Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update: 3/23/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.2.2
+
Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
+12/12/2015, referencing rEFInd 0.10.1
-
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!
+
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!
rEFInd is far from perfect. It's based on rEFIt, which has an list of active bugs on its project page on Sourceforge. I have not studied this bug list in detail for rEFInd's first release, although I've probably fixed a few of those bugs because I encountered them myself. Other bugs I may never fix because I lack the necessary hardware for testing.
+
rEFInd is far from perfect. It's based on rEFIt, which has a list of active bugs on its project page on Sourceforge. I have not studied this bug list in detail for rEFInd's first release, although I've probably fixed a few of those bugs because I encountered them myself. Other bugs I may never fix because I lack the necessary hardware for testing.
This page exists to document some of rEFInd's known bugs and limitations, as well as features I hope to add in the future. Some of the items on this list are things that you may be able to help with, so if you'd like to contribute, feel free to drop me a line!
-
Without further ado, then, and in no particular order:
+
The following list groups things that need to be done into broad categories. In some cases, there's some ambiguity about how an item might best be classified. Without further ado, then:
-
Testing! rEFIt was complex enough that changes such as the ones I've made have the potential to disrupt the program's operation in unexpected ways. I can only test on a handful of systems with a limited number of configurations. Therefore, if you try rEFInd and run into bugs, please report them to me!
-
-
I have little talent with graphics manipulation programs, so rEFInd's boot logo, such as it is, is pretty weak. If you have artistic talent and would like to create a rEFInd logo, please feel free to send it to me. I won't make any final decision about changes until at least June 30 of 2012.
-
-
rEFIt's original design, and hence rEFInd's design, enables easy
-theming by replacing icon files. If you'd like to design a new theme for
-rEFInd, feel free to submit it. I might or might not replace the icons it
-uses now (most of which come from the Oxygen Icons package), but I may
-provide a way to make selecting a theme from one of several installed
-themes easy, and provide links to themes on this Web site (or even host
-them on the project's Sourceforge page). Note that rEFInd currently
-supports only BMP format and ICNS format graphics files, and the former
-aren't very useful for icons because they lack transparency support. ICNS
-is an Apple format, and many Mac tools support it. In Linux, you can
-convert PNG images to ICNS format by using the libicns library's png2icns
-program. I'm not sure what you'd use in Windows to create ICNS files.
-
-
The code could be more flexible in its handling of the sizes of various graphical elements, and particularly drawn text. Prior to version 0.2.2, submenu text was invisible on UEFI-based PCs with 800x600 and smaller displays because of an inability to properly crop the graphics fields that hold the text. With version 0.2.2, I've put a band-aid on this problem by reducing the field size so that it now works on 800x600 displays, but smaller displays still suffer from this problem. This is just an example of the inflexibility of certain layout issues within rEFInd.
-
-
On some (but not all) EFIs, launching a program from rEFInd, exiting that program, and then launching another program from rEFInd results in a system hang. This should obviously be fixed; it makes it hard to use a shell and then launch an OS without rebooting, or to exit from a loader that permits exiting.
-
-
I want to be able to specify the volume on which a boot loader resides in refind.conf. (As it is, manually-defined options can only launch boot loader files on the same volume as rEFInd.)
-
-
It would be useful to be able to specify paths to boot loaders and/or initial RAM disks relative to the rEFInd directory (or the boot loader's directory, in the case of initrds).
-
-
I don't like the disable and hideui options in refind.conf. I'd like to replace them with a positive option listing for utilities, similar to scanfor (which in fact replaces other "hide" options in rEFIt).
-
-
There's currently no way to create a manual boot stanza for a BIOS-booted OS. This isn't a big priority for me personally, but I can see how it could be for some people.
-
-
The Page Up and Page Down keys work in a rather strange way—a result of an admittedly quick fix on my part to a problem with a data structure that makes implementation of scrolling harder than it ought to be.
-
-
I'd like to find a way to enable users to enter customizations for boot options and then save them to the refind.conf file.
