4 - Added support for compiling rEFInd for ARM64 (aka AARCH64 or aa64). This
5 works with both GNU-EFI and Tianocore UDK2014.SP1.P1. This support is
6 currently poorly tested. In particular, I used QEMU on an x86-64 computer
7 to create a virtualized ARM64 environment; I've not yet tested on a real
8 computer. I couldn't get QEMU to create a video card, so I used a serial
9 terminal, which means that the graphics features are untested -- I ran
10 rEFInd with "textonly" uncommented in refind.conf. I've tested the ext4fs
11 driver but no other drivers, although they all compile. (So does gptsync,
12 although it's unlikely to be useful on ARM64.) Some rEFInd features are
13 meaningless on ARM64, such as BIOS-mode boot support, anything geared
14 toward Macs (csr_values/csr_rotate, spoof_osx_version, etc.), and
17 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan EFI boot loaders on
18 removable media when rEFInd itself was launched from the fallback
21 - Moved detailed descriptions of refind-install from installing.html to
22 a refind-install man page. To keep this information Web-accessible, I've
23 also created HTML versions of the three man pages and linked them into
24 the HTML documentation.
26 - Updated LodePNG to latest version (20151024).
28 - Fixed bugs in mkrlconf and in refind-install that could cause some kernel
29 options to be excluded from refind_linux.conf. There were two trouble
31 - Previously, these scripts assumed that the first option in
32 /proc/cmdline was the kernel's filename, but this isn't always the
33 case. (In particular, when gummiboot launches the kernel, this is not
34 true. It might be an incorrect assumption in some other cases, too.)
35 The fix involves checking for likely signs of a kernel filename before
36 discarding this first option.
37 - These scripts cut the "initrd=*" option from /proc/cmdline, but the
38 call to "sed" was overzealous and cut until the end of input. This
39 usually worked, since the initrd= option was usually last on the line;
40 but if it wasn't, any options following initrd= would be lost.
42 - Added "kernel*" as a matching pattern for Linux kernels, since this is
43 what Gentoo uses by default.
45 - The refind-install script can now be run as a symbolic link in Linux.
46 This enables creating a /usr/sbin/refind-install link in Linux packages,
47 with the binaries stashed wherever the package system likes them. This
48 feature does NOT work in OS X, but there's relatively little need for it
54 - Fixed bug that caused refind-install to not unmount the ESP when it
57 - Modified refind-install and mkrlconf scripts to use /proc/cmdline as
58 source for default boot options EXCEPT when refind-install receives the
59 --root option. In that case, refind-install continues to use
60 /etc/default/grub as the source of default options. The idea behind this
61 change is that it's more reliable to get boot options from /proc/cmdline
62 when the targeted system is the one that's booted; but --root would be
63 used from emergency disks or live CDs, in which case the current boot
64 options would be completely wrong, so extracting boot options from GRUB
65 files is the best bet for getting close to the right options.
67 - Added "@/boot" to default also_scan_dirs setting. This makes kernels
68 show up on Btrfs volumes under Ubuntu (and perhaps others), at least when
69 the Btrfs driver is loaded.
71 - Added new System Integrity Protection (SIP) rotation feature for Macs
72 running OS X 10.11 or later. This feature is disabled by default, except
73 on CD-R and USB flash drive images, on which it's enabled. To enable it,
74 you must make TWO changes to refind.conf: Uncomment the new "csr_values"
75 item and add "csr_rotate" to the "showtools" line (uncommenting it, too,
76 if it's commented out). If desired, you can set more values on
77 "csr_values"; these are comma-delimited one-byte hexadecimal values that
78 define various SIP states. When SIP/CSR rotation is activated, a new
79 shield icon appears among the tools. Selecting it causes the next defined
80 value to be set and a confirmation message to appear for three seconds.
82 - Added display of current System Integrity Protection (SIP) mode to
85 - Added mountesp script for OS X to (you guessed it!) mount the ESP.
87 - Renamed support scripts: install.sh to refind-install, mvrefind.sh to
88 mvrefind, and mkrlconf.sh to mkrlconf.
