href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-10/6/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.4.6</p>
+1/6/2013, referencing rEFInd 0.6.3</p>
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<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 four 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 several different forms:</p>
<ul>
<li><b><a
- href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.6/refind-src-0.4.6.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/refind/files/0.6.3/refind-src-0.6.3.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="https://sourceforge.net/projects/tianocore/">TianoCore EFI
- Development Kit 2 (EDK2)</a> to build my binaries (below), although the
- <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnu-efi">GNU-EFI</a>
- development tools are also supported. rEFIt used an Intel/Microsoft
- toolchain. Backporting rEFInd to that toolchain is theoretically
- possible, but I've not attempted it.</li>
+ Development Kit 2 (EDK2)</a> to build my binary packages (below),
+ although the <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnu-efi">GNU-EFI</a>
+ development tools are also supported.</li>
<li><b><a
- href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.6/refind-bin-0.4.6.zip/download">A
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.6.3/refind-bin-0.6.3.zip/download">A
binary zip file</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
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/0.6.3/refind-0.6.3-2.x86_64.rpm/download">A
+ binary RPM file</a></b>—If you use an RPM-based <i>x</i>86-64
+ Linux system such as Fedora or openSUSE, you can install the binary RPM
+ package rather than use the binary zip file. (I don't provide an
+ equivalent 32-bit package.) This package runs the <tt>install.sh</tt>
+ script (described on the <a href="installing.html">Installing
+ rEFInd</a> page) as part of the installation process. Distribution
+ maintainers can examine the <tt>refind.spec</tt> file in the source
+ package and tweak it to their needs. The <a
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.6.3/refind-0.6.3-2.src.rpm/download">source
+ RPM file</a> might or might not build on your system as-is; it relies
+ on assumptions about the locations of the GNU-EFI development
+ files.</li>
+
+<li><b><a
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.6.3/refind_0.6.3-2_amd64.deb/download">A
+ binary Debian package</a></b>—If you use an <i>x</i>86-64 version
+ of Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, or another Debian-based distribution, you can
+ install from this package, which was converted from the binary RPM
+ package using <tt>alien</tt>.</li>
+
<!--
<li><b><a
- href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.6/refind-bin-gnuefi-0.4.6.zip/download">A
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.7/refind-bin-gnuefi-0.4.7.zip/download">A
binary zip file (built with GNU-EFI)</a></b>—This package is just
like the preceding one, except that it was built using the GNU-EFI
development kit rather than the TianoCore EFI Development Kit 2 (EDK2)
either build.)</li>
-->
+<p class="sidebar"><b>Tip:</b> If you want a bootable USB flash drive, download the binary zip file or CD-R image file, prepare a USB flash drive with a FAT32 partition, and then use the <tt>install.sh</tt> program's <tt>--usedefault</tt> option, and perhaps the <tt>--alldrivers</tt> option, as in <tt class="userinput">bash install.sh --usedefault /dev/sdd1 --alldrivers</tt> to install to the first partition on <tt>/dev/sdd</tt>. This procedure should work even on a BIOS-booted computer.</p>
+
<li><b><a
- href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.4.6/refind-cd-0.4.6.zip/download">A
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.6.3/refind-cd-0.6.3.zip/download">A
CD-R image file</a></b>—This download contains the same files as
the binary 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
<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="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>I know of a small number of pre-packaged versions of rEFInd, either in official OS repositories or in ancillary repositories:</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>
+<ul>
+
+<li><b>Arch Linux</b>—You can obtain rEFInd from the Arch
+ repositories, in both a stable version (the <tt>refind-efi</tt> package
+ installable via <tt>pacman</tt>) and an experimental release built from
+ rEFInd's git repository in the Arch User Repository (AUR), under the
+ name <tt>refind-efi-git</tt>. The git release is likely to include
+ pre-release bug fixes and new features, but those features may be
+ poorly tested or undocumented. The last I checked, both builds used the
+ Tianocore toolkit, and so support booting BIOS/legacy boot loaders on
+ UEFI-based PCs.</li>
+
+<li><b><a href="http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/">Fat
+ Dog</a></b>—This variant of Puppy Linux uses a combination of
+ rEFInd and GRUB 2 to boot its installation medium in EFI mode and
+ provides a rEFInd package in its repository set.</li>
+
+<li><b>The <a href="http://nixos.org/nixpkgs/">Nix Packages
+ collection</a></b>—This site creates packages for a number of
+ OSes using its own packaging system.</li>
+
+<li><b>Slackware</b>—Although it doesn't seem to provide an official
+ build, <a href="http://franck-barbenoire.fr/spip.php?article198">this
+ site</a> has links to rEFInd binary packages for Slackware 13.37 and
+ 14.0.</li>
+
+</ul>
<p>To the best of my knowledge, no other Linux distribution yet includes rEFInd in its repositories. That's likely to change in time. If you hear of rEFInd being included in an OS's official package set, feel free to <a href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">drop me a line.</a></p>
<hr />
-<p>copyright © 2012 by Roderick W. Smith</p>
+<p>copyright © 2012–2013 by Roderick W. Smith</p>
<p>This document is licensed under the terms of the <a href="FDL-1.3.txt">GNU Free Documentation License (FDL), version 1.3.</a></p>