4 - Improved Freedesktop.org Discoverable Partitions Specification support:
5 Previously, if no refind_linux.conf file was present but an /etc/fstab
6 file was found, rEFInd ignored the Discoverable Partitions Specification
7 filesystem-type codes. This was fine if /etc/fstab contained a valid "/"
8 filesystem specification, but if that was absent, the result was no
9 "root=" specification being present. Under these circumstances
10 (refind_linux.conf absent, /etc/fstab present but lacking a "/" entry),
11 rEFInd now tries to identify a device to specify as "root=" via the
12 Discoverable Partitions Specification.
14 - Fixed bug that caused "Found match!" and a prompt to press a key to
15 continue to be printed if any partition used the Freedesktop.org
16 Discoverable Partitions Specification root-partition GUID. (This
17 was leftover debugging/testing code that I somehow missed deleting.)
19 - Added icon for Elementary OS.
21 - Added /etc/lsb-release to files scanned for clues about the Linux
22 distribution. This file differentiates Mint and Elementary OS from Ubuntu
23 better than does /etc/os-release, and may also help with other
24 closely-related distributions.
26 - Improvements to handling of case-insensitive string comparisons. These
27 are buggy on some EFIs, and such bugs affect things like dont_scan_*
28 blacklists, removal of rEFInd's own directory from scanning, matching of
29 keyword names in refind.conf, and even loading of icons. I've replaced
30 many calls to problematic functions with safer calls, which should help a
31 lot. There may still be problems on some systems with some computers,
32 though; as far as I can tell, the bugs are buried deep in some EFI
33 firmware, so I can only replace some of the most direct calls to
34 potentially buggy system calls.
39 - New icon for Kali Linux, submitted by Francesco D'Eugenio.
41 - Minor code changes to ensure that rEFInd compiles with GCC 5.1. (Tested
42 with GNU-EFI on a Fedora 22 system; not yet tested with the TianoCore
45 - Added new "fold_linux_kernels" token to refind.conf. This option, when
46 active (the default) "folds" all Linux kernels in a directory into a
47 single entry on the rEFInd menu. The kernel with the most recent time
48 stamp is launched by default. To launch another kernel, you must press F2
49 or Insert; additional kernels appear as options on the first kernel's
50 submenu. To see the pre-0.9.0 behavior, you must set "fold_linux_kernels
51 false" (or one of its synonyms, "off" or "0"). The point of this option
52 is to help de-clutter the rEFInd main menu.
54 - Added new Linux root (/) partition auto-discovery feature, based on
55 Freedesktop.org's Discoverable Partitions Spec (DPS)
56 (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
57 If no refind_linux.conf file or /etc/fstab file is found, and if a
58 partition with the correct DPS type code for the system architecture is
59 found, rEFInd adds "ro root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/{GUID}" to the kernel
60 options. This will not help on LVM setups, and will get it right for only
61 one installation on systems with multiple Linux installations, but it may
62 help some users, if/when the DPS type codes become more common.
64 - Fixed bug that caused a rEFInd crash if an empty refind_linux.conf
67 - The mkrlconf.sh script now checks the OS on which it's running, which
68 should help avoid confusion or problems by users who mistakenly run it
71 - rEFInd now skips checking for various BIOS-mode boot sector signatures
72 when running on a UEFI-based PC; these checks are run only on Macs. This
73 may reduce startup time on systems with many partitions.
75 - Fixed Debian debinstall script to work correctly on IA32 systems. It had
76 a bug that caused filesystem drivers and gptsync to not be packaged for
79 - Modified Debian postinst file to call install.sh with --localkeys option
80 if sbsign and openssl are available, even when NOT in Secure Boot mode or
81 if shim is not detected. This helps with my Ubuntu PPA when using custom
82 Secure Boot keys, since the PPA is delivered unsigned. (Users will have
83 to have added their own local keys to their firmware's db.) For
84 consistency, I've made the same change to the RPM .spec file.
89 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused inappropriate installation under the
90 name bootx64.efi (or bootia32.efi) under Linux, with a failure to update
91 the boot entries in NVRAM, has been fixed.
93 - Added identification of XFS as filesystem type in volume descriptions.
95 - More fixes to filesystem type detection code. Previous version sometimes
96 identified FAT or NTFS (or anything with a boot loader) as a whole-disk
97 device rather than the correct filesystem type.