90 - New icons! The old ones were getting to be a jumbled mess of styles,
91 particularly for OS tags. I used the AwOken icon set
92 (http://alecive.deviantart.com/art/AwOken-163570862) for the core icons,
93 then expanded from there by creating my own icons and modifying icons for
94 Debian and Elementary OS. I'm also trying to keep better track of
95 copyrights and licenses on icons. Between that and some icons being for
96 OSes that probably see very little use (FreeDOS and eComstation, for
97 instance), a few OS icons have been lost. If you prefer the old icons,
98 you can continue to use them by upgrading rEFInd, renaming icons-backup
99 to something else (say, icons-classic), and then adding an "icons" line
100 in refind.conf to point to the old icons directory.
102 - Changed from .zip to .tar.gz as source code archive format. I did this
103 because Linux is the only officially-supported build platform, and
104 tarballs are a more natural fit to a Linux environment. I'm leaving .zip,
105 .deb, and .rpm files as the formats for binary packages.
107 - Added detection of System Integrity Protection (SIP; aka "rootless") mode
108 to OS X portion of install.sh script. When detected, and if no existing
109 rEFInd installation is found, the script now prints a warning and brief
110 instructions of how to enter the Recovery mode to install rEFInd and
111 suggests aborting the installation. (The user can override and attempt
112 installation anyhow.) If SIP is detected along with an existing rEFInd
113 installation, the script moderates the warning and explains that an
114 update of a working rEFInd will probably succeed, but that re-installing
115 to fix a broken rEFInd will probably fail.
117 - Added new "spoof_osx_version" token, which takes an OS X version number
118 (such as "10.9") as an option. This feature, when enabled, causes rEFInd
119 to tell a Mac's firmware that the specified version of OS X is being
120 launched. This option is usually unnecessary, but it can help properly
121 initialize some hardware -- particularly secondary video devices. OTOH,
122 on some Macs it can cause hardware (notably keyboards and mice) to become
123 unresponsive, so you should not use this option unnecessarily.
125 - Worked around an EFI bug that affected my 32-bit Mac Mini: That system
126 seems to have a broken EFI, or possibly a buggy CPU, that causes some
127 (but not all) conversions from floating-point to integer numbers to hang
128 the computer. Such operations were performed only in rEFInd's
129 graphics-resizing code, and so would manifest only when icons or
130 background images were resized. My fix eliminates the use of
131 floating-point operations in the affected function, which eliminates the
132 crashes. There may be some degradation in the quality of resized images,
133 though, particularly on 32-bit systems. (64-bit systems use larger
134 integers, which enable greater precision in my floating-point
137 - Under OS X, install.sh can now be run from the recovery system. This may
138 help work around OS X 10.11's problems with System Integrity Protection,
139 since it should be possible to reboot into the recovery system to install
140 rEFInd without disabling SIP for the main installation, even for just one
146 - Added "--keepname" option to install.sh. This option causes install.sh
147 to keep refind_x64.efi named as such rather than rename it as grubx64.efi
148 when using Shim. This option is meaningful only if the --shim option is
149 also used. This option passes the refind_x64.efi filename as an option to
150 Shim, which overrides the default filename of grubx64.efi. A big caveat:
151 Only Shim 0.7 and later supports this feature. (Shim 0.4 also works if a
152 refind_x64.efi is referred to as "\refind_x64.efi" on the command line,
153 but the need for a leading backslash to refer to a file in the same
154 directory as Shim is so confusing and wrong that I cannot in good
155 conscience support it.) I've not seen signed Shim binaries between 0.4
156 and 0.7, so I don't know if any of them might work.
158 - Implemented a workaround for a bug in Shim 0.8 that prevented
159 authentication of more than one binary. If any filesystem drivers were
160 installed, the first one would be verified, leaving rEFInd unable to
161 launch anything else unless it was signed by a key in the computer's main
167 - When rEFInd identifies the root (/) partition via the Freedesktop.org
168 Discoverable Partitions Specification, it now checks two of the
169 partition's attributes, as per the DPS (see
170 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
171 - The partition's read-only attribute determines whether to pass a "rw"
172 or "ro" option to the kernel.
173 - If the partition's do-not-automount flag is set, rEFInd will not pass
174 it as a "root=" option to the kernel. This flag can be used to remove
175 all but one partition from consideration as a root (/) partition if a
176 system has more than one with the correct type code.
