<p class="subhead">by Roderick W. Smith, <a
href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
- <p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update: 4/9/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.2.5</p>
+<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
+12/18/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.6.0</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>
<hr />
-<p><b>Note:</b> I consider rEFInd to be <i>alpha-quality software!</i> Although rEFIt 0.14, upon which rEFInd is based, is beta-quality, I've changed a great deal of the code, and I'm still learning about it. I'm discovering bugs (old and new) and fixing them every day or two. That said, rEFInd is a usable program in its current form on many systems. If you have problems, feel free to drop me a line.</p>
+<p><b>Note:</b> I consider rEFInd to be <i>beta-quality software!</i> I'm discovering bugs (old and new) and fixing them every few days. That said, rEFInd is a usable program in its current form on many systems. If you have problems, feel free to drop me a line.</p>
<h2>Getting rEFInd from Sourceforge</h2>
-<p>You can find the rEFInd source code and binary packages at <a href="http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/refind/">its SourceForge page.</a> Note that rEFInd is OS-independent—it runs before the OS, so you download the same binary package for any OS. You can obtain rEFInd in three different forms:</p>
+<p>You can find the rEFInd source code and binary packages at <a href="http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/refind/">its SourceForge page.</a> Note that rEFInd is OS-independent—it runs before the OS, so you download the same binary package for any OS. You can obtain rEFInd in four different forms:</p>
<ul>
-<li><b><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.2.5/refind-src-0.2.5.zip/download">A
+<li><b><a
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.6.0/refind-src-0.6.0.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. 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/0.2.5/refind-bin-0.2.5.zip/download">A
- binary zip file</a></b>—Download this if you want to install rEFInd 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/0.2.5/refind-cd-0.2.5.zip/download">A
- CD-R image file</a></b>—This download contains the same files as the
- zip file, but you can burn it to a CD-R to test rEFInd without installing it
- first. (It boots on UEFI PCs, but fails on at least some 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. Note that there's a
- bug that causes rEFInd to complain about invalid parameters while scanning
- various directories. You can safely ignore this message, but you'll need to
- press a key to dismiss it. 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.</li>
+ 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/0.6.0/refind-bin-0.6.0.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/0.4.7/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, and perhaps the <tt>--alldrivers</tt> option, as in <tt class="userinput">bash install.sh --usedefault /dev/sdd1 --alldrivers</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/0.6.0/refind-cd-0.6.0.zip/download">A
+ CD-R image file</a></b>—This download contains the same files as
+ 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
+ be an extremely valuable diagnostic tool if you know how to use an EFI
+ shell.</li>
+
+<li><b><a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/refind/code">Source code via
+ git</a></b>—If you want to peruse the source code in your Web
+ browser or get the very latest version (including pre-release bug fixes
+ and updates), you can use the Sourceforge git repository. This access
+ method is most useful to programmers, or at least to those who are
+ familiar with programming tools. Note that if you need to ask "what's
+ git?", this is probably not the best way for you to obtain rEFInd.</li>
</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>
If you download a zip file, you'll need to extract the files with 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>
+<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>
<p>You should be able to create a bootable USB flash drive from either the binary zip file or the CD-R image file; just treat the flash drive as if it were a hard disk and install rEFInd as described on the <a href="installing.html">installation page.</a> Using the fallback boot loader name of <tt>EFI/boot/bootx64.efi</tt> is likely to be the most useful way to install rEFInd to a removable medium.</p>
<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="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=57632">stable</a> and <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=57966">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>
-<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>
+<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>
+
+<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>