href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-5/6/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.3</p>
+8/12/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.4.5</p>
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<tr>
<td><tt>hideui</tt></td>
<td><tt>banner</tt>, <tt>label</tt>, <tt>singleuser</tt>, <tt>hwtest</tt>, <tt>arrows</tt>, or <tt>all</tt></td>
- <td>Removes the specified user interface features. <tt>banner</tt> removes the banner graphic, <tt>label</tt> removes the text description of each tag, <tt>singleuser</tt> removes the single-user option from the Mac OS sub-menu, <tt>hwtest</tt> removes the Mac OS hardware test option, <tt>arrows</tt> removes the arrows to the right or left of the OS tags when rEFInd finds too many OSes to display simultaneously, and <tt>all</tt> removes all of these options. You can specify multiple parameters with this option. The default is to set none of these values.</td>
+ <td>Removes the specified user interface features. <tt>banner</tt> removes the banner graphic, <tt>label</tt> removes the text description of each tag and the countdown timer, <tt>singleuser</tt> removes the single-user option from the Mac OS sub-menu, <tt>hwtest</tt> removes the Mac OS hardware test option, <tt>arrows</tt> removes the arrows to the right or left of the OS tags when rEFInd finds too many OSes to display simultaneously, and <tt>all</tt> removes all of these options. You can specify multiple parameters with this option. The default is to set none of these values.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><tt>icons_dir</tt></td>
+ <td>directory name</td>
+ <td>Specifies a directory in which custom icons may be found. This directory should contain files with the same names as the files in the standard <tt>icons</tt> directory. The directory name is specified relative to the directory in which the rEFInd binary resides. The standard <tt>icons</tt> directory is searched if an icon can't be found in the one specified by <tt>icons_dir</tt>, so you can use this location to redefine just some icons.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>banner</tt></td>
<tr>
<td><tt>selection_big</tt></td>
<td>filename</td>
- <td>Specifies a graphics file that can be used to highlight the OS selection icons. This should be a 144x144 image in BMP format.</td>
+ <td>Specifies a graphics file that can be used to highlight the OS selection icons. This should be a 144x144 image in BMP format, stored in rEFInd's main directory.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>selection_small</tt></td>
<td>filename</td>
- <td>Like <tt>selection_big</tt>, this sets an alternate highlight graphic, but for the smaller utility tags on the second row.</td>
+ <td>Like <tt>selection_big</tt>, this sets an alternate highlight graphic, but for the smaller utility tags on the second row. This should be a 64x64 image in BMP format, stored in rEFInd's main directory.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>showtools</tt></td>
<td><tt>shell</tt>, <tt>gptsync</tt>, <tt>about</tt>, <tt>exit</tt>, <tt>shutdown</tt>, and <tt>reboot</tt></td>
- <td>Specifies which tool tags to display on the second row. <tt>shell</tt> launches an EFI shell, <tt>gptsync</tt> launches a tool that creates a hybrid MBR, <tt>about</tt> displays information about the program, <tt>exit</tt> terminates rEFInd, <tt>shutdown</tt> shuts down the computer (or reboots it, on UEFI PCs), and <tt>reboot</tt> reboots the computer. The tags appear in the order in which you specify them. The default is <tt>shell, about, shutdown, reboot</tt>.</td>
+ <td>Specifies which tool tags to display on the second row. <tt>shell</tt> launches an EFI shell, <tt>gptsync</tt> launches a tool that creates a hybrid MBR, <tt>about</tt> displays information about the program, <tt>exit</tt> terminates rEFInd, <tt>shutdown</tt> shuts down the computer (or reboots it, on UEFI PCs), and <tt>reboot</tt> reboots the computer. The tags appear in the order in which you specify them. The default is <tt>shell, about, shutdown, reboot</tt>. Note that the <tt>shell</tt> and <tt>gptsync</tt> options both require the presence of programs not included with rEFInd; see the <a href="installing.html#addons">"Installing Additional Components"</a> section of the <a href="installing.html">Installing rEFInd</a> page for pointers to these programs.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>textonly</tt></td>
<td>Two integer values</td>
<td>Sets the video resolution used by rEFInd; takes a width and a height as options. For instance, <tt>resolution 1024 768</tt> sets the resolution to 1024x768. If you set a resolution that doesn't work on a UEFI-based system, rEFInd displays a message along with a list of valid modes. On an system built around EFI 1.<i>x</i> (such as a Mac), setting an incorrect resolution fails silently; you'll get the system's default resolution. You'll also get the system's default resolution if you set either resolution value to <tt>0</tt> or if you pass anything but two numbers. (Note that passing a resolution with an <tt>x</tt>, as in <tt>1024x768</tt>, will be interpreted as <i>one</i> option and so will cause the default resolution to be used.) Also, be aware that it is possible to set a valid resolution for your video card that's invalid for your monitor. If you do this, your monitor will go blank until you've booted an OS that resets the video mode.</td>
</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><tt>use_graphics_for</tt></td>
+ <td><tt>osx</tt>, <tt>linux</tt>, <tt>elilo</tt>, <tt>grub</tt>, and <tt>windows</tt></td>
+ <td>Ordinarily, rEFInd clears the screen and displays basic boot information when launching any OS but Mac OS X. For OS X, the default behavior is to clear the screen to the default background color and display no information. You can specify the simpler Mac-style behavior by specifying the OSes or boot loaders you want to work this way with this option. (OSes that should use text-mode displays should be omitted from this list.) Note that this option doesn't affect what the boot loader does; it may display graphics, text, or nothing at all. Thus, the effect of this option is likely to last for just a fraction of a second. On at least one firmware (used on some Gigabyte boards), setting <tt>use_graphics_for linux</tt> is required to avoid a system hang when launching Linux via its EFI stub loader.</td>
+</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>scan_driver_dirs</tt></td>
<td>directory path(s)</td>
<td>directory path(s)</td>
<td>Adds the specified directory or directories to the directory list that rEFInd scans for EFI boot loaders when <tt>scanfor</tt> includes the <tt>internal</tt>, <tt>external</tt>, or <tt>optical</tt> options. Directories are specified relative to the filesystem's root directory. If this option is used, it's applied to <i>all</i> the filesystems that rEFInd scans. If a specified directory doesn't exist, rEFInd ignores it (no error results).</td>
</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><tt>dont_scan_dirs</tt> or <tt>don't_scan_dirs</tt></td>
+ <td>directory path(s)</td>
+ <td>Adds the specified directory or directories to a directory "blacklist"—these directories are <i>not</i> scanned for boot loaders, on <i>any</i> partition. This may be useful to keep duplicate boot loaders out of the menu (say, if <tt>EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi</tt> is a duplicate of another boot loader); or to keep drivers or utilities out of the boot menu, if you've stored them in a subdirectory of <tt>EFI</tt>. This option takes precedence over <tt>also_scan_dirs</tt>; if a directory appears in both lists, it will <i>not</i> be scanned.</td>
+</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>scan_all_linux_kernels</tt></td>
<td>None</td>
<tr>
<td><tt>icon</tt></td>
<td>filename</td>
- <td>Sets the filename for an icon for the menu. If you omit this item, a default icon will be used, based on rEFInd's auto-detection algorithms.</td>
+ <td>Sets the filename for an icon for the menu. If you omit this item, a default icon will be used, based on rEFInd's auto-detection algorithms. The filename should be a complete path from the root of the current directory, not relative to the default icons subdirectory or the one set via <tt>icons_dir</tt>.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>ostype</tt></td>