99 - Added protections to the code to reduce the risk of crashes that might
100 occur when dereferencing NULL pointers in various situations.
102 - I'm deprecating the use of filesystem numbers (as in "fs0:") because
103 they're unreliable -- filesystem numbers can change between boots and
104 might not be the same as those used in an EFI shell or other program.
105 Sooner or later I'll remove code supporting this feature. In the
106 meantime, if it doesn't work for you, please switch to using filesystem
107 labels, partition labels, or partition GUIDs.
109 - Added detection of FreeBSD's BIOS-mode GPT boot loader. Previously,
110 rEFInd could detect FreeBSD's BIOS-mode MBR boot loader, which gave
111 FreeBSD an appropriate icon on Macs; but the BIOS-mode GPT boot loader
112 code is different, so some recent FreeBSD installations showed up with
113 generic grey diamond icons. This change creates FreeBSD icons instead.
115 - Added "Secure Boot [active|inactive]" notice to "about" menu for x86
116 (32-bit) systems, since there are now a few 32-bit UEFI systems that
117 support Secure Boot. (AFAIK, these are mostly tablets and convertibles
118 such as the ASUS T100.)
120 - Added KeyTool.efi and KeyTool-signed.efi to list of MOK managers. KeyTool
121 is the "super-deluxe" Secure Boot key and hash manager provided as part
122 of the efitools package.
124 - Fixed more instances of "invalid parameter" errors on some EFIs.
126 - Improved Secure Boot detection in install.sh.
128 - install.sh should no longer complain when copying Shim or MokManager over
134 - Removed special case of ignoring an HFS+ name of "HFS+ volume", since the
135 old rEFInd HFS+ driver that produced this name for all HFS+ volumes has
136 long since been updated to deliver a real name.
138 - Addition of new Windows 8 OS icon. On Macs and for BIOS/legacy boots, the
139 new icon is now used for Windows Vista, 7, and 8, while the old one is
140 used for earlier versions of Windows. For EFI-mode boots, the new icon is
143 - If the NTFS driver is loaded, rEFInd now scans NTFS volumes on Macs for
144 the presence of Windows boot files, and removes any NTFS volume that
145 lacks such files from the BIOS/legacy boot list. This should help
146 unclutter the display on Macs that contain NTFS data partitions.
148 - Fixed bug that caused misidentification of both whole disks and NTFS
149 volumes as being FAT. (This bug affected the identification of devices
150 and locations in the rEFInd menu, not actual access to devices.)
152 - Code refactoring to clear out legacy-boot functions from the
153 ever-expanding refind/main.c file.
155 - Added new "badges" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf. This
156 option hides the device-type badges associated with the OS boot options.
158 - Reverted rEFIt commit r472, introduced in rEFInd 0.8.5 to support more
159 BMP images because I've received bug reports that it's causing existing
160 selection images to fail to load.
162 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused misidentification of installation
163 directory under OS X if an already-mounted ESP has spaces in its path.
165 - Fixed Mac-specific install.sh bug that could cause misidentification of
166 the ESP on disks with partition numbers of 10 or above.
172 - Added NTFS EFI filesystem driver.
174 - Minor improvements to filesystem driver framework code.
178 - Fixed bug in Btrfs driver's address reference.
180 - Improved install.sh to make it smarter about figuring out where to
181 install on Macs. Specifically, this version now upgrades existing
182 installations, if found (as it always has under Linux), rather than
183 blindly install to EFI/BOOT; it installs to EFI/refind if not existing
184 installation is found; it installs using the --shortform option to bless,
185 which seems to eliminate the 30-second delay problem; and it can handle
186 an HFS+ ESP, which it treats as a separate HFS+ volume (as if the user
187 had used --ownhfs). These changes do not affect behavior under Linux.
189 - Added missing check of architecture type for several tools.
191 - Applied rEFIt commit r472, which adds support for BMP images with negative
192 height fields, indicating that the image is NOT vertically flipped. This
193 commit and r467 were not incorporated in the original rEFInd because I
194 forked it from a Debian rEFIt package that had been patched to build
195 under GNU-EFI, and was apparently based on a slightly earlier version.
197 - Applied rEFIt commit r467, which improves Mac handling of legacy boots
198 from other than the first hard disk.
204 - Tweaked default for dont_scan_volumes: Removed "Recovery HD". This change
205 better suits the needs of OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") installations, but may
206 result in some stray Recovery HD entries on some Macs.
208 - Updated icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu.
