Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-5/4/2014, referencing rEFInd 0.8.0
+3/1/2015, referencing rEFInd 0.8.7
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!
@@ -203,7 +205,21 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
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:
@@ -254,6 +270,13 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
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.
@@ -297,15 +320,16 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
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:
-
EFI supports network boots. rEFInd doesn't, but it would be nice if
- it would.
-
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.
@@ -325,6 +349,21 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
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.
+
+
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
@@ -394,6 +433,11 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
that there were problems with the installation, although this isn't
really the case.
+
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.