-0.3.5 (?/??/2012):
+0.3.5 (5/15/2012):
------------------
+- Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
+ received reports that it's not working as intended.
+
- Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>\r
\r
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:\r
-5/9/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.4</p>\r
+5/15/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.5</p>\r
\r
\r
<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>\r
href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-5/9/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.4</p>
+5/15/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.5</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>
href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 4/19/2012; last Web page update:
-5/9/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.4</p>
+5/15/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.5</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>
href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-5/9/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.4</p>
+5/15/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.5</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>
<li>The ability to specify additional directories to scan for boot loaders and drivers (as of version 0.2.7).</li>
+<li>The ability to re-scan boot loaders, to assist when changing removable media or after making a change to the configuration file with an EFI shell (as of version 0.3.5).</li>
+
<li>The ability to specify an additional icon storage directory, to assist in efforts to customize rEFInd's appearance (as of version 0.3.4).</li>
<li>The ability to set the screen's resolution, within limits imposed by the EFI (as of rEFInd 0.3.0).</li>
href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-5/9/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.4</p>
+5/15/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.5</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>
<ul>
-<li><b><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.3.4/refind-src-0.3.4.zip/download">A
+<li><b><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.3.5/refind-src-0.3.5.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
it.</li>
<li><b><a
- href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.3.4/refind-bin-0.3.4.zip/download">A
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.3.5/refind-bin-0.3.5.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
href="installing.html">Installing rEFInd</a> page.</li>
<li><b><a
- href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.3.4/refind-cd-0.3.4.zip/download">A
+ href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.3.5/refind-cd-0.3.5.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 some older
href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-5/9/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.4</p>
+5/15/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.5</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>
href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-5/9/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.4</p>
+5/15/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.5</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>
<p class="sidebar"><b>Important:</b> A rEFInd zip file, when uncompressed, creates a directory called <tt>refind-<i>version</i></tt>, where <tt><i>version</i></tt> is the version number. This directory includes a subdirectory called <tt>refind</tt> that holds the boot loader, along with another that holds documentation, as well as miscellaneous files in <tt>refind-<i>version</i></tt> itself. When I refer to "the <tt>refind</tt> directory" on this page, I mean the directory with that precise name, not the <tt>refind-<i>version</i></tt> directory that is its parent.</p>
-<p>Once you've uncompressed a rEFInd binary zip file, you must install it to your computer's ESP (or conceivably to some other location). The details of how you
to this depend on your OS and your computer (UEFI-based PC vs. Macintosh). The upcoming sections provide details. For Linux and Mac OS X, you can use the installation script, <a href="#installsh"><tt>install.sh</tt>,</a> which provides easy one-command installation on most systems. Occasionally this script will fail, though, so I also provide explicit instructions for <a href="#linux">Linux</a> and <a href="#osx">Mac OS X.</a> Installation under <a href="#windows">Windows</a> also must be done manually. In some cases, you'll have to deviate from the default naming conventions, as described in <a href="#naming">a section on this topic.</a> If you're upgrading rEFInd, see the <a href="#upgrading">section on upgrading.</a> Finally, I describe how to install some <a href="#addons">additional components</a> you might find useful.</a></p>
+<p>Once you've uncompressed a rEFInd binary zip file, you must install it to your computer's ESP (or conceivably to some other location). The details of how you
