The EFI filesystem drivers in the filesystems subdirectory require the
TianoCore UDK2010.SR1 toolkit. The drivers might compile with another
version of the TianoCore toolkit, but I've not tested them with anything
-else. (My attempts to use GNU-EFI have failed; at best, I've gotten drivers
-that load but hang the computer.)
+else. My attempts to use GNU-EFI have failed; at best, I've gotten drivers
+that load but then hang the computer.
+
+An important caveat: I suspect the TianoCore toolkit is responsible for an
+inability to use the resulting drivers on a 32-bit Mac Mini. My suspicion
+is that it produces binaries that work on UEFI 2.x systems but not on the
+EFI 1.x that the Mac uses. If this suspicion is correct, you may be unable
+to use the rEFInd binaries on at least some Macs, as well as on other older
+EFI 1.x-based computers.
Unfortunately, the TianoCore toolkit is bulky and weird by Linux
programming standards. I don't know of any Linux distribution packages for
Once the toolkit is installed, you can build the filesystem drivers. If you
installed in a location other than the one I've specified, you must edit
the EDK2BASE variable in the filesystems/Make.common file in the rEFInd
-source package.. You can then type "make" in the "filesystems" directory,
+source package. You can then type "make" in the "filesystems" directory,
or "make fs" in the main source directory, to build all the drivers. If you
want to build just one driver, you can change into the "filesystems"
directory and type "make {fsname}", where {fsname} is a filesystem name --
The drivers all rely on filesystem wrapper code created by rEFIt's author,
Christoph Phisterer. Most of the drivers seem to have passed through
-Oracle's VirtualBox project ((https://www.virtualbox.org) and the Clover
+Oracle's VirtualBox project (https://www.virtualbox.org) and the Clover
boot loader project (https://sourceforge.net/projects/cloverefiboot/),
which I used as the source for this build.
refind/refind_x64.efi The main x86-64 rEFInd binary
refind/refind.conf-sample A sample configuration file
refind/icons/ Subdirectory containing icons
+ refind/drivers_ia32/ Subdirectory containing IA32 drivers
+ refind/drivers_x64/ Subdirectory containing x86-64 drivers
+ install.sh Linux/MacOS installation script
README.txt This file
LICENSE.txt The original rEFIt license
COPYING.txt The rEFInd license
+ CREDITS.txt Acknowledgments of code sources
docs/ Documentation in HTML format
-To install the binary package, you must first access your EFI System
-Partition (ESP). You can then place the files from the refind subdirectory
-in a subdirectory of the ESP's EFI directory. You may omit the .efi binary
-for the type of computer you're NOT using, and you may optionally rename
-the .efi file for the binary you are using. If this is an initial
-installation, you should rename refind.conf-sample to refind.conf; but if
-you're replacing an existing installation, you should leave your existing
-refind.conf intact. The end result might include the following files on the
-ESP:
+The easiest way of installing rEFInd is generally to use the install.sh
+script; however, you must be running under Linux or OS X to do this. If
+you're using either of those OSes, simply typing "./install.sh" will
+generally install rEFInd. If you have problems with this method, though,
+you'll have to do a manual installation.
+
+To install the binary package manually, you must first access your EFI
+System Partition (ESP). You can then place the files from the refind
+subdirectory in a subdirectory of the ESP's EFI directory. You may omit the
+.efi binary for the type of computer you're NOT using, and you may
+optionally rename the .efi file for the binary you are using. If this is an
+initial installation, you should rename refind.conf-sample to refind.conf;
+but if you're replacing an existing installation, you should leave your
+existing refind.conf intact. The end result might include the following
+files on the ESP:
EFI/refind/refind_x64.efi
EFI/refind/refind.conf
EFI/refind/icons/
Unfortunately, dropping the files in the ESP is not sufficient; as
-described in the docs/installing.html file, you must also tell your EFI
-about rEFInd. Precisely how to do this varies with your OS or, if you
+described in the docs/refind/installing.html file, you must also tell your
+EFI about rEFInd. Precisely how to do this varies with your OS or, if you
choose to do it through the EFI, your EFI implementation. In some cases you
may need to rename the EFI/refind directory as EFI/boot, and rename
refind_x86.efi to bootx64.efi (or refind_ia32.efi to bootia32.efi on 32-bit
systems). Consult the installing.html file for full details.
+If you want to use any of the filesystem drivers, you must install them,
+too. Creating a subdirectory of the rEFInd binary directory called
+drivers_x64 (for x86-64 systems), drivers_ia32 (for x86 systems), or
+drivers (for any architecture) and copying the drivers you want to this
+location should do the trick. When you next launch it, rEFInd should load
+the drivers, giving you access to the relevant filesystems.
+
Brief Installation Instructions (Source Package)
================================================
rEFInd source code can be obtained from
https://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/. Consult the BUILDING.txt file in
the source code package for build instructions. Once you've built the
-source code, you should duplicate the directory tree described above by
-copying the individual files and the icons directory to the ESP. Note that
-the binary file created by the build process will be called "refind.efi".
-You can use that name or rename it to include your architecture code, as
-you see fit.
+source code, you can use the install.sh script to install the binaries
+you've built. Alternatively, you can duplicate the directory tree described
+above by copying the individual files and the icons directory to the ESP.