210 - Added new configuration option, "enable_and_lock_vmx", which sets an
211 Intel CPU feature that's required for some types of virtualization to
212 work. Most EFIs enable setting this feature in their own setup utilities,
213 but some (such as most Macs) don't.
215 - If rEFInd can't locate an icons directory (either the default or one
216 specified by the icons_dir token), the program switches to text-only
219 - If a loader contains the string "grub" and no other clue to the loader's
220 OS association exists, search for os_grub.{png|icns} (which is not
221 provided with rEFInd) or os_linux.{png|icns}. (Previous versions provided
222 a generic loader icon for GRUB.)
224 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_files to not work with special-case
225 boot loaders (for OS X and Windows) when specifying the complete path to
226 the loader (e.g., EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi).
228 - Added support for the iPXE network boot tool (see BUILDING.txt for
229 building and basic use instructions).
234 - Added new feature: Setting "timeout = -1" in refind.conf causes rEFInd to
235 immediately boot the default option UNLESS a keypress is in the buffer
236 when rEFInd launches. In that case, if the keypress corresponds to a
237 shortcut key, the associated boot loader is launched; or if not, the menu
240 - Added new icons for Clover boot loader and for Mythbuntu Linux
243 - rEFInd now displays the partition's label, when one is available, when
244 offering a BIOS-mode boot option for a partition with no filesystem
245 driver. This works only on Macs doing BIOS-mode booting.
247 - Removed GPLv2 code from the FSW core files. This was done because the
248 Btrfs driver is derived from the GRUB Btrfs driver, which is licensed
249 under the GPLv3. Ironically, the GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible
250 licenses, so ensuring that the Btrfs driver doesn't rely on GPLv2 code
251 was legally necessary. In most cases, I reverted to the original rEFIt
252 code, although I kept my own cache code; since I wrote it, I can
253 change its license to a BSD license.
255 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers immediately after loading
256 them. This didn't affect rEFInd's own drivers because they didn't include
257 the unload hooks, but it did affect some other drivers.
259 - Changed default scan_all_linux_kernels setting from "false" to "true",
260 and commented the option out in refind.conf-sample. This should not
261 affect most people, since refind.conf-sample had this option commented
262 out, and most rEFInd users either use it that way or don't have Linux
263 kernels installed at all. I've made this change because I want rEFInd to
264 "do the right thing" by default in as many cases as possible. For a while
265 now, rEFInd has been excluding non-bootable files from its menu, and most
266 kernels "in the wild" now include the EFI stub. Thus, enabling this
267 support by default seems worthwhile. If you prefer to not scan Linux
268 kernels by default, simply uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" line
269 and ensure it's set to "false".
274 - Removed stray bit of debugging code that caused a prompt to press a
275 key to appear at rEFInd startup.
280 - Changed behavior when default_selection is not set: It now boots the
281 previously-booted loader, assuming it's still available; if not, rEFInd
282 boots the first loader (as it does now). Behavior is unchanged if
283 default_selection is set. Note that this behavior depends on the ability
284 of rEFInd to store an EFI variable in NVRAM. It therefore fails on
285 systems with flaky NVRAM storage. You can view the previously-booted
287 /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740
288 variable under Linux.
290 - Added icon for Mageia Linux (os_mageia.png).
292 - Fixed bug that could misidentify a not-quite-GUID as a GUID in a
293 manual boot stanza's "volume" line.
295 - I've updated my personal build system, and therefore the rEFInd Makefiles
296 and related files, to use TianoCore UDK2014 rather than UDK2010.
298 - Added "deep_uefi_legacy_scan" token. When not set (the default), rEFInd
299 does not modify EFI NVRAM settings when scanning for BIOS-mode boot
300 loaders on UEFI-based (non-Mac) computers. Some computers require
301 uncommenting this setting for rEFInd to reliably detect some BIOS-mode
302 boot devices. Passing "0", "off", or "false" as an option resets it to
303 the default value (useful in a loaded secondary configuration file to
304 override a setting in the main file).
309 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders stored
310 on the root directory of a partition.
312 - Added two new bitmap fonts to those distributed with rEFInd: Ubuntu Mono
313 and Nimbus Mono. Both come in 12-, 14-, 16-, and 24-point sizes.