+
Tasks with which non-programmers can help:
+
+
+
+
Testing! rEFIt was complex enough that changes such as the ones
+ I've made have the potential to disrupt the program's operation in
+ unexpected ways. Since the initial 0.2.0 release, I've continued to
+ add features to rEFInd, and every new feature is another way for
+ bugs to get into the program. I can only test on a handful of
+ systems with a limited number of configurations. Therefore, if you
+ try rEFInd and run into bugs, please report them to me!
+
+
rEFIt's original design, and hence rEFInd's design, enables easy
+ theming by replacing icon files. If you'd like to design a new
+ theme for rEFInd, feel free to submit it. I might or might not
+ replace the icons it uses now (most of which come from the Oxygen
+ Icons package), but I may provide links to themes on this Web site
+ (or even host them on the project's Sourceforge page). For more
+ information on designing themes for rEFInd, see the Theming rEFInd page.
+
+
+
+
Improvements to existing features:
+
+
+
+
As described in reference to version 0.9.2 on the Revisions page, rEFInd includes a
+ delicate and hackish workaround to a problem introduced by Shim
+ 0.8. Developing a better solution to that problem is a high
+ priority.
+
+
The support for booting legacy (BIOS) OSes on UEFI-based PCs
+ currently has a number of limitations. Most importantly, it works
+ off of the list of boot devices stored in the computer's NVRAM. I'd
+ prefer to have it scan disks and partitions, as the Mac's legacy
+ boot support does. Also, the UEFI legacy boot code presents empty
+ optical drives and uses generic icons rather than OS-specific
+ icons.
+
+
rEFInd's Makefiles and, to a lesser extent, C code,
+ support x86, x86-64, and ARM64 CPUs. EFI is also
+ available for Itanium (IA-64) and ARM32 CPUs, so I'd like to add
+ this support.
+
+
Currently, rEFInd can detect whether it's compiled for x86,
+ x86-64, or ARM64 systems and displays this information in
+ its "About" screen (AboutrEFInd() in main.c). I'd
+ like to add detection for Itanium and 32-bit ARM systems, but I
+ have no way to test such changes.
+
+
Further to the preceding, rEFInd's GPT-scanning code (used to
+ extract partition names) includes assumptions about byte order, and
+ so will work only on little-endian CPUs such as the x86 and
+ x86-64.
+
+
A way to set the color of the font would be useful for theming
+ purposes.
+
+
The program's font features could be greatly improved by enabling
+ use of a standard font format, by enabling use of non-ASCII
+ characters, and by enabling use of variable-width as well as
+ monospace fonts.
+
+
The default_selection might be expanded to support some
+ form of specification of disk types, as in a special entry for any
+ optical disk or any external disk, no matter what its name is.
+
+
It would be useful to be able to specify paths to boot loaders
+ and/or initial RAM disks relative to the rEFInd directory (or the
+ boot loader's directory, in the case of initrds).
+
+
Currently the background for certain subscreens (such as the
+ information page or submenu listings) is a solid color based on the
+ upper-left corner of the screen. Having an option to support a
+ transparent background is desirable to some users.
+
+
When delivering rEFInd as a boot loader from a network server,
+ rEFInd is limited to its default options and can boot only local
+ OSes, not network OSes. The cause is that the server delivers a
+ single file, so rEFInd is divorced from its configuration and
+ support files.
+
+
A way to identify specific Windows versions and present unique
+ icons or change the text is desirable. Currently, a crude
+ distinction of XP and earlier vs. Vista and later is possible for
+ BIOS-booting on Macs, but no such distinction is made for EFI-mode
+ booting, and nothing finer-grained is attempted. Improvements will
+ probably require identifying unique features of each version's boot
+ loader files or boot sector code.
+
+
+
+
Known bugs that need squashing:
+
+
+
+
I've been receiving reports of blank screens when using rEFInd on
+ some recent Mac models. I've investigated this with the help of one
+ user, and I suspect that Apple has made changes to its firmware
+ that are likely to affect just about any EFI program. I don't have
+ a definitive solution, but at least one user has reported that
+ removing rEFInd's drivers has caused the problem to go into
+ remission.
+
+
Some EFIs have bugs that cause the allegedly case-insensitive
+ StriCmp() function to perform a case-sensitive comparison.
