_partition. This option is valid only under OS X. It installs rEFInd to an HFS+ volume that does not currently hold an OS X installation. The installation method differs from the usual rEFInd installation in that the result looks to the firmware more like an OS X installation. This makes rEFInd appear as an option in the firmware's own boot manager and it may help suspend-to-RAM operations.
• 0.7.5 (11/10/2013)—This version fixes a few bugs, the most important of which is one that caused some Macs to hang when multiple EFI drivers were present. Another squashed bug caused the screen to clear to the default gray rather than the actual background color when launching OSes in graphics mode. rEFInd no longer shows all exFAT partitions as being bootable on Macs when legacy boot options are enabled; now such partitions only show up as bootable if rEFInd spots a known boot loader installed on them. Finally, I've fixed a bug that caused install.sh to fail when installing to the ESP with recent versions of OS X.
• 0.7.4 (8/25/2013)—This version fixes problems in booting VMware's mboot64.efi boot loader and when launching boot loaders from some types of Mac drives. These fixes might improve matters for other boot loaders, too. I've also added a space to the end of the Boot X from Y description, which means you can use Y in the default_selection field even if another entry contains the same Y string, but with something added. To do this, you must enclose Y in quotes and add a space to its end, as in default_selection "Bit ", which sets the first boot loader on the Bit volume as the default, even if you also have a disk called Bitten. Finally, this version adds explicit support for the new EFI version of Memtest86. See the "Installing Additional Components" section of the Installing rEFInd page for details on this support.
• 0.7.3 (8/7/2013)—This version fixes a bug that caused boot failures when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs. It also fixes a bug that caused such OSes' disk-type icons to disappear.
• 0.7.2 (8/6/2013)—This version primarily fixes a number of minor bugs: A display glitch when the second row of icons is empty; improper scanning when a volume specification was used in also_scan_dirs; improper reading of volume badges from user-specific icons directory or from .VolumeBadge.icns files. Also, This version adds protection against loading invalid files as drivers, which can crash some EFIs, adds an icon for Funtoo Linux, and adds PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
• 0.7.1 (7/8/2013)—The most important improvement to this version is a bug fix to the filesystem drivers. In version 0.7.0, drivers could hang the system (the Btrfs driver in particular generated problem reports, although the bug could theoretically affect any driver). Version 0.7.1 fixes this problem. I've also fixed a build problem with development versions of the TianoCore EDK2. In rEFInd proper, I've added a scan for EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bkpbootmgfw.efi, which is how recent versions of Ubuntu's Boot Repair utility rename the Windows boot loader. This change enables rEFInd to launch Windows even on systems that have been "repaired" by this overzealous tool. I've also fixed a bug that caused volume specifications in also_scan_dirs tokens to be ignored.
• 0.7.0 (6/27/2013)—Improvements to the filesystem drivers dominate this version. The biggest change is a new Btrfs driver, created by Samuel Liao and based in part on the GRUB 2.0 Btrfs support. The drivers also now include a read cache to improve their speed. This has only a tiny effect on most computers, but on some it can speed boot times by a few seconds, and under VirtualBox the effect is dramatic—the ext2fs driver goes from a sluggish three minutes to load a kernel and initrd to three seconds. I've also changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit, which may enable some of them to work with larger filesystems, although this isn't yet tested. The main rEFInd binary sports only two changes: It can now identify Btrfs volumes as such for labelling purposes and it can now filter out invalid loaders (those for the wrong architecture or Linux kernels that lack EFI stub loader support, for instance).
• 0.6.12 (6/18/2013)—This version changes relatively little code, but it adds one feature that will simplify rEFInd installation for some users: The program can now deduce minimal Linux boot options based on an /etc/fstab file if that file is on the same partition as the kernel (in other words, if you do not use a separate /boot partition). Put another way, refind_linux.conf is no longer required for some installations, although it's still desirable. If you're already using rEFInd, this isn't likely to be important, but it can help when you're just starting out. In addition, this version adds support for the Linux Foundation's PreBootloader in the install.sh script. I've also changed the default 64-bit shell included on the CD-R and USB flash drive images to a modified version 2 shell, so as to enable use of the bcfg command to help install rEFInd (or make other changes to the firmware's boot manager configuration).