do this depend on your OS and your computer (UEFI-based PC vs. Macintosh). The upcoming sections provide details. For Linux and Mac OS X, you can use the installation script, <a href="#installsh"><tt>install.sh</tt>,</a> which provides easy one-command installation on most systems. Occasionally this script will fail, though, so I also provide explicit instructions for <a href="#linux">Linux</a> and <a href="#osx">Mac OS X.</a> Installation under <a href="#windows">Windows</a> also must be done manually. In some cases, you'll have to deviate from the default naming conventions, as described in <a href="#naming">a section on this topic.</a> If you're upgrading rEFInd, see the <a href="#upgrading">section on upgrading.</a> Finally, I describe how to install some <a href="#addons">additional components</a> you might find useful.</a></p>
<a name="installsh">
<h2>Installing rEFInd Using <tt>install.sh</tt> under Linux or Mac OS X</h2>
href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/19/2012; last Web page update:
-5/9/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.4</p>
+5/15/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.5</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>
<p class="subhead">by Roderick W. Smith, <a
href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
-<p>Last Web page update: 5/9/2012</p>
+<p>Last Web page update: 5/15/2012</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>
<ul>
+<li><b>0.3.5 (5/15/2012)</b>—This version's biggest new feature is the ability to re-scan for boot loaders after launching the program. This is done by pressing the Esc key, which causes rEFInd to re-read its configuration file, to tell the EFI to reconnect all disks, and to do a fresh scan of all disks for loaders. This is useful if you insert a removable disk after starting the computer, if rEFInd starts before a disk has fully settled, if you make a change to the configuration file, or if you manually load a driver. This version also fixes a minor bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced with a left-pointing arrow under some circumstances; and I've removed the scan for a BIOS Boot Partition that I added in 0.3.2, since I'm told it isn't launching correctly. (BIOS-mode GRUB 2 can still be launched on Macs from its boot code in the MBR.)</li>
+
<li><b>0.3.4 (5/9/2012)</b>—The biggest change to this version is the addition of the <tt>icons_dir</tt> configuration file token, which enables you to specify a directory that holds icons that override those in the default <tt>icons</tt> subdirectory. See the <a href="themes.html">Theming rEFInd</a> and <a href="configfile.html">Configuring the Boot Manager</a> pages for details. This version also reduces flicker when moving your selection around the screen and modifies the <tt>install.sh</tt> script so that it can be used directly after building rEFInd from source code. Related to this, building from source now creates a binary that includes an architecture code—<tt>refind_ia32.efi</tt> or <tt>refind_x64.efi</tt> rather than <tt>refind.efi</tt>.</li>
<li><b>0.3.3 (5/6/2012)</b>—I've focused on user interface improvements for this release. The biggest improvement is in the text-mode interface, which suffered from assorted display glitches in previous releases. These have now been fixed, so the text-mode interface should be more usable. I've also fine-tuned the use of keyboard keys, particularly in graphical mode. The up and down arrow keys now move between the two rows of the display, and Page Up and Page Down scroll the first row if it's too big for the display. (They'll also move between rows, but only when at the end of the first row or the start of the second.) Returning from a failed loader or a tool or built-in function now renders that tag as the currently-selected item, rather than setting the default loader as active, as happened with previous versions.</li>
href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 4/19/2012; last Web page update:
-5/9/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.4</p>
+5/15/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.5</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>
href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-5/9/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.4</p>
+5/15/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.5</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>
<li>I'd like to find a way to get rEFInd to launch BIOS boot loaders on
UEFI-based systems. This option currently works only on Macs—or
- at least, I've not gotten it to work on any of my UEFI-based PCs. (I
- have an idea about this, but haven't yet investigated it in detail. If
- you'd like to help on this, <a
+ at least, I've not gotten it to work on any of my UEFI-based PCs. (I've
+ done some experiments to try to get this to work, but so far without
+
success. If you'd like to help on this, <a
href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">e-mail me</a> for my
thoughts.)</li>
<li>I've received queries about rEFInd's ability to work with Apple's
whole-disk encryption scheme that's new with OS X 10.7. Unfortunately,
- I lack the hardware to test this.</li>
+ I lack the hardware to test this, but my understanding is that it will
+ work correctly <i>if</i> rEFInd is installed in the ESP rather than on
+ the Mac OS X root partition. See <a
+ href="https://sourceforge.net/p/refind/discussion/general/thread/5c7d0195/">this
+ forum thread</a> for more information.</li>
<li>The Shutdown option works correctly on Macs, but not on UEFI-based PCs.
