href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-6/23/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.4.4</p>
+12/12/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.5.1.1</p>
<p>I'm a technical writer and consultant specializing in Linux technologies. This Web page is provided free of charge and with no annoying outside ads; however, I did take time to prepare it, and Web hosting does cost money. If you find this Web page useful, please consider making a small donation to help keep this site up and running. Thanks!</p>
<ul>
-<li><b><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.4/refind-src-0.4.4.zip/download">A
+<li><b><a
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.5.1.1/refind-src-0.5.1.1.zip/download">A
source code zip file</a></b>—This is useful if you want to
compile the software locally. Note that I use Linux with the <a
- href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnu-efi">GNU-EFI</a> development
- tools to build the main rEFInd binary, and Linux with the <a
- href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/tianocore/">TianoCore
- development kit</a> for the drivers. rEFIt used an Intel/Microsoft
+ href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/tianocore/">TianoCore EFI
+ Development Kit 2 (EDK2)</a> to build my binaries (below), although the
+ <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnu-efi">GNU-EFI</a>
+ development tools are also supported. rEFIt used an Intel/Microsoft
toolchain. Backporting rEFInd to that toolchain is theoretically
possible, but I've not attempted it.</li>
<li><b><a
- href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.4/refind-bin-0.4.4.zip/download">A
- binary zip file (built with GNU-EFI)</a></b>—Download this if you
- want to install rEFInd and/or its filesystem drivers on an <i>x</i>86
- or <i>x</i>86-64 computer and have no need to test rEFInd first by
- booting it on an optical disc. This zip file package includes both
- <i>x</i>86 (aka IA32) and <i>x</i>86-64 (aka <i>x</i>64, AMD64, or
- EM64T) versions of rEFInd. Which you install depends on your
- architecture, as described on the <a href="installing.html">Installing
- rEFInd</a> page.</li>
-
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.5.1.1/refind-bin-0.5.1.1.zip/download">A
+ binary zip file</a></b>—Download this if you want to install
+ rEFInd and/or its filesystem drivers on an <i>x</i>86 or <i>x</i>86-64
+ computer and have no need to test rEFInd first by booting it on an
+ optical disc. This zip file package includes both <i>x</i>86 (aka IA32)
+ and <i>x</i>86-64 (aka <i>x</i>64, AMD64, or EM64T) versions of rEFInd.
+ Which you install depends on your architecture, as described on the <a
+ href="installing.html">Installing rEFInd</a> page.</li>
+
+<!--
<li><b><a
- href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.4/refind-bin-tiano-0.4.4.zip/download">A
- binary zip file (built with TianoCore EDK2)</a></b>—This package
- is just like the preceding one, except that it was built using the
- TianoCore EFI Development Kit 2 (EDK2) rather than the GNU-EFI that was
- used to build the other binary. In theory, the two should work
- identically. In practice, they might not. I originally used GNU-EFI to
- develop rEFInd, so it's the safer version; however, I would appreciate
- feedback about the TianoCore EDK2 build.</li>
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.7/refind-bin-gnuefi-0.4.7.zip/download">A
+ binary zip file (built with GNU-EFI)</a></b>—This package is just
+ like the preceding one, except that it was built using the GNU-EFI
+ development kit rather than the TianoCore EFI Development Kit 2 (EDK2)
+ that was used to build the other binary. I originally used GNU-EFI to
+ develop rEFInd, but the GNU-EFI toolkit doesn't support the legacy
+ (BIOS-mode) boot calls on UEFI-based PCs, so I now consider the
+ TianoCore build to be the primary one. (Macs can boot legacy OSes using
+ either build.)</li>
+-->
+
+<p class="sidebar"><b>Tip:</b> If you want a bootable USB flash drive, download the binary zip file or CD-R image file, prepare a USB flash drive with a FAT32 ESP, and then use the <tt>install.sh</tt> program's <tt>--usedefault</tt> option, as in <tt class="userinput">bash install.sh --usedefault /dev/sdd1</tt> to install to the first partition on <tt>/dev/sdd</tt>. This procedure should work even on a BIOS-booted computer.</p>
<li><b><a
- href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.4/refind-cd-0.4.4.zip/download">A
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.5.1.1/refind-cd-0.5.1.1.zip/download">A
CD-R image file</a></b>—This download contains the same files as