315 - Messages about pauses for scanning and re-scanning of boot loaders are
316 now suppressed when doing an initial delayed scan when scan_delay is 1
319 - Improved centering of legacy boot option descriptions on some systems'
322 - Fixed bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot to boot from an inappropriate
323 device if that device had an innately high boot priority (as set by the
326 - Changed icons from ICNS to PNG form. There are several reasons to do
327 this, all of them minor; but together they're enough to warrant a change.
328 PNG is more common, and therefore more accessible to most users --
329 particularly those who don't use OS X. The PNG files are smaller than
330 their ICNS equivalents. PNG supports a wider range of sizes (although I'm
331 not now using anything that ICNS doesn't support, I might in the future).
332 The icon-scaling support added a few versions ago makes ICNS's support
333 for multiple icon sizes relatively unimportant.
335 - Reversed order of search for icons by extension: rEFInd now searches
336 for PNG files before ICNS files, rather than the other way around. This
337 makes it possible to override a volume icon for rEFInd by giving it the
338 name .VolumeIcon.png, even when a .VolumeIcon.icns file exists on the
339 volume and is used by OS X.
341 - Fixed bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take higher-than-intended
342 precedence in icon setting for OS X.
344 - Chainloading to BIOS-mode boot loaders now works on UEFI-based PCs when
345 rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI, not just when built with Tianocore.
350 - The "dont_scan_volumes" parameter now also works with legacy-boot
351 volumes. Unlike with EFI volumes, where the option you pass must exactly
352 match an entire volume name, when applied to legacy-boot volumes, it
353 matches any part of the description that appears beneath the item when
354 you select it in the rEFInd main menu.
356 - Can now boot in legacy mode from second (and probably later) hard disks!
358 - rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware name string shown in the
359 system information screen to 65 characters. This is done because at least
360 one EFI presents a longer string by default, and this causes the entire
361 information display to come up empty on 800x600 displays.
363 - rEFInd now uses the partition's name (as stored in the GPT data
364 structures) as a fallback for the filesystem's name if the latter can't
365 be found. Exceptions are if the partition name is one of three generic
366 names used by GPT fdisk: "Microsoft basic data", "Linux filesystem", or
367 "Apple HFS/HFS+". These are ignored in favor of the descriptive fallback
368 (e.g., "20 GiB Btrfs volume")
370 - It's now possible to specify a volume by partition GUID number in a
371 manual boot stanza. This should be more reliable (albeit also more
372 awkward) than using a filesystem number (such as fs0: or fs1:).
374 - Fixed memory-allocation bug that could cause error message displays,
375 and possibly hangs, when re-scanning boot loaders.
380 - Attempt to fix rEFInd perpetually re-scanning after ejecting a disc on
383 - Added check to remove redundant (or non-functional if Secure Boot is
384 active) kernel entries for Ubuntu, which is now including two versions of
385 kernels, one signed and the other unsigned.
387 - Fixed bug in install.sh that could cause it to display error messages
388 if the dmraid utility was not installed.
390 - The HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name.
392 - Fixed some EFI filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups under
393 some circumstances. These bugs could affect any of the filesystem
396 - Added "gdisk" option to the "showtools" configuration file token. When
397 active, this adds gdisk.efi or gdisk_{arch}.efi, if present in the
398 EFI\tools directory, to the tools row.
400 - Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility
407 - Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian
408 packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run
409 any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the
410 hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run
411 install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64
412 references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of
413 concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else.
415 - Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of
416 the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively.
417 The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type
418 badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and
419 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If
420 the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified,
421 rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn
422 to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf.
424 - rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes.
425 This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it
426 can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a
427 graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so
428 scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128
429 OS icon) is not likely to look good.
431 - Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners:
432 Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll
433 be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the
434 behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the
435 banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display.
437 - Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate
438 RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for
439 existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi
440 rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages
441 were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note,
442 however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd
443 The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine;
444 it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that
445 problems might arise.
450 - Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in
453 - Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
455 - Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a
456 Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to
457 "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery
458 utility on the second row of icons.
460 - The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files,
461 and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first
462 option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default
463 value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for
464 scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.)
466 - Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch,
467 via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the
468 foo.conf file as the main configuration file.
470 - Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with
471 duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so
472 would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given
475 - Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP
476 in Linux, if it's currently unmounted.
478 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
479 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
480 under some circumstances.
485 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
486 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
487 default_selection "fred,ginger"
488 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
489 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
491 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
492 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
493 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
494 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
495 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
496 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
497 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
498 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
499 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
500 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
501 depending on your computer.