On such systems, Shutdown reboots the computer. This should be
Perhaps this could be done via a separate tool that could be launched
much like the shell or <tt>gptsync</tt>.</li>
-<li>I'd like to find a way to have rEFInd re-scan removable media when
- they're inserted.</li>
-
<li>Enabling users to eject removable media would be useful.</li>
<li>I'd like to give the user the ability to set custom options on a
- per-boot basis, similar to what's possible in GRUB.</li>
+ single-boot basis, similar to what's possible in GRUB.</li>
<li>The code is in need of review to search for memory leaks and similar
problems.</p>
href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-5/9/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.4</p>
+5/15/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.3.5</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>
<p>If you don't press any key before the timeout (shown on the last line) expires, the default boot loader will launch. This is normally the first item in the menu, but you can adjust the default by editing the configuration file. (In this example, it's the SUSE loader, which is further identified by text above the timeout as <i>Linux 3.3.0-rc7 from ESP.</i>)</p>
-<p>This display is dominated by the central set of OS <i>tags</i> (icons), which in this example includes icons for OS X, Windows, Ubuntu, a generic Linux installation (ELILO, in fact), SUSE, and an unkown boot loader. All but the last of these are on hard disks, but the unknown boot loader is on an optical disc, as revealed by the small icons (known as <i>badges</i>) in the lower-right corner of the OS icons.</p>
+<p>This display is dominated by the central set of OS <i>tags</i> (icons), which in this example includes tags for OS X, Windows, Ubuntu, a generic Linux installation (ELILO, in fact), SUSE, and an unkown boot loader. All but the last of these are on hard disks, but the unknown boot loader is on an optical disc, as revealed by the small icons (known as <i>badges</i>) in the lower-right corner of the OS icons.</p>
-<p>In this example, the SUSE tag is selected. You can move the selection left by pressing the left arrow key and right by pressing the right arrow key. If your system has many boot loaders, an arrow icon will appear to the right of the boot loader list, indicating that the boot loader list will scroll when you move off the right edge. If you do this, an arrow icon will appear to the left of the icon list, indicating that you can scroll back in a similar manner. You can scroll the list by one line full of icons by using the Page Up or Page Down keys to move left and right, respectively. Moving past the final selection or using the down arrow key moves the selection to the second row of small icons, which launch ancillary programs or perform special actions. If you've moved the selection cursor to the second row, pressing the up arrow key or scrolling past the left edge of the second row moves the cursor to the top row. In this figure, these five icons are present:</p>
+<p>In this example, the SUSE tag is selected. You can move the selection left by pressing the left arrow key and right by pressing the right arrow key. If your system has many boot loaders, an arrow icon will appear to the right of the boot loader list, indicating that the boot loader list will scroll when you move off the right edge. If you do this, an arrow icon will appear to the left of the icon list, indicating that you can scroll back in a similar manner. You can scroll the list by one line full of icons by using the Page Up or Page Down keys to move left and right, respectively. Moving past the final selection or using the down arrow key moves the selection to the second row of small tags, which launch ancillary programs or perform special actions. If you've moved the selection cursor to the second row, pressing the up arrow key or scrolling past the left edge of the second row moves the cursor to the top row. In this figure, these five tags are present:</p>
<ul>
<p>The last three of these options are always available by default, but the first depends on the presence of the EFI shell program file, as described earlier. To get the <tt>gptsync</tt> icon, you must install <tt>gptsync.efi</tt> and adjust the <tt>showtools</tt> option in <tt>refind.conf</tt>, as well.</p>
