4 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
5 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
7 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
8 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
9 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
11 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
12 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
13 accidentally trash their systems.
15 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
16 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
17 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
22 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
23 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
25 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
26 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
28 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
29 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
31 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
36 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
37 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
39 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
40 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
41 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
42 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
44 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
45 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
47 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
48 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
50 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
53 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
55 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
56 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
57 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
62 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
63 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
64 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
65 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
66 loader under the fallback name.
68 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
69 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
70 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
71 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
74 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
75 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
77 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
78 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
80 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
81 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
82 commented out or empty.
84 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
85 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
87 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
90 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
91 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
96 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
97 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
99 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
101 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
103 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
104 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
106 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
108 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
109 sized to cover these areas.
111 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
112 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
118 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
119 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
120 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
121 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
123 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
124 startup on some systems.
129 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
130 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
132 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
133 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
135 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
136 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
137 burned to USB flash disks.
139 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
140 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
141 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
143 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
144 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
145 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
146 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
147 from that installation.
149 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
150 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
153 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
154 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
159 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
160 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
161 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
163 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
164 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
165 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
166 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
167 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
169 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
170 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
171 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
172 Linux with the "make" command.
174 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
175 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
177 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
178 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
179 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
180 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
181 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
182 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
183 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
184 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
186 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
187 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
193 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
194 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
195 use on emergency discs.
197 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
198 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
199 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
200 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
201 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
202 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
203 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
204 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
207 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
209 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
210 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
211 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
212 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
213 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
216 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
219 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
220 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
221 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
222 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
224 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
225 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
226 a boot loader launch failed.
231 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
232 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
233 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
236 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
237 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
238 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
239 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
241 - Added ext4fs driver!
243 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
245 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
247 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
248 from a program that set the resolution itself.
250 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
251 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
252 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
253 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
254 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
255 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
256 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
259 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
260 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
261 display even in graphics mode.
263 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
264 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
266 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
267 disables the boot options editor.
269 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
270 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
272 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
273 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
274 from the /etc/default/grub file.
276 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
277 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
279 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
280 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
281 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
282 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
283 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
284 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
286 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
289 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
290 ---------------------
292 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
297 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
298 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
299 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
300 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
302 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
303 configuration file from a primary one.
305 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
306 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
307 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
308 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
309 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
310 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
311 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
314 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
315 on systems with Secure Boot active.
317 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
318 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
321 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
322 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
324 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
325 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
326 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
331 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
332 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
333 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
334 This example results in the following string being passed as an
336 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
338 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
339 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
340 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
341 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
342 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
343 for them makes sense.
345 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
346 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
347 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
348 EFI shells are also so limited.)
350 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
351 were not actually edited.
353 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
354 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
355 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
356 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
357 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
359 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
360 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
361 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
362 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
363 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
364 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
365 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
366 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
368 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
369 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
370 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
372 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
373 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
374 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
376 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
377 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
378 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
379 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
381 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
382 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
383 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
385 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
386 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
391 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
393 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
394 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
395 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
397 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
398 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
399 told isn't working as planned).
401 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
402 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
403 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
404 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
409 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
411 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
414 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
415 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
416 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
417 done this for two reasons:
418 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
419 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
420 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
421 default for them should help them.
422 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
423 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
424 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
425 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
426 default configurations.
428 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
433 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
435 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
440 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
443 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
446 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
447 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
450 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
455 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
456 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
458 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
459 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
460 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
461 graphics or text mode itself.)
463 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
464 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
465 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
466 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
467 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
468 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
469 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
471 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
473 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
474 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
475 "linux.conf" themselves.
480 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
481 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
484 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
485 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
486 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
487 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
488 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
489 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
490 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
491 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
494 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
495 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
500 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
501 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
502 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
503 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
506 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
507 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
509 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
511 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
512 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
515 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
516 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
521 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
522 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
523 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
524 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
525 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
526 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
527 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
529 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
530 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
531 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
533 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
534 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
535 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
536 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
538 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
539 file when launched from rEFInd.
544 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
545 received reports that it's not working as intended.
547 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
548 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
549 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
550 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
551 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
552 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
554 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
555 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
560 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
561 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
562 sample configuration file for a full description.
564 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
565 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
566 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
567 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
568 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
570 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
571 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
574 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
575 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
580 - Improved menu navigation:
581 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
582 down arrows move between rows.
583 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
584 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
585 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
586 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
588 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
589 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
590 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
595 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
596 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
597 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
598 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
599 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
600 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
603 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
606 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
608 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
609 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
616 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
617 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
619 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
620 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
621 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
622 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
623 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
624 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
625 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
626 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
627 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
628 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
629 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
631 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
632 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
633 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
634 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
635 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
637 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
638 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
643 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
644 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
645 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
646 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
647 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
648 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
650 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
651 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
652 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
653 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
654 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
655 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
656 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
657 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
658 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
659 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
660 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
661 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
662 that resets the video mode.
664 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
665 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
666 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
667 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
668 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
671 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
672 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
673 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
674 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
675 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
676 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
678 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
679 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
680 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
682 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
683 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
684 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
685 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
690 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
691 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
692 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
693 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
694 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
695 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
696 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
697 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
698 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
699 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
700 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
701 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
702 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
703 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
706 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
708 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
709 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
710 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
711 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
712 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
713 directories you like.
718 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
719 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
720 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
721 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
722 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
723 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
724 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
725 should work when a volume is unnamed.
727 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
728 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
729 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
734 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
735 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
737 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
738 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
739 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
740 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
741 documented the name....
743 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
744 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
745 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
747 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
748 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
749 directory) on certain systems.
751 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
752 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
757 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
758 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
759 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
760 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
761 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
762 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
763 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
764 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
765 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
766 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
767 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
770 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
771 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
772 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
773 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
776 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
777 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
779 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
782 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
783 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
784 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
785 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
786 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
788 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
789 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
790 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
791 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
792 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
793 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
798 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
799 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
800 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
801 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
802 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
803 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
804 small sample of computers.
806 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
807 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
808 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
809 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
810 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
812 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
817 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
818 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
819 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
820 versionless initrd file.
822 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
823 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
826 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
827 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
828 than this, but such systems are very rare.
833 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
834 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
835 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
836 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
838 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
839 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
840 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
841 directory as the kernel.
843 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
844 entries in refind.conf file.
846 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
847 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
853 - Initial public release