@@ -15,9 +17,9 @@ F
href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-3/18/2013, referencing rEFInd 0.6.8
+8/2/2015, referencing rEFInd 0.9.0
-
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!
+
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!
+ href="installing.html">Installing rEFInd page. Some users of Arch
+ Linux have reported problems booting some specific Arch Linux kernels
+ with rEFInd and some other tools. For them, a variant
+ package exists in which the x86-64 binary was compiled with
+ GNU-EFI rather than the usual TianoCore EDK2. This change helps some
+ users with this problem.
+ package using alien. Note that an Ubuntu
+ PPA is available, which may install more smoothly and will cause
+ rEFInd to automatically update with other packages.
-
Note: At the moment, neither the bootable CD-R image file nor the bootable USB flash drive image file supports booting with Secure Boot active.
+
Note: At the moment, neither the bootable CD-R image file nor the bootable USB flash drive image file supports booting with Secure Boot active. The x86-64 version of the ALT Linux Rescue disc uses a Secure Boot-enabled rEFInd, though, so you may find that useful in some situations.
Source code via
git—If you want to peruse the source code in your Web
browser or get the very latest version (including pre-release bug fixes
@@ -206,23 +254,42 @@ computer.
+
Ubuntu—Although an official Ubuntu
+ package isn't available, I've created a rEFInd PPA
+ for Ubuntu. To use it, open a Terminal window and type sudo apt-add-repository ppa:rodsmith/refind,
+ then sudo apt-get update. You can then type
+ sudo apt-get install refind to install the
+ package. Thereafter, the rEFInd version will update along with your
+ other software. This package is built with GNU-EFI and is not signed
+ with a Secure Boot key; however, the install script (which launches
+ automatically when you install the package) should sign the binary with
+ a locally-generated key if it detects that your system uses Secure
+ Boot. Thus, if you've previously installed one of my binaries on a
+ Secure Boot system and added its key as a MOK, you'll have to add your
+ local key when you reboot.
+
Arch Linux—You can obtain rEFInd from the Arch
repositories, in both a stable version (the refind-efi package
installable via pacman) and an experimental release built from
rEFInd's git repository in the Arch User Repository (AUR), under the
name refind-efi-git. 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.
-
-
ALT Linux—This RPM-based distribution is experimenting with
- using rEFInd on EFI-based computers. As I write, the ALT developers haven't
- yet nailed down booting from an optical disc (it's a tricky and delicate
- task, especially when preparing a "hybrid" image), but they're working on
- the problem. They have an RPM of rEFInd; see this page
- for details.
+ poorly tested or undocumented.
+
+
ALT Linux—This RPM-based distribution is experimenting
+ with using rEFInd on EFI-based computers. As I write, the ALT
+ developers haven't yet nailed down booting from an optical disc (it's a
+ tricky and delicate task, especially when preparing a "hybrid" image),
+ but they're working on the problem. They have an RPM of rEFInd; see this
+ page for details.
+
+
Slackware—As far as I know, an official rEFInd package is
+ not available as part of Slackware; however, a Slackware
+ package from SlackBuilds is available.
Fat
Dog—This variant of Puppy Linux uses a combination of
@@ -233,18 +300,13 @@ computer.
collection—This site creates packages for a number of
OSes using its own packaging system.
-
Slackware—Although it doesn't seem to provide an official
- build, this
- site has links to rEFInd binary packages for Slackware 13.37 and
- 14.0.
-
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 drop me a line.