href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-10/6/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.4.6</p>
+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>
<ul>
<li><b><a
- href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.6/refind-src-0.4.6.zip/download">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="https://sourceforge.net/projects/tianocore/">TianoCore EFI
possible, but I've not attempted it.</li>
<li><b><a
- href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.6/refind-bin-0.4.6.zip/download">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
<!--
<li><b><a
- href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.6/refind-bin-gnuefi-0.4.6.zip/download">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)
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/0.4.6/refind-cd-0.4.6.zip/download">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
<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>