503 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
504 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
505 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
506 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
507 screensaver will be disabled.
509 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
510 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
511 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
512 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
513 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
518 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
519 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
521 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
522 versions of OS X to fail.
524 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
525 drivers were present.
527 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
528 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
529 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
530 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
531 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
532 black a second or so later.
537 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
538 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
544 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
545 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
546 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
548 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
549 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
550 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
551 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
552 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
553 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
556 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
557 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
558 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
559 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
561 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
562 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
563 known case, but there may be others.)
568 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
571 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
576 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
577 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
579 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
580 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
582 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
583 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
585 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
586 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
587 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
588 HashTool-signed.efi".
590 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
592 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
595 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
601 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
603 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
604 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
605 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
607 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
608 volume specification, if present.
610 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
615 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
616 type for volumes that lack labels.
618 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
619 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
620 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
623 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
624 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
625 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
626 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
627 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
628 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
629 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
630 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
632 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
633 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
634 non-EFI loaders, etc.
636 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
642 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
643 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
645 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
648 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
649 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
650 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
651 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
653 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
654 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
655 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
656 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
661 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
662 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
663 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
664 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
666 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
668 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
669 directory names that contain spaces.
671 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
672 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
673 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
674 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
675 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
677 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
678 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
680 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
683 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
684 partitions to fill the MBR.
689 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
690 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
691 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
692 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
694 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
695 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
696 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
697 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
698 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
700 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
701 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
702 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
703 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
704 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
707 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
708 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
710 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
711 encountered when saving a screen shot.
713 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
714 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
715 sequence number, starting with "001".
720 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
723 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
724 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
726 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
727 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
728 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
730 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
731 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
732 accidentally trash their systems.
734 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
735 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
736 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
741 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
742 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
744 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
745 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
747 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
748 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
750 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
755 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
756 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
758 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
759 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
760 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
761 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
763 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
764 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
766 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
767 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
769 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
772 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
774 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
775 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
776 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
781 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
782 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
783 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
784 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
785 loader under the fallback name.
787 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
788 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
789 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
790 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
793 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
794 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
796 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
797 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
799 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
800 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
801 commented out or empty.
803 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
804 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
806 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
809 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
810 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
815 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
816 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
818 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
820 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
822 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
823 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
825 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
827 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
828 sized to cover these areas.
830 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
831 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
837 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
838 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
839 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
840 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
842 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
843 startup on some systems.
848 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
849 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
851 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
852 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
854 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
855 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
856 burned to USB flash disks.
858 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
859 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
860 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
862 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
863 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
864 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
865 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
866 from that installation.
868 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
869 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
872 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
873 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
878 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
879 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
880 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
882 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
883 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
884 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
885 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
886 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
888 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
889 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
890 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
891 Linux with the "make" command.
893 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
894 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
896 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
897 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
898 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
899 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
900 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
901 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
902 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
903 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
905 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
906 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
912 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
913 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
914 use on emergency discs.
916 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
917 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
918 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
919 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
920 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
921 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
922 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
923 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
926 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
928 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
929 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
930 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
931 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
932 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
935 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
938 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
939 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
940 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
941 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
943 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
944 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
945 a boot loader launch failed.
950 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
951 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
952 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
955 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
956 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
957 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
958 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
960 - Added ext4fs driver!
962 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
964 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
966 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
967 from a program that set the resolution itself.
969 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
970 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
971 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
972 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
973 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
974 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
975 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
978 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
979 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
980 display even in graphics mode.
982 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
983 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
985 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
986 disables the boot options editor.
988 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
989 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
991 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
992 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
993 from the /etc/default/grub file.
995 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
996 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
998 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
999 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
1000 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
1001 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
1002 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
1003 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
1005 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
1008 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
1009 ---------------------
1011 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
1016 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
1017 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
1018 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
1019 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
1021 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
1022 configuration file from a primary one.
1024 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
1025 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
1026 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
1027 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
1028 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
1029 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
1030 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
1033 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
1034 on systems with Secure Boot active.
1036 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
1037 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
1040 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
1041 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
1043 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
1044 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
1045 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
1050 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
1051 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
1052 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
1053 This example results in the following string being passed as an
1055 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
1057 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
1058 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
1059 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
1060 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
1061 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
1062 for them makes sense.
1064 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
1065 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
1066 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
1067 EFI shells are also so limited.)
1069 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
1070 were not actually edited.
