4 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
6 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
7 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
9 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
11 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
12 sized to cover these areas.
14 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
15 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
21 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
22 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
23 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
24 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
26 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
27 startup on some systems.
32 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
33 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
35 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
36 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
38 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
39 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
40 burned to USB flash disks.
42 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
43 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
44 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
46 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
47 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
48 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
49 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
50 from that installation.
52 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
53 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
56 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
57 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
62 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
63 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
64 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
66 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
67 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
68 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
69 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
70 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
72 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
73 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
74 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
75 Linux with the "make" command.
77 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
78 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
80 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
81 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
82 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
83 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
84 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
85 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
86 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
87 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
89 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
90 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
96 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
97 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
98 use on emergency discs.
100 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
101 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
102 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
103 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
104 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
105 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
106 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
107 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
110 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
112 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
113 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
114 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
115 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
116 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
119 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
122 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
123 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
124 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
125 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
127 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
128 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
129 a boot loader launch failed.
134 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
135 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
136 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
139 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
140 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
141 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
142 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
144 - Added ext4fs driver!
146 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
148 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
150 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
151 from a program that set the resolution itself.
153 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
154 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
155 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
156 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
157 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
158 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
159 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
162 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
163 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
164 display even in graphics mode.
166 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
167 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
169 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
170 disables the boot options editor.
172 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
173 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
175 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
176 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
177 from the /etc/default/grub file.
179 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
180 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
182 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
183 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
184 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
185 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
186 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
187 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
189 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
192 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
193 ---------------------
195 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
200 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
201 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
202 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
203 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
205 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
206 configuration file from a primary one.
208 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
209 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
210 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
211 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
212 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
213 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
214 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
217 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
218 on systems with Secure Boot active.
220 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
221 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
224 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
225 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
227 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
228 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
229 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
234 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
235 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
236 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
237 This example results in the following string being passed as an
239 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
241 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
242 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
243 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
244 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
245 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
246 for them makes sense.
248 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
249 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
250 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
251 EFI shells are also so limited.)
253 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
254 were not actually edited.
256 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
257 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
258 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
259 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
260 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
262 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
263 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
264 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
265 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
266 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
267 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
268 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
269 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
271 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
272 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
273 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
275 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
276 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
277 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
279 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
280 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
281 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
282 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
284 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
285 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
286 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
288 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
289 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
294 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
296 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
297 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
298 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
300 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
301 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
302 told isn't working as planned).
304 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
305 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
306 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
307 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
312 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
314 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
317 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
318 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
319 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
320 done this for two reasons:
321 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
322 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
323 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
324 default for them should help them.
325 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
326 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
327 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
328 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
329 default configurations.
331 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
336 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
338 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
343 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
346 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
349 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
350 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
353 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
358 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
359 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
361 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
362 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
363 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
364 graphics or text mode itself.)
366 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
367 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
368 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
369 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
370 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
371 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
372 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
374 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
376 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
377 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
378 "linux.conf" themselves.
383 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
384 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
387 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
388 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
389 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
390 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
391 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
392 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
393 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
394 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
397 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
398 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
403 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
404 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
405 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
406 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
409 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
410 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
412 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
414 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
415 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
418 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
419 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
424 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
425 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
426 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
427 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
428 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
429 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
430 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
432 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
433 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
434 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
436 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
437 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
438 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
439 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
441 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
442 file when launched from rEFInd.
447 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
448 received reports that it's not working as intended.
450 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
451 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
452 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
453 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
454 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
455 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
457 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
458 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
463 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
464 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
465 sample configuration file for a full description.
467 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
468 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
469 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
470 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
471 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
473 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
474 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
477 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
478 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
483 - Improved menu navigation:
484 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
485 down arrows move between rows.
486 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
487 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
488 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
489 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
491 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
492 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
493 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
498 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
499 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
500 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
501 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
502 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
503 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
506 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
509 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
511 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
512 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
519 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
520 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
522 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
523 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
524 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
525 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
526 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
527 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
528 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
529 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
530 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
531 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
532 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
534 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
535 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
536 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
537 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
538 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
540 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
541 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
546 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
547 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
548 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
549 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
550 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
551 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
553 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
554 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
555 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
556 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
557 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
558 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
559 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
560 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
561 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
562 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
563 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
564 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
565 that resets the video mode.
567 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
568 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
569 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
570 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
571 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
574 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
575 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
576 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
577 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
578 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
579 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
581 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
582 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
583 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
585 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
586 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
587 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
588 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
593 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
594 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
595 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
596 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
597 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
598 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
599 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
600 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
601 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
602 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
603 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
604 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
605 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
606 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
609 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
611 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
612 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
613 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
614 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
615 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
616 directories you like.
621 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
622 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
623 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
624 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
625 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
626 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
627 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
628 should work when a volume is unnamed.
630 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
631 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
632 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
637 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
638 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
640 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
641 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
642 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
643 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
644 documented the name....
646 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
647 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
648 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
650 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
651 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
652 directory) on certain systems.
654 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
655 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
660 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
661 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
662 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
663 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
664 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
665 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
666 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
667 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
668 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
669 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
670 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
673 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
674 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
675 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
676 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
679 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
680 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
682 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
685 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
686 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
687 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
688 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
689 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
691 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
692 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
693 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
694 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
695 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
696 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
701 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
702 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
703 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
704 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
705 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
706 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
707 small sample of computers.
709 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
710 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
711 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
712 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
713 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
715 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
720 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
721 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
722 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
723 versionless initrd file.
725 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
726 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
729 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
730 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
731 than this, but such systems are very rare.
736 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
737 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
738 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
739 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
741 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
742 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
743 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
744 directory as the kernel.
746 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
747 entries in refind.conf file.
749 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
750 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
756 - Initial public release