Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-12/30/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.6.2
+6/24/2016, referencing rEFInd 0.10.3
-
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+
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!
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.10.3/refind-bin-0.10.3.zip/download">A
+ binary zip file—Download this if you want to install rEFInd
+ and/or its filesystem drivers on an x86, x86-64, or ARM64
+ computer and have no need to test rEFInd first by booting it on an optical
+ disc. This zip file package includes x86 (aka IA32), x86-64
+ (aka x64, AMD64, or EM64T), and ARM64 (aka AARCH64 or AA64) versions
+ of rEFInd. Which you install depends on your architecture, as described on
+ the Installing rEFInd page. Some users of Arch
+ Linux have reported problems booting some specific Arch Linux kernels with
+ rEFInd and some other tools. For them, a variant
+ package exists in which the x86-64 binary was compiled with
+ GNU-EFI rather than the usual TianoCore EDK2. This change helps some users
+ with this problem.
A
- binary zip file—Download this if you want to install
- rEFInd and/or its filesystem drivers on an x86 or x86-64
- computer and have no need to test rEFInd first by booting it on an
- optical disc. This zip file package includes both x86 (aka IA32)
- and x86-64 (aka x64, AMD64, or EM64T) versions of rEFInd.
- Which you install depends on your architecture, as described on the Installing rEFInd page.
-
-
-
-
Tip: 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 partition, and then use the install.sh program's --usedefault option, and perhaps the --alldrivers option, as in bash install.sh --usedefault /dev/sdd1 --alldrivers to install to the first partition on /dev/sdd. This procedure should work even on a BIOS-booted computer.
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.10.3/refind_0.10.3-1_amd64.deb/download">A
+ binary Debian package—If you use an x86-64 version
+ of Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, or another Debian-based distribution, you can
+ install from this package, which was converted from the binary RPM
+ package using alien. Note that an Ubuntu
+ PPA is available, which may install more smoothly and will cause
+ rEFInd to automatically update with other packages.
+
+
Note: At the moment, neither the bootable CD-R image file nor the bootable USB flash drive image file supports booting with Secure Boot active. The x86-64 version of the ALT Linux Rescue disc uses a Secure Boot-enabled rEFInd, though, so you may find that useful in some situations.
A
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.10.3/refind-cd-0.10.3.zip/download">A
CD-R image file—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
@@ -146,33 +189,39 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
be an extremely valuable diagnostic tool if you know how to use an EFI
shell.
+
Tip: If you want to make your own bootable USB
+flash drive, download the binary zip file or CD-R image file, prepare a USB
+flash drive with a FAT32 partition, and then use the
+refind-install program's --usedefault option, and perhaps
+the --alldrivers option, as in bash
+refind-install --usedefault /dev/sdd1 --alldrivers to install to the
+first partition on /dev/sdd. This procedure should work even on a
+BIOS-booted computer.
+
Source
- and binary
- RPM files—These files are intended more as demonstrations than
- as practical packages. If you use an RPM-based x86-64 Linux system,
- though, you can install the binary RPM package. (I don't provide an
- equivalent 32-bit package.) Note, however, that this package's files are
- not signed for use with shim or Secure Boot, and it installs four
- filesystem drivers, which can slow down the boot process. It was also
- compiled with GNU-EFI, which means that it lacks the ability to boot
- BIOS-based OSes. Thus, I recommend using the binary zip file instead. If
- you do use the RPM file, be aware that it installs rEFInd directly to
- /boot/efi/EFI/refind, so your ESP must be mounted at
- /boot/efi. The post-installation script, which adds rEFInd to the
- NVRAM entries, requires efibootmgr and is likely to fail if you
- try to install from a live CD. Distribution maintainers can examine the
- refind.spec file in the source package and tweak it to their
- needs and to eliminate some or all of these deficiencies.
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.10.3/refind-flashdrive-0.10.3.zip/download">A
+ USB flash drive image file—Although you can create
+ your own rEFInd USB flash drive, you may find it easier to download
+ this version and copy it to your USB drive with dd or some
+ other low-level disk copying utility.