178 - Improved Freedesktop.org Discoverable Partitions Specification support:
179 Previously, if no refind_linux.conf file was present but an /etc/fstab
180 file was found, rEFInd ignored the Discoverable Partitions Specification
181 filesystem-type codes. This was fine if /etc/fstab contained a valid "/"
182 filesystem specification, but if that was absent, the result was no
183 "root=" specification being present. Under these circumstances
184 (refind_linux.conf absent, /etc/fstab present but lacking a "/" entry),
185 rEFInd now tries to identify a device to specify as "root=" via the
186 Discoverable Partitions Specification.
188 - Fixed bug that caused "Found match!" and a prompt to press a key to
189 continue to be printed if any partition used the Freedesktop.org
190 Discoverable Partitions Specification root-partition GUID. (This
191 was leftover debugging/testing code that I somehow missed deleting.)
193 - Added icon for Elementary OS.
195 - Added /etc/lsb-release to files scanned for clues about the Linux
196 distribution. This file differentiates Mint and Elementary OS from Ubuntu
197 better than does /etc/os-release, and may also help with other
198 closely-related distributions.
200 - Improvements to handling of case-insensitive string comparisons. These
201 are buggy on some EFIs, and such bugs affect things like dont_scan_*
202 blacklists, removal of rEFInd's own directory from scanning, matching of
203 keyword names in refind.conf, and even loading of icons. I've replaced
204 many calls to problematic functions with safer calls, which should help a
205 lot. There may still be problems on some systems with some computers,
206 though; as far as I can tell, the bugs are buried deep in some EFI
207 firmware, so I can only replace some of the most direct calls to
208 potentially buggy system calls.
213 - New icon for Kali Linux, submitted by Francesco D'Eugenio.
215 - Minor code changes to ensure that rEFInd compiles with GCC 5.1. (Tested
216 with GNU-EFI on a Fedora 22 system; not yet tested with the TianoCore
219 - Added new "fold_linux_kernels" token to refind.conf. This option, when
220 active (the default) "folds" all Linux kernels in a directory into a
221 single entry on the rEFInd menu. The kernel with the most recent time
222 stamp is launched by default. To launch another kernel, you must press F2
223 or Insert; additional kernels appear as options on the first kernel's
224 submenu. To see the pre-0.9.0 behavior, you must set "fold_linux_kernels
225 false" (or one of its synonyms, "off" or "0"). The point of this option
226 is to help de-clutter the rEFInd main menu.
228 - Added new Linux root (/) partition auto-discovery feature, based on
229 Freedesktop.org's Discoverable Partitions Spec (DPS)
230 (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
231 If no refind_linux.conf file or /etc/fstab file is found, and if a
232 partition with the correct DPS type code for the system architecture is
233 found, rEFInd adds "ro root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/{GUID}" to the kernel
234 options. This will not help on LVM setups, and will get it right for only
235 one installation on systems with multiple Linux installations, but it may
236 help some users, if/when the DPS type codes become more common.
238 - Fixed bug that caused a rEFInd crash if an empty refind_linux.conf
239 file was encountered.
241 - The mkrlconf.sh script now checks the OS on which it's running, which
242 should help avoid confusion or problems by users who mistakenly run it
245 - rEFInd now skips checking for various BIOS-mode boot sector signatures
246 when running on a UEFI-based PC; these checks are run only on Macs. This
247 may reduce startup time on systems with many partitions.
249 - Fixed Debian debinstall script to work correctly on IA32 systems. It had
250 a bug that caused filesystem drivers and gptsync to not be packaged for
253 - Modified Debian postinst file to call install.sh with --localkeys option
254 if sbsign and openssl are available, even when NOT in Secure Boot mode or
255 if shim is not detected. This helps with my Ubuntu PPA when using custom
256 Secure Boot keys, since the PPA is delivered unsigned. (Users will have
257 to have added their own local keys to their firmware's db.) For
258 consistency, I've made the same change to the RPM .spec file.
263 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused inappropriate installation under the
264 name bootx64.efi (or bootia32.efi) under Linux, with a failure to update
265 the boot entries in NVRAM, has been fixed.
267 - Added identification of XFS as filesystem type in volume descriptions.
269 - More fixes to filesystem type detection code. Previous version sometimes
270 identified FAT or NTFS (or anything with a boot loader) as a whole-disk
271 device rather than the correct filesystem type.
273 - Added protections to the code to reduce the risk of crashes that might
274 occur when dereferencing NULL pointers in various situations.
276 - I'm deprecating the use of filesystem numbers (as in "fs0:") because
277 they're unreliable -- filesystem numbers can change between boots and
278 might not be the same as those used in an EFI shell or other program.