• 0.6.11 (5/13/2013)—Two new features may have a noticeable affect for many users: First, rEFInd now ignores symbolic links on filesystems that support them. I've implemented this change because I've been receiving too many reports from users who want to remove redundant or non-functional Linux boot entries caused by symbolic links created by distributions. Although this is possible by editing the dont_scan_dirs or dont_scan_files options in refind.conf, telling users how to do this has become tedious. If you want to use links to create multiple entries for one kernel or boot loader, use hard links instead of symbolic links. The second major user-visible change is that rEFInd now tries to guess the distribution type based on the naming of the kernel file (effective only for Fedora and RHEL) or the contents of the /etc/os-release file (effective only if the installation does not have a separate /boot partition or if /etc/os-release is copied to that location on the partition that holds the kernel). There are several other minor cosmetic issues that some users may notice, including icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu and a change in the name of the "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" option to "Reboot to Computer Setup Utility." I've also fixed a bug in gptsync that could cause it to hang if the disk had too few GPT partitions. Finally, I've improved the install.sh script so that it works better from a path with directory names that include spaces.
• 0.6.10 (5/5/2013)—This version adds a number of minor improvements: The ability to create multiple screen shots under a sequence of names rather than using just one name; a new screen saver feature, activated by the screensaver token in refind.conf; and an option to reboot the computer into the firmware's setup utility on computers that support this feature. I've also added an OS for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns), and I've updated the LodePNG library to the latest version, which might improve rendering of some PNG files.
• 0.6.9 (4/25/2013)—The most visible change to this version is to the rEFInd banner image, which now includes an icon provided by Erik Kemperman. The biggest change with this version is the inclusion of an updated version of gptsync, which is popular on Macs as a means of maintaining the hybrid MBR that's required to boot Windows in BIOS mode on that platform. Because hybrid MBRs are ugly and dangerous, though, the rEFInd install.sh script installs the program only under OS X, and even then it must be activated by uncommending the scanfor line in refind.conf and adding gptsync to its options list. If you want to use gptsync on a PC, you can, but you'll need to copy the program file manually to the ESP's EFI/tools directory. Other changes with this version include working around a suspected firmware bug that can cause hangs when rEFInd starts on some systems and changing the timeout code so that rEFInd will launch its default OS even if the computer is started without a keyboard.
• 0.6.8 (3/18/2013)—This version fixes a few obscure bugs but adds only one minor new feature. Most notably, it fixes a problem that caused "Invalid Parameter" errors to appear when scanning for boot loaders on some systems; fixes a bug that caused icons defined in files named after boot loaders to not appear; and fixes a bug in the install.sh script that caused the script to fail on some systems. It also enables you to name a shell shell.efi in the root directory (previously only shell_arch.efi worked in the root directory, although shell.efi worked in the EFI/tools directory).
• 0.6.7 (2/3/2013)—This version fixes a few bugs and adds some minor features relating to Secure Boot. Bug fixes include keeping rEFInd out of its own menu when it's launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi; keeping the dont_scan_volumes option out of the also_scan_dirs list; a fix for dont_scan_volumes so that it applies to the OS X boot loader; and a fix for a bug that caused PNG files in a user-specified icons directory to be ignored if an ICNS file was available in the standard icons directory. New features include support for the Linux Foundation's HashTool.efi as a MOK utility, scanning for MOK utilities on all volumes, and a more verbose error message when a Secure Boot authentication failure occurs.