+ This causes any number of bugs in file matching. For instance:
+ Changing the case of icon filename extensions (or various other
+ parts of icon filenames) causes icons to be replaced by ugly
+ "generic" ones; and rEFInd sometimes appears in its own menu (the
+ firmware sometimes returns an all-caps version of the filename, but
+ other times returns the filename with the correct case, causing a
+ mismatch if the path includes lowercase elements). This problem is
+ worse when compiling rEFInd with GNU-EFI than with Tianocore.
+ Version 0.9.1 has made improvements on this score, but some issues
+ may continue to lurk.
+
+
The Shutdown option works correctly on Macs, but not on many UEFI-based
+ PCs. On such systems, Shutdown reboots the computer. This should be
+ fixed.
+
+
The media-ejection feature (F12) should be extended to work on
+ UEFI-based PCs and early Macs. At the moment, it relies on an
+ Apple-specific EFI extension, and I know of no standard EFI way to
+ do it.
+
+
A couple of Mac users have reported that the brightness-adjustment
+ features in Windows don't work when Windows is booted via rEFInd,
+ but that these features do work when Windows is booted via the
+ Mac's built-in boot manager. Unfortunately, I have no idea what
+ causes this problem, I have no Windows installation on my one
+ (elderly) Mac, and I have no way to debug it. Therefore, it's
+ unlikely that I'll be able to fix this problem myself; but if you
+ have the equipment and skill to do so, I'd be interested in
+ receiving a patch.
+
+
If you use a true MBR disk on a Mac to boot Windows or some other
+ BIOS-only OS, and if that disk has an extended partition, bogus
+ additional BIOS/legacy-bootable options may appear in the rEFInd
+ menu. The reason appears to be a bug in the handling of
+ extended/logical partitions in the refind/lib.c file, but
+ I haven't fully tracked it down.
+
+
The re-scan feature occasionally produces odd results, such as
+ ignoring new media or keeping old media that have been ejected.
+ This should be investigated and fixed.
+
+
The "scanning for new boot loaders" message that appears during the
+ re-scan feature is primitive. Some sort of dynamic icon would be
+ nice, but perhaps impractical, given the single-tasking nature of
+ EFI.
+
+
On my Mac Mini, launching a shell, returning, and performing a
+ re-scan causes the system to be unable to launch the shell again. I
+ have not observed this behavior on UEFI-based PCs. It seems to be
+ caused by a truncated DevicePath to the shell, which includes the
+ shell's pathname but not the device identifier.
+
+
When specifying a volume by name in dont_scan_dirs,
+ slashes are converted to backslashes in the specification but not
+ in the actual volume name read from disk. Thus, you can't specify a
+ volume by name if it includes a slash (as in Fedora
+ /boot). Workarounds are to rename the volume to omit the slash
+ and to use a filesystem number rather than a volume label.
+
+
The code is in need of review to search for memory leaks and
+ similar problems.
+
+
If the user has a Linux software RAID 1 array with Btrfs, HFS+,
+ or FAT filesystem, rEFInd will detect kernels or boot loaders in
+ RAID 1 twice. Checks to prevent this with ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS
+ already exist; these checks could be expanded to block such
+ duplication with more filesystems.
+
+
Some Macs experience problems with waking up from suspend states
+ when rEFInd is installed. Unfortunately, I lack the hardware to
+ test and experiment with this (my only Intel-based Mac doesn't
+ exhibit this problem), so I can't fix this myself. Using
+ pmset to disable the autopoweroff option is
+ claimed
+ by some to at least partially fix the problem, though. Using
+ the --ownhfs installation option may also help in some
+ cases.
+
+
If you activate BIOS-mode support on UEFI-based PCs, you may find
+ multiple copies of the BIOS-mode loaders added to your firmware's
+ boot manager. Only one copy shows up in rEFInd, though.
+
+
+
+
New features I'd like to add:
+
+
+
+
There's currently no way to create a manual boot stanza for a
+ BIOS-booted OS. This isn't a big priority for me personally, but I
+ can see how it could be for some people.
+
+
I'd like to find a way to enable users to enter customizations for
+ boot options and then save them to the refind.conf file.