279 Sooner or later I'll remove code supporting this feature. In the
280 meantime, if it doesn't work for you, please switch to using filesystem
281 labels, partition labels, or partition GUIDs.
283 - Added detection of FreeBSD's BIOS-mode GPT boot loader. Previously,
284 rEFInd could detect FreeBSD's BIOS-mode MBR boot loader, which gave
285 FreeBSD an appropriate icon on Macs; but the BIOS-mode GPT boot loader
286 code is different, so some recent FreeBSD installations showed up with
287 generic grey diamond icons. This change creates FreeBSD icons instead.
289 - Added "Secure Boot [active|inactive]" notice to "about" menu for x86
290 (32-bit) systems, since there are now a few 32-bit UEFI systems that
291 support Secure Boot. (AFAIK, these are mostly tablets and convertibles
292 such as the ASUS T100.)
294 - Added KeyTool.efi and KeyTool-signed.efi to list of MOK managers. KeyTool
295 is the "super-deluxe" Secure Boot key and hash manager provided as part
296 of the efitools package.
298 - Fixed more instances of "invalid parameter" errors on some EFIs.
300 - Improved Secure Boot detection in install.sh.
302 - install.sh should no longer complain when copying Shim or MokManager over
308 - Removed special case of ignoring an HFS+ name of "HFS+ volume", since the
309 old rEFInd HFS+ driver that produced this name for all HFS+ volumes has
310 long since been updated to deliver a real name.
312 - Addition of new Windows 8 OS icon. On Macs and for BIOS/legacy boots, the
313 new icon is now used for Windows Vista, 7, and 8, while the old one is
314 used for earlier versions of Windows. For EFI-mode boots, the new icon is
317 - If the NTFS driver is loaded, rEFInd now scans NTFS volumes on Macs for
318 the presence of Windows boot files, and removes any NTFS volume that
319 lacks such files from the BIOS/legacy boot list. This should help
320 unclutter the display on Macs that contain NTFS data partitions.
322 - Fixed bug that caused misidentification of both whole disks and NTFS
323 volumes as being FAT. (This bug affected the identification of devices
324 and locations in the rEFInd menu, not actual access to devices.)
326 - Code refactoring to clear out legacy-boot functions from the
327 ever-expanding refind/main.c file.
329 - Added new "badges" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf. This
330 option hides the device-type badges associated with the OS boot options.
332 - Reverted rEFIt commit r472, introduced in rEFInd 0.8.5 to support more
333 BMP images because I've received bug reports that it's causing existing
334 selection images to fail to load.
336 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused misidentification of installation
337 directory under OS X if an already-mounted ESP has spaces in its path.
339 - Fixed Mac-specific install.sh bug that could cause misidentification of
340 the ESP on disks with partition numbers of 10 or above.
346 - Added NTFS EFI filesystem driver.
348 - Minor improvements to filesystem driver framework code.
352 - Fixed bug in Btrfs driver's address reference.
354 - Improved install.sh to make it smarter about figuring out where to
355 install on Macs. Specifically, this version now upgrades existing
356 installations, if found (as it always has under Linux), rather than
357 blindly install to EFI/BOOT; it installs to EFI/refind if not existing
358 installation is found; it installs using the --shortform option to bless,
359 which seems to eliminate the 30-second delay problem; and it can handle
360 an HFS+ ESP, which it treats as a separate HFS+ volume (as if the user
361 had used --ownhfs). These changes do not affect behavior under Linux.
363 - Added missing check of architecture type for several tools.
365 - Applied rEFIt commit r472, which adds support for BMP images with negative
366 height fields, indicating that the image is NOT vertically flipped. This
367 commit and r467 were not incorporated in the original rEFInd because I
368 forked it from a Debian rEFIt package that had been patched to build
369 under GNU-EFI, and was apparently based on a slightly earlier version.
371 - Applied rEFIt commit r467, which improves Mac handling of legacy boots
372 from other than the first hard disk.
378 - Tweaked default for dont_scan_volumes: Removed "Recovery HD". This change
379 better suits the needs of OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") installations, but may
380 result in some stray Recovery HD entries on some Macs.
382 - Updated icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu.
384 - Added new configuration option, "enable_and_lock_vmx", which sets an
385 Intel CPU feature that's required for some types of virtualization to
386 work. Most EFIs enable setting this feature in their own setup utilities,
387 but some (such as most Macs) don't.