• 0.6.6 (1/26/2013)—This version includes two new features and a number of minor bug fixes. The first new feature is support for changing rEFInd's font via the font token in refind.conf. You're limited to monospace fonts that are encoded as PNG files; you can't use variable-width fonts or normal font files like TrueType fonts. The fonts support only ASCII characters. See the fonts section on the Theming rEFInd page for details. I've also changed the default font to a slightly larger one that's anti-aliased. The second new feature is that rEFInd now detects when the EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi (or EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi on 32-bit systems) boot loader is a duplicate of another boot loader, and automatically excludes it from the OS list. This is useful on systems that boot with Windows, since Windows tends to install its boot loader twice, once using the EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi filename. Bug fixes are described in the NEWS.txt file, and include fixes for bugs that prevented manual boot stanzas in included configuration files from being detected; that caused an ASSERT error to appear on the screen on some systems if default_selection was not set; the caused Binary is whitelisted messages to persist on the screen when loading signed EFI drivers with Secure Boot active; that caused rEFInd to ignore icon tokens in refind.conf manual boot stanzas; and that caused the install.sh script to fail to update drivers when rEFInd was installed to EFI/BOOT.
• 0.6.5 (1/16/2013)—Most of this version's changes relate to icon, graphics, and theming features. The biggest code change is in support for PNG files for banners, icons, and selection backgrounds. I've also fixed bugs that prevented large banners from being used; you can now use banners as big as the screen (or bigger, but they'll be cropped), as illustrated on the Theming rEFInd page. The text color also now automatically switches between black and white depending on the background over which it's displayed. If you don't use these features, you're likely to notice some changes in where certain elements are displayed. Most obviously, the banner appears higher on the screen than it did previously, so as to minimize the chance of overlap with text displays such as the information screen. These text displays should appear correctly even on tiny 640x480 displays (they were blank on such small displays in the past). I've added icons for Haiku and ALT Linux. Finally, the only non-graphics development is the addition of a "safe mode" boot option for OS X, which you can disable by adding safemode to the hideui option in refind.conf.
• 0.6.4 (1/8/2013)—Bug fixes motivate this release; it corrects a couple of memory management bugs in 0.6.3 that cause rEFInd to hang at startup on some computers (unfortunately not on any of mine, so I missed this). I've also made a small change to the install.sh script so that it installs the ext2fs driver rather than the ext4fs driver if the script detects that a Linux kernel is on an ext2fs or ext3fs partition. This can keep rEFInd from scanning ext4fs partitions and picking up non-functional symbolic links to vmlinuz on such partitions.
• 0.6.3 (1/6/2013)—The installation script and related tools see the biggest changes in this version of the program. The install.sh script can now detect a rEFInd installation in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot and update it rather than install to the default location of EFI/refind. It will also install to one of these fallback locations if it's run in BIOS mode, thus helping users who want to get a BIOS-mode install of Linux running on an EFI-based computer. A new mvrefind.sh script can move the installation between these three locations (or more exotic locations). Outside of scripts, the dont_scan_dirs and also_scan_dirs tokens can now accept volume specifications, as in myvol:EFI/bogus to not scan (or scan) the EFI/bogus directory on the myvol volume. I've also fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to ignore default boot loaders on removable disks if rEFInd was installed using the fallback filename. I've also modified the ISO-9660 driver so that it works with ISO-9660 images written to non-optical media. This may help with getting "hybrid ISO" images written to USB flash drives to boot.
• 0.6.2 (12/30/2012)—This version's biggest changes are "behind-the-scenes" improvements. Specifically, I've completely re-worked the shim/MOK Secure Boot code, based largely on an approach used by James Bottomley in his PreLoader boot loader. This fixes some bugs, such as the inability to launch more than one EFI boot loader in Secure Boot mode. The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with GNU-EFI, which may help distribution maintainers. I'm also providing RPM packages of rEFInd, although I recommend installing from the binary zip file. Finally, I've changed rEFInd's default text-mode setting behavior to not adjust the text mode. (Recent previous versions forced the system to use text mode 0, which cuased problems on some systems.)
• 0.6.1 (12/21/2012)—(Mayan apocalypse edition!) This version features a number of refinements and minor bug fixes. The install.sh script now includes a new --root option to enable easier installation of rEFInd to a regular OS installation from an emergency disc. The ext4fs driver now supports the meta_bg filesystem feature. I've fixed a number of obscure display resolution-setting bugs and a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying certain error messages but before prompting you to continue. Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label as the "from" location for a boot loader, rEFInd now describes the filesystem by its type (FAT, ext4fs, etc.) and/or size. rEFInd also now uses the filesystem label as a hint about what type of icon to display for a boot loader.
