4 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
5 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
7 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
8 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
9 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
10 graphics or text mode itself.)
12 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
13 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
14 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
15 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
16 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
17 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
18 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
20 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
22 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
23 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
24 "linux.conf" themselves.
29 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
30 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
33 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
34 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
35 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
36 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
37 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
38 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
39 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
40 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
43 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
44 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
49 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
50 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
51 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
52 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
55 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
56 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
58 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
60 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
61 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
64 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
65 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
70 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
71 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
72 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
73 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
74 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
75 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
76 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
78 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
79 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
80 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
82 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
83 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
84 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
85 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
87 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
88 file when launched from rEFInd.
93 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
94 received reports that it's not working as intended.
96 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
97 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
98 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
99 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
100 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
101 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
103 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
104 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
109 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
110 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
111 sample configuration file for a full description.
113 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
114 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
115 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
116 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
117 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
119 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
120 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
123 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
124 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
129 - Improved menu navigation:
130 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
131 down arrows move between rows.
132 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
133 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
134 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
135 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
137 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
138 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
139 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
144 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
145 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
146 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
147 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
148 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
149 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
152 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
155 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
157 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
158 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
165 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
166 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
168 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
169 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
170 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
171 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
172 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
173 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
174 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
175 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
176 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
177 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
178 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
180 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
181 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
182 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
183 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
184 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
186 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
187 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
192 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
193 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
194 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
195 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
196 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
197 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
199 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
200 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
201 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
202 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
203 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
204 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
205 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
206 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
207 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
208 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
209 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
210 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
211 that resets the video mode.
213 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
214 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
215 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
216 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
217 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
220 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
221 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
222 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
223 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
224 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
225 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
227 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
228 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
229 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
231 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
232 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
233 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
234 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
239 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
240 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
241 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
242 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
243 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
244 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
245 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
246 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
247 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
248 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
249 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
250 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
251 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
252 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
255 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
257 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
258 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
259 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
260 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
261 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
262 directories you like.
267 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
268 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
269 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
270 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
271 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
272 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
273 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
274 should work when a volume is unnamed.
276 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
277 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
278 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
283 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
284 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
286 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
287 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
288 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
289 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
290 documented the name....
292 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
293 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
294 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
296 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
297 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
298 directory) on certain systems.
300 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
301 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
306 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
307 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
308 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
309 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
310 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
311 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
312 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
313 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
314 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
315 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
316 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
319 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
320 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
321 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
322 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
325 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
326 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
328 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
331 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
332 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
333 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
334 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
335 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
337 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
338 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
339 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
340 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
341 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
342 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
347 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
348 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
349 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
350 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
351 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
352 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
353 small sample of computers.
355 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
356 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
357 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
358 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
359 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
361 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
366 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
367 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
368 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
369 versionless initrd file.
371 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
372 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
375 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
376 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
377 than this, but such systems are very rare.
382 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
383 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
384 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
385 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
387 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
388 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
389 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
390 directory as the kernel.
392 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
393 entries in refind.conf file.
395 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
396 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
402 - Initial public release