389 - If rEFInd can't locate an icons directory (either the default or one
390 specified by the icons_dir token), the program switches to text-only
393 - If a loader contains the string "grub" and no other clue to the loader's
394 OS association exists, search for os_grub.{png|icns} (which is not
395 provided with rEFInd) or os_linux.{png|icns}. (Previous versions provided
396 a generic loader icon for GRUB.)
398 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_files to not work with special-case
399 boot loaders (for OS X and Windows) when specifying the complete path to
400 the loader (e.g., EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi).
402 - Added support for the iPXE network boot tool (see BUILDING.txt for
403 building and basic use instructions).
408 - Added new feature: Setting "timeout = -1" in refind.conf causes rEFInd to
409 immediately boot the default option UNLESS a keypress is in the buffer
410 when rEFInd launches. In that case, if the keypress corresponds to a
411 shortcut key, the associated boot loader is launched; or if not, the menu
414 - Added new icons for Clover boot loader and for Mythbuntu Linux
417 - rEFInd now displays the partition's label, when one is available, when
418 offering a BIOS-mode boot option for a partition with no filesystem
419 driver. This works only on Macs doing BIOS-mode booting.
421 - Removed GPLv2 code from the FSW core files. This was done because the
422 Btrfs driver is derived from the GRUB Btrfs driver, which is licensed
423 under the GPLv3. Ironically, the GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible
424 licenses, so ensuring that the Btrfs driver doesn't rely on GPLv2 code
425 was legally necessary. In most cases, I reverted to the original rEFIt
426 code, although I kept my own cache code; since I wrote it, I can
427 change its license to a BSD license.
429 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers immediately after loading
430 them. This didn't affect rEFInd's own drivers because they didn't include
431 the unload hooks, but it did affect some other drivers.
433 - Changed default scan_all_linux_kernels setting from "false" to "true",
434 and commented the option out in refind.conf-sample. This should not
435 affect most people, since refind.conf-sample had this option commented
436 out, and most rEFInd users either use it that way or don't have Linux
437 kernels installed at all. I've made this change because I want rEFInd to
438 "do the right thing" by default in as many cases as possible. For a while
439 now, rEFInd has been excluding non-bootable files from its menu, and most
440 kernels "in the wild" now include the EFI stub. Thus, enabling this
441 support by default seems worthwhile. If you prefer to not scan Linux
442 kernels by default, simply uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" line
443 and ensure it's set to "false".
448 - Removed stray bit of debugging code that caused a prompt to press a
449 key to appear at rEFInd startup.
454 - Changed behavior when default_selection is not set: It now boots the
455 previously-booted loader, assuming it's still available; if not, rEFInd
456 boots the first loader (as it does now). Behavior is unchanged if
457 default_selection is set. Note that this behavior depends on the ability
458 of rEFInd to store an EFI variable in NVRAM. It therefore fails on
459 systems with flaky NVRAM storage. You can view the previously-booted
461 /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740
462 variable under Linux.
464 - Added icon for Mageia Linux (os_mageia.png).
466 - Fixed bug that could misidentify a not-quite-GUID as a GUID in a
467 manual boot stanza's "volume" line.
469 - I've updated my personal build system, and therefore the rEFInd Makefiles
470 and related files, to use TianoCore UDK2014 rather than UDK2010.
472 - Added "deep_uefi_legacy_scan" token. When not set (the default), rEFInd
473 does not modify EFI NVRAM settings when scanning for BIOS-mode boot
474 loaders on UEFI-based (non-Mac) computers. Some computers require
475 uncommenting this setting for rEFInd to reliably detect some BIOS-mode
476 boot devices. Passing "0", "off", or "false" as an option resets it to
477 the default value (useful in a loaded secondary configuration file to
478 override a setting in the main file).
483 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders stored
484 on the root directory of a partition.
486 - Added two new bitmap fonts to those distributed with rEFInd: Ubuntu Mono
487 and Nimbus Mono. Both come in 12-, 14-, 16-, and 24-point sizes.
489 - Messages about pauses for scanning and re-scanning of boot loaders are
490 now suppressed when doing an initial delayed scan when scan_delay is 1
493 - Improved centering of legacy boot option descriptions on some systems'
496 - Fixed bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot to boot from an inappropriate
497 device if that device had an innately high boot priority (as set by the
500 - Changed icons from ICNS to PNG form. There are several reasons to do
501 this, all of them minor; but together they're enough to warrant a change.