• 0.6.0 (12/16/2012)—The donation of a working ext4fs driver from Stefan Agner has prompted another big jump in the rEFInd version number, since this driver will greatly simplify installation on many systems: You may be able to simply run the install.sh script to get a working rEFInd that boots your Linux kernels directly, bypassing GRUB or ELILO. Other improvements in this version include bug fixes and minor changes to install.sh, the addition of hint text to the rEFInd main menu, the ability to disable the options editor via the editor option to hideui in refind.conf, a new textmode option to refind.conf to set the size of the text-mode display, a change to the code that adds your initial RAM disk to the boot options so that if you specify one manually (via refind_linux.conf), it will take precedence, and assorted obscure bug fixes. The NEWS.txt file goes into more details about many of these changes, as do the relevant pages of this HTML documentation.
• 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012)—This is a micro-update to fix a bug in the install.sh script that prevented it from working under OS X. Aside from that, and a few small documentation changes, this version changes nothing in rEFInd.
• 0.5.1 (12/11/2012)—The most important changes to this version are to the install.sh script. It now supports two options, --shim and --localkeys, to aid in installation on a Secure Boot system. See the Installing rEFInd and Managing Secure Boot pages for details. The script also now creates a sample /boot/refind_linux.conf file to assist in setting up boots via the Linux EFI stub loader. All of these install.sh improvements work only in Linux. A separate mkrlconf.sh script creates a /boot/refind_linux.conf file if it doesn't exist, for help in post-installation configuration. In rEFInd itself, I've fixed the bug that caused ELILO to be unable to locate its configuration file when launched in Secure Boot mode and fixed a couple of more obscure bugs. I've also added an include token to refind.conf, to enable you to create a secondary configuration file (say, one managed by scripts while leaving the main file untouched; or one dedicated to manual boot stanzas).
• 0.5.0 (12/6/2012)—I've focused on adding support for Matthew J. Garrett's shim program to this version of rEFInd; with this support, rEFInd is capable of launching Linux kernels and other programs signed with a suitable key while the computer is in Secure Boot mode. This initial release, however, requires significant manual configuration and has some known bugs and limitations. See the Managing Secure Boot page for details. Beyond this major new feature, this version includes several more minor improvements. These include a change to the resolution token so that it applies to text mode as well as to graphics mode; a bug fix that caused the line editor to blank out lines that were left unedited; a new dont_scan_files option to blacklist boot programs by filename; support for launching MokManager and Apple's Recovery HD partitions via tools (2nd-row) icons; new --usedefault and --drivers options to the install.sh script; a change of the esp installation script option to --esp; and the ability to use quote marks inside option strings by doubling them up.
• 0.4.7 (11/6/2012)—The most important new feature in this version is a boot options editor. From rEFInd's main menu, press Insert or F2 to see the options menu. Select one of the options and press Insert or F2 again and the screen switches to a text-mode display in which you can edit the options that will be passed to the boot loader. A second new feature is a new icon for gummiboot, which is another EFI boot manager. This version also alters the behavior of the scan_delay option, since I've been told that the previous version didn't work; the new one does. Finally, this version omits the space that followed boot options when booting most OSes. This behavior was inherited from rEFIt; a comment in the source code indicates it's needed by OS X, but I've been told it causes boot failures when launching Linux on some Macs. Thus, rEFInd now adds this space only when booting Mac OS X.
• 0.4.6 (10/6/2012)—Thanks to contributor John Bressler, rEFInd can now boot legacy (BIOS) boot loaders on many UEFI PCs. (Previously, rEFInd could do this only on Macs.) Other changes include a new scan_delay option that inserts a delay between rEFInd starting and disk scans (to help detect disks that are slow to appear to the firmware) and a change in the default scanfor value so that legacy OSes are detected by default on Macs (but not on PCs). I've also fixed some memory management problems that caused error messages to appear on some systems when rEFInd was compiled with the TianoCore EDK2 toolkit. Finally, I'm now using the TianoCore toolkit to make my primary binary builds, since the new UEFI legacy boot support requires the TianoCore environment. (rEFInd still builds with GNU-EFI, but it doesn't support booting legacy OSes on UEFI systems when built in this way.)