1072 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
1073 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
1074 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
1075 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
1076 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
1078 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
1079 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
1080 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
1081 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
1082 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
1083 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
1084 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
1085 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
1087 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
1088 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
1089 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
1091 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
1092 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
1093 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
1095 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
1096 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
1097 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
1098 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
1100 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
1101 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
1102 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
1104 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
1105 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
1110 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
1112 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
1113 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
1114 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
1116 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
1117 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
1118 told isn't working as planned).
1120 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
1121 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
1122 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
1123 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
1128 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
1130 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
1133 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
1134 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
1135 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
1136 done this for two reasons:
1137 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
1138 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
1139 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
1140 default for them should help them.
1141 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
1142 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
1143 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
1144 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
1145 default configurations.
1147 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
1152 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
1154 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
1159 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
1162 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
1165 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
1166 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
1169 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
1174 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
1175 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
1177 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
1178 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
1179 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
1180 graphics or text mode itself.)
1182 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
1183 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
1184 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
1185 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
1186 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
1187 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
1188 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
1190 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
1192 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
1193 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
1194 "linux.conf" themselves.
1199 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
1200 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
1203 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
1204 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
1205 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
1206 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
1207 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
1208 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
1209 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
1210 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
1213 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
1214 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
1219 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
1220 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
1221 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
1222 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
1225 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
1226 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
1228 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
1230 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
1231 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
1234 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
1235 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
1240 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
1241 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
1242 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
1243 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
1244 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
1245 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
1246 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
1248 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
1249 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
1250 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
1252 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
1253 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
1254 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
1255 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
1257 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
1258 file when launched from rEFInd.
1263 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
1264 received reports that it's not working as intended.
1266 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
1267 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
1268 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
1269 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
1270 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
1271 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
1273 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
1274 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
1279 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
1280 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
1281 sample configuration file for a full description.
1283 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
1284 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
1285 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
1286 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
1287 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
1289 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
1290 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
1293 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
1294 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
1299 - Improved menu navigation:
1300 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
1301 down arrows move between rows.
1302 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
1303 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
1304 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
1305 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
1307 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
1308 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
1309 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
1314 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
1315 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
1316 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
1317 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
1318 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
1319 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
1322 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
1325 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
1327 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
1328 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
1335 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
1336 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
1338 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
1339 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
1340 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
1341 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
1342 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
1343 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
1344 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
1345 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
1346 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
1347 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
1348 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
1350 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
1351 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
1352 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
1353 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
1354 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
1356 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
1357 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
1362 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
1363 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
1364 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
1365 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
1366 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
1367 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
1369 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
1370 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
1371 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
1372 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
1373 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
1374 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
1375 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
1376 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
1377 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
1378 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
1379 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
1380 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
1381 that resets the video mode.
1383 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
1384 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
1385 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
1386 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
1387 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
1390 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
1391 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
1392 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
1393 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
1394 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
1395 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
1397 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
1398 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
1399 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
1401 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
1402 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
1403 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
1404 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
1409 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
1410 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
1411 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
1412 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
1413 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
1414 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
1415 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
1416 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
1417 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
1418 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
1419 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
1420 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
1421 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
1422 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
1425 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
1427 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
1428 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
1429 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
1430 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
1431 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
1432 directories you like.
1437 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
1438 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
1439 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
1440 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
1441 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
1442 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
1443 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
1444 should work when a volume is unnamed.
1446 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
1447 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
1448 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
1453 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
1454 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
1456 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
1457 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
1458 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
1459 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
1460 documented the name....
1462 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
1463 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
1464 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
1466 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
1467 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
1468 directory) on certain systems.
1470 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
1471 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1476 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1477 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1478 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1479 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1480 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1481 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1482 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1483 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1484 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1485 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1486 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1489 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1490 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1491 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1492 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1495 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1496 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1498 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1501 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1502 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1503 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1504 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1505 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1507 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1508 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1509 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1510 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1511 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1512 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1517 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1518 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1519 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1520 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1521 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1522 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1523 small sample of computers.
1525 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1526 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1527 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1528 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1529 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1531 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1536 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1537 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1538 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1539 versionless initrd file.
1541 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1542 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1545 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1546 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1547 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1552 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1553 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1554 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1555 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1557 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1558 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1559 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1560 directory as the kernel.
1562 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1563 entries in refind.conf file.
1565 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1566 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1572 - Initial public release