502 PNG is more common, and therefore more accessible to most users --
503 particularly those who don't use OS X. The PNG files are smaller than
504 their ICNS equivalents. PNG supports a wider range of sizes (although I'm
505 not now using anything that ICNS doesn't support, I might in the future).
506 The icon-scaling support added a few versions ago makes ICNS's support
507 for multiple icon sizes relatively unimportant.
509 - Reversed order of search for icons by extension: rEFInd now searches
510 for PNG files before ICNS files, rather than the other way around. This
511 makes it possible to override a volume icon for rEFInd by giving it the
512 name .VolumeIcon.png, even when a .VolumeIcon.icns file exists on the
513 volume and is used by OS X.
515 - Fixed bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take higher-than-intended
516 precedence in icon setting for OS X.
518 - Chainloading to BIOS-mode boot loaders now works on UEFI-based PCs when
519 rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI, not just when built with Tianocore.
524 - The "dont_scan_volumes" parameter now also works with legacy-boot
525 volumes. Unlike with EFI volumes, where the option you pass must exactly
526 match an entire volume name, when applied to legacy-boot volumes, it
527 matches any part of the description that appears beneath the item when
528 you select it in the rEFInd main menu.
530 - Can now boot in legacy mode from second (and probably later) hard disks!
532 - rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware name string shown in the
533 system information screen to 65 characters. This is done because at least
534 one EFI presents a longer string by default, and this causes the entire
535 information display to come up empty on 800x600 displays.
537 - rEFInd now uses the partition's name (as stored in the GPT data
538 structures) as a fallback for the filesystem's name if the latter can't
539 be found. Exceptions are if the partition name is one of three generic
540 names used by GPT fdisk: "Microsoft basic data", "Linux filesystem", or
541 "Apple HFS/HFS+". These are ignored in favor of the descriptive fallback
542 (e.g., "20 GiB Btrfs volume")
544 - It's now possible to specify a volume by partition GUID number in a
545 manual boot stanza. This should be more reliable (albeit also more
546 awkward) than using a filesystem number (such as fs0: or fs1:).
548 - Fixed memory-allocation bug that could cause error message displays,
549 and possibly hangs, when re-scanning boot loaders.
554 - Attempt to fix rEFInd perpetually re-scanning after ejecting a disc on
557 - Added check to remove redundant (or non-functional if Secure Boot is
558 active) kernel entries for Ubuntu, which is now including two versions of
559 kernels, one signed and the other unsigned.
561 - Fixed bug in install.sh that could cause it to display error messages
562 if the dmraid utility was not installed.
564 - The HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name.
566 - Fixed some EFI filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups under
567 some circumstances. These bugs could affect any of the filesystem
570 - Added "gdisk" option to the "showtools" configuration file token. When
571 active, this adds gdisk.efi or gdisk_{arch}.efi, if present in the
572 EFI\tools directory, to the tools row.
574 - Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility
581 - Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian
582 packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run
583 any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the
584 hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run
585 install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64
586 references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of
587 concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else.
589 - Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of
590 the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively.
591 The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type
592 badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and
593 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If
594 the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified,
595 rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn
596 to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf.
598 - rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes.
599 This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it
600 can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a
601 graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so
602 scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128
603 OS icon) is not likely to look good.
605 - Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners:
606 Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll
607 be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the
608 behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the
609 banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display.
611 - Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate
612 RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for
613 existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi
614 rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages
615 were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note,
616 however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd
617 The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine;
618 it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that
619 problems might arise.
624 - Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in
627 - Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
629 - Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a
630 Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to
631 "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery
632 utility on the second row of icons.
634 - The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files,
635 and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first
636 option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default
637 value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for
638 scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.)
640 - Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch,
641 via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the
642 foo.conf file as the main configuration file.
644 - Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with
645 duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so
646 would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given
649 - Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP
650 in Linux, if it's currently unmounted.
652 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
653 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
654 under some circumstances.
659 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
660 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
661 default_selection "fred,ginger"
662 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
663 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
665 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
666 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
667 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
668 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
669 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
670 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
671 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
672 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
673 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
674 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
675 depending on your computer.
677 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
678 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
679 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
680 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
681 screensaver will be disabled.
683 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
684 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
685 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
686 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
687 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
692 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
693 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
695 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
696 versions of OS X to fail.
698 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
699 drivers were present.
701 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
702 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
703 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
704 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
705 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
706 black a second or so later.