• 0.4.5 (8/12/2012)—This version fixes a couple of Mac-related bugs. The most important is that version 0.4.3 and 0.4.4 couldn't boot BIOS-based (aka CSM or Boot Camp) OS installations; 0.4.5 restores this important feature. The second bug is in the install.sh script, which would often fail to detect rEFItBlesser, thus leaving it enabled and causing rEFInd to fail to start after the first reboot into OS X.
• 0.4.4 (6/23/2012)—This is a bug-fix release. Most importantly, it fixes a bug in the new use_graphics_for feature; in 0.4.3, the options were set incorrectly (they just happened to work as expected on my main test configuration). I've also fixed problems with volume names in the 32-bit versions of both the drivers and the TianoCore EDK2 build of rEFInd itself. Finally, I've tweaked the install.sh script to do a better job of identifying the computer's ESP under OS X.
• 0.4.3 (6/21/2012)—The major user-visible change to this version is the addition of the use_graphics_for option, which enables you to specify the OSes that rEFInd launches in graphics mode vs. text mode. This effect is tiny on most systems, but can be important on some, as noted on the "Configuring the Boot Manager" page. There's also a change to the way graphics-mode boots are handled, to make for a slightly smoother visual transition. This version also fixes the incompatibility between the drivers and the firmware used by Macs (and probably other EFI 1.x systems). I've removed linux.conf as a valid alternative name for the refind_linux.conf file, so if you're still using the old name, now is the time to rename it! The biggest change is behind the scenes, though: I've added support for compiling rEFInd using the TianoCore EDK2, as well as the GNU-EFI toolkit that I've used up to this point. I have no intention of removing GNU-EFI support, but there's a chance that the TianoCore toolkit will help in implementing some future features or in debugging some problems. You can download either version from the downloads page.
• 0.4.2 (6/3/2012)—I've added a new dont_scan_dirs option to the configuration file, enabling creation of a directory-scanning "blacklist." See the "Configuring the Boot Manager" page for details. This version also makes a couple of changes to the install.sh script. The first is a reminder for Mac users to update refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes. The second change makes the script a bit smarter about updating NVRAM settings when run from Linux; it now attempts to make itself the default boot loader if an entry for rEFInd already exists but isn't the default. I've made this change in response to problem reports from users; apparently some distributions' GRUB update scripts make GRUB the default boot loader under all circumstances, which causes rEFInd to be taken out of the picture after a GRUB update. The previous install.sh code wouldn't add rEFInd back to the "top spot" after this happened, but the new code should do the trick. (Although re-installing rEFInd is overkill in this case, it's something many users would logically try.)
• 0.4.1 (5/25/2012)—This version provides a number of small bug fixes and improvements: When re-scanning (initiated by pressing Esc in the main menu), a message that re-scanning is occurring appears on the screen; I've fixed a bug that could cause rEFInd to appear as an option in its own menu after running a shell program and re-scanning; the install.sh script now checks for, and optionally deletes, the rEFItBlesser program when run under OS X; and the HFS+ driver now returns a volume label of HFS+ volume, rather than nothing at all (unlike other drivers, the HFS+ driver can't yet return the volume's true label).
• 0.4.0 (5/20/2012)—I've bumped up this version number more than usual to reflect the addition of four filesystem drivers (for ext2fs, ReiserFS, HFS+, and ISO-9660) to the rEFInd package. These drivers originate with the original rEFIt, VirtualBox, and Clover boot loader projects. You can learn more on the drivers page. To facilitate inclusion of drivers on the CD image, rEFInd also now supports reading drivers from architecture-specific subdirectories—drivers_x64 and drivers_ia32 for x86-64 and x86 systems, respectively. This version also adds the ability to eject removable media on some Macs (this won't work on UEFI-based PCs, unfortunately). Finally, this version fixes a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to be unable to read its configuration file in some settings when launched from rEFInd.
