<p class="subhead">by Roderick W. Smith, <a
href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
- <p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update: 4/14/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.2.6</p>
+<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
+6/23/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.4.4</p>
<p>I'm a technical writer and consultant specializing in Linux technologies. This Web page is provided free of charge and with no annoying outside ads; however, I did take time to prepare it, and Web hosting does cost money. If you find this Web page useful, please consider making a small donation to help keep this site up and running. Thanks!</p>
<hr />
-<p><b>Note:</b> I consider rEFInd to be <i>alpha-quality software!</i> Although rEFIt 0.14, upon which rEFInd is based, is beta-quality, I've changed a great deal of the code, and I'm still learning about it. I'm discovering bugs (old and new) and fixing them every day or two. That said, rEFInd is a usable program in its current form on many systems. If you have problems, feel free to drop me a line.</p>
+<p><b>Note:</b> I consider rEFInd to be <i>beta-quality software!</i> I'm discovering bugs (old and new) and fixing them every few days. That said, rEFInd is a usable program in its current form on many systems. If you have problems, feel free to drop me a line.</p>
<h2>Getting rEFInd from Sourceforge</h2>
-<p>You can find the rEFInd source code and binary packages at <a href="http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/refind/">its SourceForge page.</a> Note that rEFInd is OS-independent—it runs before the OS, so you download the same binary package for any OS. You can obtain rEFInd in three different forms:</p>
+<p>You can find the rEFInd source code and binary packages at <a href="http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/refind/">its SourceForge page.</a> Note that rEFInd is OS-independent—it runs before the OS, so you download the same binary package for any OS. You can obtain rEFInd in four different forms:</p>
<ul>
-<li><b><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.2.6/refind-src-0.2.6.zip/download">A
+<li><b><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.4/refind-src-0.4.4.zip/download">A
source code zip file</a></b>—This is useful if you want to
compile the software locally. Note that I use Linux with the <a
href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnu-efi">GNU-EFI</a> development
- tools. rEFIt used an Intel/Microsoft toolchain. Backporting rEFInd to
- that toolchain is theoretically possible, but I've not attempted
- it.</li>
-
-<li><b><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.2.6/refind-bin-0.2.6.zip/download">A
- binary zip file</a></b>—Download this if you want to install rEFInd on
- an <i>x</i>86 or <i>x</i>86-64 computer and have no need to test rEFInd
- first by booting it on an optical disc. This zip file package includes both
- <i>x</i>86 (aka IA32) and <i>x</i>86-64 (aka <i>x</i>64, AMD64, or EM64T)
- versions of rEFInd. Which you install depends on your architecture, as
- described on the <a href="installing.html">Installing rEFInd</a> page.</li>
-
-<li><b><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.2.6/refind-cd-0.2.6.zip/download">A
- CD-R image file</a></b>—This download contains the same files as the
- zip file, but you can burn it to a CD-R to test rEFInd without installing it
- first. (It boots on UEFI PCs, but fails on at least some Macs.) If you like
- it, you can then copy the files from the CD-R to your hard disk. The files
- are named in such a way that the disc should boot on either 64-bit
- (<i>x</i>86-64) or 32-bit (<i>x</i>86) EFI computers. Note that there's a
- bug that causes rEFInd to complain about invalid parameters while scanning
- various directories. You can safely ignore this message, but you'll need to
- press a key to dismiss it. I've included an open source EFI shell program on
- this disc that's not included in the binary zip file, so that you can access
- an EFI shell from a bootable disc even if you don't have an EFI shell
- available from your regular hard disk.</li>
+ tools to build the main rEFInd binary, and Linux with the <a
+ href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/tianocore/">TianoCore
+ development kit</a> for the drivers. rEFIt used an Intel/Microsoft
+ toolchain. Backporting rEFInd to that toolchain is theoretically
+ possible, but I've not attempted it.</li>
+
+<li><b><a
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.4/refind-bin-0.4.4.zip/download">A
+ binary zip file (built with GNU-EFI)</a></b>—Download this if you
+ want to install rEFInd and/or its filesystem drivers on an <i>x</i>86