711 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
712 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
718 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
719 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
720 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
722 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
723 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
724 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
725 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
726 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
727 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
730 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
731 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
732 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
733 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
735 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
736 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
737 known case, but there may be others.)
742 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
745 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
750 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
751 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
753 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
754 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
756 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
757 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
759 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
760 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
761 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
762 HashTool-signed.efi".
764 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
766 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
769 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
775 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
777 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
778 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
779 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
781 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
782 volume specification, if present.
784 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
789 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
790 type for volumes that lack labels.
792 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
793 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
794 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
797 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
798 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
799 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
800 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
801 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
802 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
803 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
804 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
806 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
807 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
808 non-EFI loaders, etc.
810 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
816 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
817 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
819 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
822 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
823 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
824 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
825 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
827 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
828 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
829 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
830 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
835 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
836 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
837 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
838 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
840 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
842 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
843 directory names that contain spaces.
845 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
846 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
847 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
848 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
849 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
851 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
852 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
854 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
857 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
858 partitions to fill the MBR.
863 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
864 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
865 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
866 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
868 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
869 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
870 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
871 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
872 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
874 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
875 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
876 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
877 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
878 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
881 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
882 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
884 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
885 encountered when saving a screen shot.
887 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
888 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
889 sequence number, starting with "001".
894 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
897 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
898 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
900 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
901 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
902 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
904 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
905 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
906 accidentally trash their systems.
908 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
909 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
910 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
915 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
916 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
918 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
919 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
921 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
922 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
924 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
929 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
930 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
932 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
933 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
934 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
935 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
937 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
938 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
940 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
941 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
943 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
946 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
948 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
949 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
950 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
955 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
956 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
957 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
958 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
959 loader under the fallback name.
961 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
962 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
963 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
964 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
967 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
968 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
970 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
971 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
973 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
974 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
975 commented out or empty.
977 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
978 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
980 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
983 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
984 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
989 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
990 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
992 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
994 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
996 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
997 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
999 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
1001 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
1002 sized to cover these areas.
1004 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
1005 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
1011 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
1012 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
1013 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
1014 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
1016 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
1017 startup on some systems.
1022 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
1023 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
1025 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
1026 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
1028 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
1029 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
1030 burned to USB flash disks.
1032 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
1033 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
1034 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
1036 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
1037 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
1038 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
1039 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
1040 from that installation.
1042 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
1043 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
1046 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
1047 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
1052 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
1053 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
1054 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
1056 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
1057 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
1058 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
1059 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
1060 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
1062 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
1063 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
1064 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
1065 Linux with the "make" command.
1067 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
1068 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
1070 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
1071 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
1072 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
1073 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
1074 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
1075 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
1076 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
1077 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
1079 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
1080 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
1086 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
1087 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
1088 use on emergency discs.
1090 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
1091 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
1092 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
1093 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
1094 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
1095 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
1096 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
1097 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
1100 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
1102 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
1103 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
1104 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
1105 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
1106 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
1109 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
1112 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
1113 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
1114 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
1115 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
1117 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
1118 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
1119 a boot loader launch failed.
1124 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
1125 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
1126 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
1129 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
1130 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
1131 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
1132 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
1134 - Added ext4fs driver!
1136 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
1138 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
1140 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
1141 from a program that set the resolution itself.
1143 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
1144 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
1145 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
1146 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
1147 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
1148 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
1149 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
1152 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
1153 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
1154 display even in graphics mode.
1156 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
1157 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
1159 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
1160 disables the boot options editor.
1162 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
1163 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
1165 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
1166 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
1167 from the /etc/default/grub file.
1169 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
1170 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
1172 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
1173 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
1174 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
1175 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
1176 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
1177 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
1179 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
1182 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
1183 ---------------------
1185 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
1190 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
1191 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
1192 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
1193 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
1195 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
1196 configuration file from a primary one.
1198 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
1199 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
1200 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
1201 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
1202 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
1203 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
1204 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
1207 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
1208 on systems with Secure Boot active.
1210 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
1211 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
1214 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
1215 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
1217 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
1218 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
1219 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
1224 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
1225 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
1226 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
1227 This example results in the following string being passed as an
1229 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
1231 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
1232 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
1233 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
1234 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
1235 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
1236 for them makes sense.
1238 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
1239 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
1240 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
1241 EFI shells are also so limited.)
1243 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
1244 were not actually edited.