• 0.3.5 (5/15/2012)—This version's biggest new feature is the ability to re-scan for boot loaders after launching the program. This is done by pressing the Esc key, which causes rEFInd to re-read its configuration file, to tell the EFI to reconnect all disks, and to do a fresh scan of all disks for loaders. This is useful if you insert a removable disk after starting the computer, if rEFInd starts before a disk has fully settled, if you make a change to the configuration file, or if you manually load a driver. This version also fixes a minor bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced with a left-pointing arrow under some circumstances; and I've removed the scan for a BIOS Boot Partition that I added in 0.3.2, since I'm told it isn't launching correctly. (BIOS-mode GRUB 2 can still be launched on Macs from its boot code in the MBR.)
• 0.3.4 (5/9/2012)—The biggest change to this version is the addition of the icons_dir configuration file token, which enables you to specify a directory that holds icons that override those in the default icons subdirectory. See the Theming rEFInd and Configuring the Boot Manager pages for details. This version also reduces flicker when moving your selection around the screen and modifies the install.sh script so that it can be used directly after building rEFInd from source code. Related to this, building from source now creates a binary that includes an architecture code—refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi rather than refind.efi.
• 0.3.3 (5/6/2012)—I've focused on user interface improvements for this release. The biggest improvement is in the text-mode interface, which suffered from assorted display glitches in previous releases. These have now been fixed, so the text-mode interface should be more usable. I've also fine-tuned the use of keyboard keys, particularly in graphical mode. The up and down arrow keys now move between the two rows of the display, and Page Up and Page Down scroll the first row if it's too big for the display. (They'll also move between rows, but only when at the end of the first row or the start of the second.) Returning from a failed loader or a tool or built-in function now renders that tag as the currently-selected item, rather than setting the default loader as active, as happened with previous versions.
• 0.3.2 (5/4/2012)—rEFInd's core functionality changes very little with this version; I've tweaked the detection of BIOS-mode boot loaders to keep unbootable FAT partitions created under Linux and Windows out of the boot list, while adding detection of GRUB BIOS Boot Partitions to the list. I've also made a change that improves screen-clearing when launching EFI utilities and OSes in text mode. The major change to this version is the addition of a new Linux/OS X installation script, install.sh. In most cases, this makes it possible to install rEFInd simply by typing ./install.sh from the rEFInd package directory; however, you should see the Installing rEFInd page for details. In some cases, manual installation may still be required. Also, you may prefer to copy over the old rEFInd program file with the new one when upgrading.
• 0.3.1 (4/27/2012)—You'll find a few minor enhancements and bug fixes in this version, none of which affect the configuration files. rEFInd now sorts its boot loader entries within each directory by date, with the newest items first. The intent is that you can specify a directory name as the default_selection and the most recent boot loader in that directory will become the default. This may obviate the need to adjust the default after adding a new Linux kernel with EFI stub loader support. I've also improved the handling of .icns files for Linux kernels that lack .efi extensions; loader-specific icons for these kernels should now take the name of the kernel plus .icns—for instance, vmlinuz-0.3.2.icns for vmlinuz-0.3.2. rEFInd also now hides all .icns files from the boot loader list. Finally, this version fixes a bug, introduced in version 0.3.0, that could cause spurious Unsupported while scanning the root directory errors under some conditions on Macs.
• 0.3.0 (4/22/2012)—This version marks the official transition from alpha to beta status for rEFInd. This isn't because of any important objective milestone being passed; it's just that rEFInd has been used by many people who have reported no show-stopping bugs, so I'm now confident that rEFInd is stable enough for general use. That's not to say it's perfect; it still has numerous known bugs and limitations. That's why it's still beta. To get down to specifics, this version adds two new configuration file tokens: resolution, which sets the screen resolution; and scan_all_linux_kernels, which adds Linux kernel files to the boot loader list even if they lack .efi filename extensions. See the Configuring the Boot Manager page for details on these new options. I've also fixed some bugs: One that sometimes caused Macs to crash when returning from the EFI shell or other programs; another that caused rEFInd to fail to scan filesystems if the filesystem driver didn't return a volume name; and a third that caused rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders depending on the case of the filename on some EFIs (this is really a workaround for an EFI implementation bug). The first of these is a very tentative fix and it could have negative effects on some systems (non-Mac EFI 1.x systems or Macs that weren't affected by the bug in other recent releases), so be sure to contact me if rEFInd crashes or otherwise misbehaves after you use an EFI shell.