+ or <i>x</i>86-64 computer and have no need to test rEFInd first by
+ booting it on an optical disc. This zip file package includes both
+ <i>x</i>86 (aka IA32) and <i>x</i>86-64 (aka <i>x</i>64, AMD64, or
+ EM64T) versions of rEFInd. Which you install depends on your
+ architecture, as described on the <a href="installing.html">Installing
+ rEFInd</a> page.</li>
+
+<li><b><a
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.4/refind-bin-tiano-0.4.4.zip/download">A
+ binary zip file (built with TianoCore EDK2)</a></b>—This package
+ is just like the preceding one, except that it was built using the
+ TianoCore EFI Development Kit 2 (EDK2) rather than the GNU-EFI that was
+ used to build the other binary. In theory, the two should work
+ identically. In practice, they might not. I originally used GNU-EFI to
+ develop rEFInd, so it's the safer version; however, I would appreciate
+ feedback about the TianoCore EDK2 build.</li>
+
+<li><b><a
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.4/refind-cd-0.4.4.zip/download">A
+ CD-R image file</a></b>—This download contains the same files as
+ the GNU-EFI zip file, but you can burn it to a CD-R to test rEFInd (and its
+ filesystem drivers) without installing it first. (It boots on UEFI PCs,
+ but fails on some older Macs.) If you like it, you can then copy the
+ files from the CD-R to your hard disk. The files are named in such a
+ way that the disc should boot on either 64-bit (<i>x</i>86-64) or
+ 32-bit (<i>x</i>86) EFI computers. I've included an open source EFI
+ shell program on this disc that's not included in the binary zip file,
+ so that you can access an EFI shell from a bootable disc even if you
+ don't have an EFI shell available from your regular hard disk. This can
+ be an extremely valuable diagnostic tool if you know how to use an EFI
+ shell.</li>
+
+<li><b><a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/refind/code">Source code via
+ git</a></b>—If you want to peruse the source code in your Web
+ browser or get the very latest version (including pre-release bug fixes
+ and updates), you can use the Sourceforge git repository. This access
+ method is most useful to programmers, or at least to those who are
+ familiar with programming tools. Note that if you need to ask "what's
+ git?", this is probably not the best way for you to obtain rEFInd.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you're using another platform, you can give rEFInd a try; however, you'll need to build it from source code yourself or track down a binary from another source. (Perhaps by the time you read this it will be included in Linux distributions built for unusual CPUs.)</p>
-<p>
If you download a zip file, you'll need to extract the files with a tool such as <tt>unzip</tt>, which is included with Linux and Mac OS X. Numerous Windows utilities also support this format, such as <a href="http://www.pkware.com/software/pkzip/">PKZIP</a> and <a href="http://www.7-zip.org/">7-Zip.</a></p>
+<p>
To extract the files from the zip file images I've provided, you'll need a tool such as <tt>unzip</tt>, which is included with Linux and Mac OS X. Numerous Windows utilities also support this format, such as <a href="http://www.pkware.com/software/pkzip/">PKZIP</a> and <a href="http://www.7-zip.org/">7-Zip.</a></p>
<p>You should be able to create a bootable USB flash drive from either the binary zip file or the CD-R image file; just treat the flash drive as if it were a hard disk and install rEFInd as described on the <a href="installing.html">installation page.</a> Using the fallback boot loader name of <tt>EFI/boot/bootx64.efi</tt> is likely to be the most useful way to install rEFInd to a removable medium.</p>
<h2>Getting rEFInd from Your OS's Repositories</h2>
-<p>If you use Arch Linux, you can obtain rEFInd from its repositories, in both <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=57632">stable</a> and <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=57966">git (experimental)</a> releases. The git release is likely to include pre-release bug fixes and new features, but those features may be poorly tested or undocumented.</p>
+<p>If you use Arch Linux, you can obtain rEFInd from its repositories, in both <a href="http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/any/refind-efi-x86_64/">stable</a> and <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=59810">git (experimental)</a> releases. The git release is likely to include pre-release bug fixes and new features, but those features may be poorly tested or undocumented.</p>
<p>You can also obtain rEFInd from the <a href="http://nixos.org/nixpkgs/">Nix Packages collection,</a> which creates packages for a number of OSes using its own packaging system.</p>