1246 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
1247 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
1248 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
1249 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
1250 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
1252 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
1253 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
1254 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
1255 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
1256 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
1257 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
1258 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
1259 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
1261 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
1262 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
1263 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
1265 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
1266 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
1267 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
1269 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
1270 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
1271 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
1272 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
1274 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
1275 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
1276 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
1278 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
1279 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
1284 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
1286 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
1287 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
1288 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
1290 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
1291 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
1292 told isn't working as planned).
1294 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
1295 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
1296 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
1297 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
1302 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
1304 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
1307 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
1308 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
1309 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
1310 done this for two reasons:
1311 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
1312 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
1313 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
1314 default for them should help them.
1315 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
1316 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
1317 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
1318 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
1319 default configurations.
1321 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
1326 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
1328 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
1333 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
1336 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
1339 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
1340 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
1343 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
1348 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
1349 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
1351 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
1352 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
1353 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
1354 graphics or text mode itself.)
1356 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
1357 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
1358 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
1359 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
1360 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
1361 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
1362 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
1364 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
1366 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
1367 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
1368 "linux.conf" themselves.
1373 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
1374 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
1377 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
1378 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
1379 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
1380 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
1381 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
1382 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
1383 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
1384 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
1387 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
1388 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
1393 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
1394 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
1395 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
1396 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
1399 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
1400 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
1402 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
1404 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
1405 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
1408 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
1409 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
1414 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
1415 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
1416 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
1417 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
1418 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
1419 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
1420 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
1422 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
1423 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
1424 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
1426 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
1427 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
1428 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
1429 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
1431 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
1432 file when launched from rEFInd.
1437 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
1438 received reports that it's not working as intended.
1440 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
1441 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
1442 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
1443 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
1444 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
1445 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
1447 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
1448 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
1453 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
1454 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
1455 sample configuration file for a full description.
1457 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
1458 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
1459 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
1460 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
1461 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
1463 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
1464 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
1467 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
1468 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
1473 - Improved menu navigation:
1474 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
1475 down arrows move between rows.
1476 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
1477 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
1478 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
1479 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
1481 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
1482 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
1483 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
1488 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
1489 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
1490 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
1491 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
1492 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
1493 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
1496 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
1499 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
1501 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
1502 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
1509 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
1510 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
1512 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
1513 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
1514 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
1515 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
1516 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
1517 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
1518 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
1519 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
1520 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
1521 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
1522 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
1524 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
1525 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
1526 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
1527 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
1528 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
1530 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
1531 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
1536 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
1537 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
1538 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
1539 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
1540 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
1541 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
1543 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
1544 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
1545 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
1546 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
1547 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
1548 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
1549 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
1550 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
1551 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
1552 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
1553 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
1554 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
1555 that resets the video mode.
1557 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
1558 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
1559 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
1560 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
1561 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
1564 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
1565 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
1566 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
1567 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
1568 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
1569 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
1571 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
1572 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
1573 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
1575 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
1576 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
1577 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
1578 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
1583 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
1584 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
1585 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
1586 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
1587 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
1588 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
1589 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
1590 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
1591 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
1592 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
1593 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
1594 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
1595 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
1596 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
1599 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
1601 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
1602 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
1603 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
1604 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
1605 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
1606 directories you like.
1611 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
1612 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
1613 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
1614 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
1615 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
1616 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
1617 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
1618 should work when a volume is unnamed.
1620 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
1621 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
1622 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
1627 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
1628 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
1630 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
1631 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
1632 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
1633 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
1634 documented the name....
1636 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
1637 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
1638 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
1640 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
1641 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
1642 directory) on certain systems.
1644 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
1645 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1650 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1651 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1652 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1653 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1654 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1655 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1656 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1657 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1658 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1659 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1660 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1663 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1664 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1665 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1666 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1669 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1670 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1672 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1675 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1676 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1677 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1678 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1679 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1681 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1682 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1683 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1684 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1685 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1686 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1691 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1692 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1693 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1694 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1695 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1696 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1697 small sample of computers.
1699 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1700 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1701 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1702 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1703 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1705 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1710 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1711 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1712 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1713 versionless initrd file.
1715 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1716 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1719 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1720 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1721 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1726 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1727 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1728 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1729 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1731 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1732 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1733 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1734 directory as the kernel.
1736 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1737 entries in refind.conf file.
1739 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1740 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1746 - Initial public release