• 0.2.7 (4/19/2012)—I've added two new tokens to the refind.conf file, with associated new functionality. The new scan_driver_dirs option tells rEFInd where to scan for EFI drivers, in addition to the default of the drivers subdirectory of the rEFInd installation directory. For more on EFI drivers, see Using EFI Drivers. Note that previous versions of rEFInd couldn't load drivers at all, although they could make use of hardware and filesystems activated by drivers loaded before rEFInd launched. The second new token is also_scan_dirs, which adds arbitrary directories to the list that rEFInd scans for boot loaders. (Without this option, rEFInd scans each volume's boot directory and every subdirectory of the /EFI directory, with the exception of /EFI/tools and rEFInd's own directory.) This version also fixes a minor bug that caused rEFInd to sometimes include itself in the list of OS options. Finally, if you build rEFInd yourself, you should be aware that it now requires a newer version of the GNU-EFI library than it required in the past. See the BUILDING.txt file, included in the source code package, for details.
• 0.2.6 (4/14/2012)—This version provides one bug fix and one new feature. The bug was introduced in version 0.2.5 and prevents rEFInd from identifying a Linux initial RAM disk file on some (but not all) EFI implementations. The new feature is the volume stanza token, which enables you to manually load a boot program from a filesystem other than the one from which rEFInd launched. You can specify a volume either by its label (as in volume KERNELS to load from the volume with a filesystem name KERNELS) or by number followed by a colon (as in volume 0: for the first filesystem or volume 1: for the second). See the Configuring the Boot Manager page for more on this new feature.
• 0.2.5 (4/9/2012)—Icon-handling improvements are key in this version. I've fixed a bug that caused icons to be replaced with ugly "not-found" default icons when rEFInd was launched in certain ways. I've also added support for .VolumeIcon.icns and .VolumeBadge.icns files to set loader tags and disk-type badges, respectively. (See the configuration page for details.) I've also fixed a bug that prevented rEFInd from finding the correct initial RAM disk for Linux kernels stored in the root directory of a partition.
• 0.2.4 (4/5/2012)—This version adds support for a new location for EFI shells (shellarch.efi in the ESP's root directory. It also adds two new refind.conf options: showtools and max_tags, and removes another one (disable). The options available in hideui are now essentially a combination of what disable and hideui did, minus functionality now present in showtools. I made these changes to reduce redundancy and to increase flexibility. See the Configuring the Boot Manager page for details.
• 0.2.3 (3/26/2012)—I've changed the Linux kernel configuration filename from linux.conf to refind_linux.conf with this version, to avoid a name collision with a planned future Linux kernel ability to read its options from a file called linux.conf. This version also includes a tentative bug fix for a problem that caused rEFInd to hang upon launching the second program (say, a boot loader after using a shell) on some systems; but on some computers, this fix causes an (apparently harmless) error message about "(re)opening our installation volume" upon returning from the first program. I've also added a logo for Arch Linux.
• 0.2.2 (3/23/2012)—This version fixes three bugs: One caused submenus to not appear on systems with screens of 800x600 or smaller; another caused rEFInd to hang when boot loader names were too long; and the third caused the program to fail when Linux kernels and their initial RAM disk files lacked version numbers.
• 0.2.1 (3/19/2012)—This version adds the ability to auto-scan Linux kernels with EFI stub loader support, provided a suitable linux.conf file exists in the kernel's directory. It also adds support for manual specification of submenus in refind.conf.
• 0.2.0 (3/14/2012)—This is the program's initial public release. It's based on rEFIt 0.14 plus a large number of patches taken from Debian's Linux-compilable rEFIt package. I then added UEFI-specific fixes, support for OS definition stanzas in the configuration file, a scrolling icon list on the main menu, and other minor improvements. This release has quite a few known bugs and limitations.

copyright © 2012–2015 by Roderick W. Smith

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