by Roderick W. Smith, rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
-Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update: 3/26/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.2.3
+Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update: 4/5/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.2.4
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@@ -93,13 +93,9 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.comBroadly speaking, rEFInd's configuration file is broken down into two sections: global options and OS stanzas. The global options section sets options that apply globally—to set the timeout period, enable graphics or text mode, and so on. OS stanzas are optional, but if present, they enable you to add new boot options or replace the auto-detected options with customized ones. Both sections include configuration lines and comment lines, the latter being denoted by a leading hash mark (#). rEFInd ignores comment lines, so you can add explanatory text. The default configuration file includes numerous comments explaining each of the options.
-Before delving into the configuration file, you should be aware of what you can do by renaming files. By default, rEFInd scans all the filesystems it can read for boot loaders. It scans most of the subdirectories of the EFI directory on every filesystem it can access for files with names that end in .efi. (rEFIt gives special treatment to the TOOLS subdirectory, where it looks for system tools rather than boot loaders.)
@@ -107,6 +103,18 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.comAnother way to hide a boot loader is to move it into rEFInd's own directory. In order to keep rEFInd from showing up in its own menu, it ignores boot loaders in its own directory. This obviously includes the rEFInd binary file itself, but also anything else you might store there.
+In addition to hiding boot loaders, you can adjust their icons. You can do this in either of two ways:
+ +rEFInd assigns icons to the Windows and OS X boot loaders based on their conventional locations, so they get suitable icons even though they don't follow these rules.
+You can adjust many of rEFInd's options by editing its refind.conf file. You can use any text editor you like for the job, but be sure it saves the file in plain ASCII text, not in a word processing format. (In theory, a UTF-16 encoding should also work, but I've not tried that myself.) Note that the EFI shell includes its own editor. If you need to make a change before you launch an OS, you can launch a shell, change to the rEFInd directory, and type edit refind.conf to edit the file. This EFI editor is quite primitive, but it gets the job done. After editing, you'll need to reboot for rEFInd to read the changed configuration file.
@@ -131,9 +139,9 @@ timeout 20As an example, consider the following refind.conf file:
+Prior to version 0.2.4, rEFInd supported a token called disable, whose function partially overlapped with hideui. Version 0.2.4 merges many of the features of these two tokens into hideui and creates the new showtools option, which provides the remaining functionality in a more flexible way.
+ +As an example of rEFInd configuration, consider the following refind.conf file:
# Sample refind.conf file timeout 5 banner custom.bmp scanfor manual,external,optical -default_selection L +default_selection elilo-
This example sets a timeout of 5 seconds; loads a custom graphic file called custom.bmp from the directory in which refind.efi resides; uses manual boot loader configuration but also scans for external EFI boot loaders and EFI boot loaders on optical discs; and sets the default boot loader to Linux. Of course, since this file specifies use of manual boot loader configuration, it's not complete; you'll need to add at least one OS stanza to be able to boot from anything but an external disk or optical drive....
+This example sets a timeout of 5 seconds; loads a custom graphic file called custom.bmp from the directory in which refind.efi resides; uses manual boot loader configuration but also scans for external EFI boot loaders and EFI boot loaders on optical discs; and sets the default boot loader to the first loader found that includes the string elilo. Of course, since this file specifies use of manual boot loader configuration, it's not complete; you'll need to add at least one OS stanza to be able to boot from anything but an external disk or optical drive....