href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-4/27/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.1</p>
+10/6/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.4.6</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>
<tr>
<td><tt>scanfor</tt></td>
<td><tt>internal</tt>, <tt>external</tt>, <tt>optical</tt>, <tt>hdbios</tt>, <tt>biosexternal</tt>, <tt>cd</tt>, and <tt>manual</tt></td>
- <td>Tells rEFInd what methods to use to locate boot loaders. The <tt>internal</tt>, <tt>external</tt>, and <tt>optical</tt> parameters tell rEFInd to scan for EFI boot loaders on internal, external, and optical (CD, DVD, and Blu-ray) devices, respectively. The <tt>hdbios</tt>, <tt>biosexternal</tt>, and <tt>cd</tt> parameters are similar, but scan for BIOS boot loaders. (Note that the BIOS options are likely to be useless on UEFI PCs.) The <tt>manual</tt> parameter tells rEFInd to scan the configuration file for manual settings. You can specify multiple parameters to have the program scan for multiple boot loader types. When you do so, the order determines the order in which the boot loaders appear in the menu. The default is <tt>internal, external, optical</tt>.</td>
+ <td>Tells rEFInd what methods to use to locate boot loaders. The <tt>internal</tt>, <tt>external</tt>, and <tt>optical</tt> parameters tell rEFInd to scan for EFI boot loaders on internal, external, and optical (CD, DVD, and Blu-ray) devices, respectively. The <tt>hdbios</tt>, <tt>biosexternal</tt>, and <tt>cd</tt> parameters are similar, but scan for BIOS boot loaders. (Note that the BIOS options scan more thoroughly and actively on Macs than on UEFI-based PCs; for the latter, only options in the firmware's boot list are scanned.) The <tt>manual</tt> parameter tells rEFInd to scan the configuration file for manual settings. You can specify multiple parameters to have the program scan for multiple boot loader types. When you do so, the order determines the order in which the boot loaders appear in the menu. The default is <tt>internal, external, optical, manual</tt> on most systems, but <tt>internal, hdbios, external, biosexternal, optical, cd, manual</tt> on Macs.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><tt>scan_delay</tt></td>
+ <td>Numeric (integer) value</td>
+ <td>Imposes a delay before rEFInd scans for disk devices. Ordinarily this is not necessary, but on some systems, some disks (particularly external drives and optical discs) can take a few seconds to become available. If some of your disks don't appear when rEFInd starts but they <i>do</i> appear when you press the Esc key to re-scan, try uncommenting this option and setting it to a modest value, such as <tt>2</tt>, <tt>5</tt>, or even <tt>10</tt>. The default is <tt>0</tt>.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>also_scan_dirs</tt></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>
initrd \kernels\initrd-3.3.0-rc7.img
options "root=/dev/sda3 ro"
}
+
+menuentry "Windows via shell script" {
+ icon \EFI\refind\icons\os_win.icns
+ loader \EFI\tools\shell.efi
+ options "fs0:\EFI\tools\launch_windows.nsh"
+}
</pre>
-<p>This example sets up two entries: one for Ubuntu Linux and one for Gentoo Linux. Note that the two entries use different directory separators, simply to demonstrate the fact that it's possible. The Ubuntu entry sets no icon, since rEFInd will note that the boot loader is stored in the <tt>ubuntu</tt> directory, and it will automatically find the appropriate Ubuntu icon (<tt>os_ubuntu.icns</tt>). This option is, however, disabled, so no matching icon will appear when you reboot unless you first comment out or delete the <tt>disabled</tt> line.</p>
+<p>This example sets up three entries: one for Ubuntu Linux, one for Gentoo Linux, and one to launch a shell script. Note that the first two entries use different directory separators, simply to demonstrate the fact that it's possible. The Ubuntu entry sets no icon, since rEFInd will note that the boot loader is stored in the <tt>ubuntu</tt> directory, and it will automatically find the appropriate Ubuntu icon (<tt>os_ubuntu.icns</tt>). This option is, however, disabled, so no matching icon will appear when you reboot unless you first comment out or delete the <tt>disabled</tt> line.</p>
<p class="sidebar"><b>Tip:</b> Under Linux, you can learn a filesystem's label by using <tt>blkid</tt>, as in <tt class="userinput">blkid /dev/sda1</tt>. The filesystem's label, if set, is identified by the keyword <tt>LABEL</tt> in the output.</p>
<p>The Gentoo entry begins with an icon specification to be sure that the icon is loaded from the same volume as rEFInd. (If the icon were stored on the same filesystem as the kernel, you'd place the <tt>icon</tt> line after the <tt>volume</tt> line.) This entry uses the <tt>volume</tt> token to tell rEFInd to load the kernel and initial RAM disk file from the filesystem called <tt>G_KERNELS</tt>. It passes the filename for an initial RAM disk using the <tt>initrd</tt> line and free-form options using the <tt>options</tt> line. Note that the kernel filename does <i>not</i> include a <tt>.efi</tt> extension, which keeps rEFInd from picking up the kernel file in its auto-scans.</p>
-<p>You can combine these OS stanzas with the global <tt>refind.conf</tt> options presented earlier. The result would contain just one entry on the rEFInd boot menu, unless rEFInd found other boot options on an external or optical disk.</p>
+<p>The <tt>Windows via shell script</tt> entry may seem puzzling, but its purpose is to launch an OS (Windows in this case) after performing additional pre-boot initialization, which is handled by an EFI shell script. This works because you can pass the name of a shell script to an EFI shell—the script is named on the stanza's <tt>options</tt> line, using EFI file notation. The shell script, in turn, does whatever it needs to do and then launches the OS's boot loader:</p>
+
+<pre class="listing">mm 0003003E 8 -pci
+fs0:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi</pre>
+
+<p>This example writes data to the computer's PCI bus via the EFI shell's <tt>mm</tt> command and then launches Windows. Chances are you won't need to engage in such operations, and I do <i>not</i> recommend you try this exact example unless you know what you're doing! This command was required to activate the video hardware on a computer of a person with whom I corresponded prior to booting Windows, but such needs are rare.</p>
+
+<p>You can combine these OS stanzas with the global <tt>refind.conf</tt> options presented earlier. The result would contain just two entries on the rEFInd boot menu (for Gentoo and Windows, since the Ubuntu entry is disabled), unless rEFInd found other boot options on an external or optical disk.</p>
<h2>Creating Submenu Entries</h2>