+ One possible way to implement this would be to have manual boot
+ stanzas override auto-detected boot loader definitions for the same
+ boot loader file.
+
+
Along similar lines, some users have asked for a way to take
+ detected boot programs and create a set of manual boot stanzas for
+ them, so that they can be modified manually.
+
+
Support for touchscreens and/or configurable buttons for rEFInd's
+ actions would enable use of rEFInd on tablet computers that lack
+ complete keyboards.
+
+
The ability to rotate the display for users who rotate their
+ monitors or who use tablets would be helpful.
+
+
GRUB provides a configuration-file command called outb
+ that enables manipulating hardware registers. Something similar,
+ via the mm command, can be done in the EFI shell. I'd like
+ to add such a feature to rEFInd, since it enables doing things like
+ disabling one or another video output on Macs with two video
+ cards.
+
+
I have thoughts about creating an EFI configuration tool and
+ information utility—something to tell you about your hard
+ disks, enable you to manage MOKs, adjust boot loader priority in
+ the NVRAM, and so on. This would be useful in system maintenance
+ and in recovering from boot problems.
+
+
An installation tool for the EFI environment would be useful.
+ A simple EFI shell script might work, but because this function
+ requires access to the bcfg command, this would work
+ only from a version 2 shell or if bcfg were implemented
+ as a standalone program. Another alternative would be a program
+ written in C.
+
+
It should be possible to override specific auto-detected boot
+ loader settings—say, to disable one specific boot loader or
+ change its icon.
+
+
A GUI configuration tool for host OSes (Linux, OS X, Windows, etc.)
+ would be nice, but it's low on my personal priority list. If you'd
+ like to contribute, I prefer something written in a cross-platform
+ GUI toolkit, so that a single code base can be used on any of the
+ major OSes.
+
+
The ability to produce audio output (at least a simple "beep") to signal
+ to visually impaired users when rEFInd is ready to accept input would be
+ helpful.
+
+
+
+
Improvements to the EFI drivers:
+
+
+
+
Drivers for additional filesystems are desirable. Only XFS and JFS
+ are missing from the major Linux filesystems. UDF would also be a
+ welcome addition, as might drivers for other OSes (say, for the
+ BSDs, especially if BSD developers create a boot loader similar to
+ Linux's EFI stub loader). Also along these lines, adding drivers
+ for Linux LVM and RAID setups would be useful.
+
+
This may not be possible, or it may require a new driver, but a way
+ to have the drivers access files (like a Linux loopback mount) is
+ desirable.
+
+
When built with the GNU-EFI package, an attempt to load more than
+ one driver on my 32-bit Mac Mini causes the computer to hang. I do
+ not have this problem with 64-bit drivers on my UEFI-based
+ computers. I don't know if this is a 32-bit issue or a Mac issue.
+ This is not relevant if you're using my binary package,
+ since I build it with the TianoCore EDK2, and the drivers built in
+ that way don't exhibit this bug.
+
+
-
It should be possible to override specific auto-detected boot loader settings—say, to disable one specific boot loader or change its icon.
+
Improvements to gptsync, refind-install, or other
+ support tools:
-
A way to read boot options set via efibootmgr, bless, or similar options from NVRAM to add to the boot set would be useful.
+
-
A way to examine and change the NVRAM settings could be useful. This would enable a CD-based boot of rEFInd to fix a broken disk boot. Perhaps this could be done via a separate tool that could be launched much like the shell or gptsync.
+
The gptsync program can return misleading error codes
+ under some circumstances, such as when it makes no changes to the
+ partition table. Fix this.
-
I'd like to find a way to get rEFInd to launch BIOS boot loaders on UEFI-based systems. This option currently works only on Macs—or at least, I've not gotten it to work on any of my UEFI-based PCs.
+
rEFInd's support for network booting is primitive and relies on the
+ external iPXE package. In my own testing, iPXE retrieves the
+ BIOS-mode boot loader from some servers that offer both, which
+ makes it useless on those networks.
-
I'd like to find a way to have rEFInd re-scan removable media when they're inserted.
+
A Mac-specific package is highly desirable.
-
The code is in need of review to search for memory leaks and similar problems.
+