+
+
A
+ source code tarball—This is useful if you want to compile
+ the software locally. Note that I use Linux with the TianoCore EFI
+ Development Kit 2 (EDK2) to build my binary packages (above),
+ although the GNU-EFI development
+ tools are also supported, and are used in building the Ubuntu PPA.
Source code via
git—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.
+ familiar with programming tools. If you need to ask "what's git?", this
+ is probably not the best way for you to obtain rEFInd.
Debian—Debian added rEFInd 0.10.3 to its "sid" (unstable")
+ repository in June of 2016. Because most people don't use this
+ "bleeding-edge" version of the distribution, it is not yet a practical
+ option for most users; but it is on the way. You can download and
+ install it as a separate package here.
+ Debian's inclusion of rEFInd means that derivative distributions, such
+ as Ubuntu and Mint, will eventually receive rEFInd packages, too. Be
+ aware that Debian's package is not signed with a Secure Boot key,
+ although if the sbsigntool package is installed, the
+ installation scripts will generate and use their own Secure Boot
+ keys and sign the binary with them.
+
+
Ubuntu—Two Ubuntu-specific methods of installing rEFInd in
+ this distribution exist:
+
+
+
+
Ubuntu 16.10 ("Yakkety Yak") has synced the Debian package. As I
+ write (in late June, 2016), it's not yet available in the
+ repositories, but it should appear there eventually. Note that, like
+ the Debian package, this one is not signed for use with Secure Boot,
+ but if your system includes the sbsigntool package, the
+ installer will generate a local key for this purpose.
+
+
I've created a rEFInd
+ PPA for Ubuntu. To use it, open a Terminal window and type sudo apt-add-repository ppa:rodsmith/refind,
+ then sudo apt-get update. You can then
+ type sudo apt-get install refind to
+ install the package. You'll be asked to decide whether to install
+ rEFInd to the ESP when you first install it. Thereafter, the rEFInd
+ version will update along with your other software. This package is
+ built with GNU-EFI and is not signed with a Secure Boot key;
+ however, the install script should sign the binary with a
+ locally-generated key if it detects that your system uses Secure
+ Boot. Thus, if you've previously installed one of my binaries on a
+ Secure Boot system and added its key as a MOK, you'll have to add
+ your local key when you reboot.
+
+
+
Arch Linux—You can obtain rEFInd from the Arch
repositories, in both a stable version (the refind-efi package
installable via pacman) and an experimental release built from
rEFInd's git repository in the Arch User Repository (AUR), under the
name refind-efi-git. 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.
+ poorly tested or undocumented.
+
+
ALT Linux—This RPM-based distribution is experimenting
+ with using rEFInd on EFI-based computers. As I write, the ALT
+ developers haven't yet nailed down booting from an optical disc (it's a
+ tricky and delicate task, especially when preparing a "hybrid" image),
+ but they're working on the problem. They have an RPM of rEFInd; see this
+ page for details.
+
+
Gentoo Linux—An official ebuild of rEFInd is available; see here for
+ details and here for
+ Gentoo's official rEFInd documentation. A separately-maintained overlay
+ exists (see here),
+ which can be compiled with TianoCore and may be more up-to-date.
+
+
Slackware—As far as I know, an official rEFInd package is
+ not available as part of Slackware; however, a Slackware
+ package from SlackBuilds is available.
+
+
Fat
+ Dog—This variant of Puppy Linux uses a combination of
+ rEFInd and GRUB 2 to boot its installation medium in EFI mode and
+ provides a rEFInd package in its repository set.
The Nix Packages
collection—This site creates packages for a number of
OSes using its own packaging system.
-
OpenSUSE
- Build Service (OBS)—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 /usr/share/refind directory, and a copy of
- install.sh as /usr/sbin/refind_install.
- 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 .zip file from Sourceforge
- instead.
-
-
Slackware—Although it doesn't seem to provide an official
- build, this
- site has links to rEFInd binary packages for Slackware 13.37 and
- 14.0.
-
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 drop me a line.