-<p>To launch an OS or utility, you should select its icon and then press the Enter key. If you press the Insert key, rEFInd will show a menu that may hold additional options, depending on the OS type. The following figure shows the submenu for Mac OS X. You can use this menu much like the main menu; move the cursor to select the option you want to use, then press the Enter key to launch the boot loader with the selected options. Press the Esc key or select <tt>Return to Main Menu</tt> to return to the main menu.</p>
+<p>To launch an OS or utility, you should select its tag and then press the Enter key. If you press the Insert key, rEFInd will show a menu that may hold additional options, depending on the OS type. The following figure shows the submenu for Mac OS X. You can use this menu much like the main menu; move the cursor to select the option you want to use, then press the Enter key to launch the boot loader with the selected options. Press the Esc key or select <tt>Return to Main Menu</tt> to return to the main menu.</p>
<br /><center><img src="submenu.png" align="center" width="442"
height="269" alt="rEFInd submenus enable you to set session-specific
options." border=2></center> <br />
+<p class="sidebar"><b>Note:</b> rEFInd defaults to scanning for EFI, but <i>not</i> for BIOS, boot loaders. If you want to launch BIOS-mode OSes from rEFInd, you must edit the <tt>scanfor</tt> line in <tt>refind.conf</tt>, as described on the <a href="configfile.html">Configuring the Boot Manager</a> page. This type of configuration is most likely to be necessary on Macs that dual-boot with Windows.</p>
+
+<p>Ordinarily, rEFInd displays tags for OSes it finds on internal hard disks, external hard disks (including USB flash drives, CF disks, and so on), and optical discs. Sometimes, though, the firmware hasn't had time to fully examine these devices by the time rEFInd starts; or you might only insert or plug in the media after rEFInd appears. In these cases, you can press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its configuration file and re-scan your media for boot loaders. This action can take a few seconds to complete, so be patient. You can also use this feature to detect OSes if you launch a shell and use it to load a driver or edit the <tt>refind.conf</tt> file.</p>
<h2>Using Keyboard Shortcuts</h2>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><i>Esc</i></td>
- <td>Returns from a sub-menu or redraws the screen</td>
+ <td>Returns from a sub-menu; on the main screen, re-reads the configuration file and re-scans for boot loaders</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><i>Insert</i>, <i>F2</i>, or <i>+</i></td>
- <td>Opens the selection's submenu, which is most useful for Mac OS X and ELILO</td>
+ <td>Opens the selection's submenu, which is most useful with Mac OS X, ELILO, and Linux kernels with EFI stub loader support</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><i>F10</i></td>
Volume->OSIconName = L"grub,linux";
Volume->OSName = L"Linux";
- // GRUB in BIOS boot partition:
- } else if (FindMem(SectorBuffer, 512, "Geom\0Read\0 Error", 16) >= 0) {
- Volume->HasBootCode = TRUE;
- Volume->OSIconName = L"grub,linux";
- Volume->OSName = L"Linux";
- Volume->VolName = L"BIOS Boot Partition";
- *Bootable = TRUE;
+// // Below doesn't produce a bootable entry, so commented out for the moment....
+// // GRUB in BIOS boot partition:
+// } else if (FindMem(SectorBuffer, 512, "Geom\0Read\0 Error", 16) >= 0) {
+// Volume->HasBootCode = TRUE;
+// Volume->OSIconName = L"grub,linux";
+// Volume->OSName = L"Linux";
+// Volume->VolName = L"BIOS Boot Partition";
+// *Bootable = TRUE;
} else if ((*((UINT32 *)(SectorBuffer + 502)) == 0 &&
*((UINT32 *)(SectorBuffer + 506)) == 50000 &&
{
if (AboutMenu.EntryCount == 0) {
AboutMenu.TitleImage = BuiltinIcon(BUILTIN_ICON_FUNC_ABOUT);
- AddMenuInfoLine(&AboutMenu, L"rEFInd Version 0.3.4.3");
+ AddMenuInfoLine(&AboutMenu, L"rEFInd Version 0.3.5");
AddMenuInfoLine(&AboutMenu, L"");
AddMenuInfoLine(&AboutMenu, L"Copyright (c) 2006-2010 Christoph Pfisterer");
AddMenuInfoLine(&AboutMenu, L"Copyright (c) 2012 Roderick W. Smith");