- the GNU-EFI zip file, but you can burn it to a CD-R to test rEFInd (and its
- filesystem drivers) without installing it first. (It boots on UEFI PCs,
- but fails on some older Macs.) If you like it, you can then copy the
- files from the CD-R to your hard disk. The files are named in such a
- way that the disc should boot on either 64-bit (<i>x</i>86-64) or
- 32-bit (<i>x</i>86) EFI computers. I've included an open source EFI
+ the binary zip file, but you can burn it to a CD-R to test rEFInd
+ (and its filesystem drivers) without installing it first. (It boots on
+ UEFI PCs, but fails on some older Macs.) If you like it, you can then
+ copy the files from the CD-R to your hard disk. The files are named in
+ such a way that the disc should boot on either 64-bit (<i>x</i>86-64)
+ or 32-bit (<i>x</i>86) EFI computers. I've included an open source EFI
shell program on this disc that's not included in the binary zip file,
so that you can access an EFI shell from a bootable disc even if you
don't have an EFI shell available from your regular hard disk. This can
</ul>
-<p>If you're using another platform, you can give rEFInd a try; however, you'll need to build it from source code yourself or track down a binary from another source. (Perhaps by the time you read this it will be included in Linux distributions built for unusual CPUs.)</p>
+<p>If you're using a platform other than <i>x</i>86 or <i>x</i>86-64, you can give rEFInd a try; however, you'll need to build it from source code yourself or track down a binary from another source. (Perhaps by the time you read this it will be included in Linux distributions built for unusual CPUs.)</p>
<p>To extract the files from the zip file images I've provided, you'll need a tool such as <tt>unzip</tt>, which is included with Linux and Mac OS X. Numerous Windows utilities also support this format, such as <a href="http://www.pkware.com/software/pkzip/">PKZIP</a> and <a href="http://www.7-zip.org/">7-Zip.</a></p>
<h2>Getting rEFInd from Your OS's Repositories</h2>
-<p>If you use Arch Linux, you can obtain rEFInd from its repositories, in both <a href="http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/any/refind-efi-x86_64/">stable</a> and <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=59810">git (experimental)</a> releases. The git release is likely to include pre-release bug fixes and new features, but those features may be poorly tested or undocumented.</p>
+<p>I know of a small number of pre-packaged versions of rEFInd, either in official OS repositories or in ancillary repositories:</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li><b>Arch Linux</b>—You can obtain rEFInd from the Arch
+ repositories, in both a stable version (the <tt>refind-efi</tt> package
+ installable via <tt>pacman</tt>) and an experimental release built from
+ rEFInd's git repository in the Arch User Repository (AUR), under the
+ name <tt>refind-efi-git</tt>. The git release is likely to include
+ pre-release bug fixes and new features, but those features may be
+ poorly tested or undocumented. The last I checked, both builds used the
+ Tianocore toolkit, and so support booting BIOS/legacy boot loaders on
+ UEFI-based PCs.</li>
-<p>You can also obtain rEFInd from the <a href="http://nixos.org/nixpkgs/">Nix Packages collection,</a> which creates packages for a number of OSes using its own packaging system.</p>
+<li><b>The <a href="http://nixos.org/nixpkgs/">Nix Packages
+ collection</a></b>—This site creates packages for a number of
+ OSes using its own packaging system.</li>
+
+<li><b><a
+ href="https://build.opensuse.org/package/show?package=refind&project=home%3Amichael-chang%3AUEFI">OpenSUSE
+ Build Service (OBS)</a></b>—This site holds a binary x86-64 build
+ of rEFInd that should install on any RPM-based distribution. It doesn't
+ completely set up rEFInd, though; it just places the rEFInd files in
+ the <tt>/usr/share/refind</tt> directory, and a copy of
+ <tt>install.sh</tt> as <tt>/usr/sbin/refind_install</tt>.
+ Unfortunately, the script makes assumptions about the locations of
+ files and so is useless when files are moved around in this way. Thus,
+ you'll need to install manually after installing this RPM, so you might
+ as well download the rEFInd binary <tt>.zip</tt> file from Sourceforge
+ instead.</li>
+
+</ul>
<p>To the best of my knowledge, no other Linux distribution yet includes rEFInd in its repositories. That's likely to change in time. If you hear of rEFInd being included in an OS's official package set, feel free to <a href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">drop me a line.</a></p>