From: srs5694
Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update: -9/19/2015, referencing rEFInd 0.9.2
+11/1/2015, referencing rEFInd 0.9.3This 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!
@@ -491,43 +491,43 @@ menuentry "Ubuntu Linux" { disabled } -menuentry Gentoo { - icon \EFI\refind\icons\os_gentoo.icns - volume G_KERNELS - loader \kernels\bzImage-3.3.0-rc7 - initrd \kernels\initrd-3.3.0-rc7.img +menuentry Arch { + icon /EFI/refind/icons/os_arch.png + volume ARCHBOOT + loader /vmlinuz-linux + initrd /initramfs-linux.img options "root=/dev/sda3 ro" } menuentry "Windows via shell script" { - icon \EFI\refind\icons\os_win.icns + icon \EFI\refind\icons\os_win.png loader \EFI\tools\shell.efi options "fs0:\EFI\tools\launch_windows.nsh" } -This example sets up three entries: one for Ubuntu Linux, one for Gentoo Linux, and one to launch a shell script. Note that the first two entries use different directory separators, simply to demonstrate the fact that it's possible. The Ubuntu entry sets no icon, since rEFInd will note that the boot loader is stored in the ubuntu directory, and it will automatically find the appropriate Ubuntu icon (os_ubuntu.icns). This option is, however, disabled, so no matching icon will appear when you reboot unless you first comment out or delete the disabled line.
+This example sets up three entries: one for Ubuntu Linux, one for Arch Linux, and one to launch a shell script. Note that the final entry uses different directory separators from the first two, simply to demonstrate the fact that it's possible. (The form of directory separators in options lines is important, though, because the program being launched may expect a particular directory separator character.) The Ubuntu entry sets no icon, since rEFInd will note that the boot loader is stored in the ubuntu directory, and it will automatically find the appropriate Ubuntu icon (os_ubuntu.png). This option is, however, disabled, so no matching icon will appear when you reboot unless you first comment out or delete the disabled line.
-The Gentoo entry begins with an icon specification to be sure that the icon is loaded from the same volume as rEFInd. (If the icon were stored on the same filesystem as the kernel, you'd place the icon line after the volume line.) This entry uses the volume token to tell rEFInd to load the kernel and initial RAM disk file from the filesystem or partition called G_KERNELS. It passes the filename for an initial RAM disk using the initrd line and free-form options using the options line. Note that the kernel filename does not include a .efi extension, which keeps rEFInd from picking up the kernel file in its auto-scans.
+The Arch entry begins with an icon specification to be sure that the icon is loaded from the same volume as rEFInd. (If the icon were stored on the same filesystem as the kernel, you'd place the icon line after the volume line.) This entry uses the volume token to tell rEFInd to load the kernel and initial RAM disk file from the filesystem or partition called ARCHBOOT. It passes the filename for an initial RAM disk using the initrd line and free-form options using the options line.
The Windows via shell script entry may seem puzzling, but its purpose is to launch an OS (Windows in this case) after performing additional pre-boot initialization, which is handled by an EFI shell script. This works because you can pass the name of a shell script to an EFI shell—the script is named on the stanza's options line, using EFI file notation. The shell script, in turn, does whatever it needs to do and then launches the OS's boot loader:
mm 0003003E 8 -pci fs0:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi-
This example writes data to the computer's PCI bus via the EFI shell's mm command and then launches Windows. Chances are you won't need to engage in such operations, and I do not recommend you try this exact example unless you know what you're doing! This command was required to activate the video hardware on a computer of a person with whom I corresponded prior to booting Windows, but such needs are rare. Another example of a similar approach can be found in this forum thread. A few pointers on finding addresses for your hardware can be found in this post.
+This example writes data to the computer's PCI bus via the EFI shell's mm command and then launches Windows. Chances are you won't need to engage in such operations, and I do not recommend you try this exact example unless you know what you're doing! This command was required to activate the video hardware prior to booting Windows on a computer of a person with whom I corresponded, but such needs are rare. (Using the spoof_osx_version option in rEFInd 0.9.3 and later may also help with some such problems, at least on Macs.) Another example of a similar approach can be found in this forum thread. A few pointers on finding addresses for your hardware can be found in this post.
-You can combine these OS stanzas with the global refind.conf options presented earlier. The result would contain just two entries on the rEFInd boot menu (for Gentoo and Windows, since the Ubuntu entry is disabled), unless rEFInd found other boot options on an external or optical disk.
+You can combine these OS stanzas with the global refind.conf options presented earlier. The result would contain just two entries on the rEFInd boot menu (for Arch and Windows, since the Ubuntu entry is disabled), unless rEFInd found other boot options on an external or optical disk.
As described on the Using rEFInd page, rEFInd can present a menu of options for certain loader tags when you press the Insert, F2, or + key. rEFInd does this automatically when it detects Mac OS X or ELILO boot loaders, or when you set the OS type via the ostype option. The Mac OS X boot loader, in particular, accepts various options that you can use to boot in various ways.
+As described on the Using rEFInd page, rEFInd can present a menu of options for certain loader tags when you press the Insert, F2, or + key. rEFInd does this automatically when it detects Mac OS X or ELILO boot loaders, when you set the OS type via the ostype option, or when booting a Linux kernel directly. The Mac OS X boot loader, in particular, accepts various options that you can use to boot in various ways.
-Sometimes, you might want to create your own custom submenu entries, and rEFInd 0.2.1 and later enable you to do this. To create a custom submenu, you use the submenuentry keyword inside a menuentry stanza. Normally, you'll set the submenu definitions after you've set the main menu options, since the submenu options take the main menu options as defult, and so the main options must be set first. Like a menuentry stanza, a submenuentry definition begins with the keyword, the name of the item, and an open curly brace ({). It continues until a close curly brace (}). A submenu definition can use the keywords described in Table 3. Except as otherwise noted, using an option of a given name completely overrides the setting in the main stanza.
+Sometimes, you might want to create your own custom submenu entries, and rEFInd enables you to do this. To create a custom submenu, you use the submenuentry keyword inside a menuentry stanza. Normally, you'll set the submenu definitions after you've set the main menu options, since the submenu options take the main menu options as defult, and so the main options must be set first. Like a menuentry stanza, a submenuentry definition begins with the keyword, the name of the item, and an open curly brace ({). It continues until a close curly brace (}). A submenu definition can use the keywords described in Table 3. Except as otherwise noted, using an option of a given name completely overrides the setting in the main stanza.
Donate $1.00 | +Donate $2.50 | +Donate $5.00 | +Donate $10.00 | +Donate $20.00 | +Donate another value | +
+ + | + ++ + | + + ++ + | + ++ + | + ++ + | + ++ + |
This page is part of the documentation for the rEFInd boot manager. If a Web search has brought you here, you may want to start at the main page.
+ +Apple's OS X 10.11 (aka El Capitan) includes a new feature, known as System Integrity Protection (SIP), aka "rootless" mode. To understand SIP, you should first know that Unix-like systems, including OS X, have traditionally provided a model of security in which ordinary users can read and write their own files (word processor documents, their own digital photos, etc.), but not system files (programs, system configuration files, etc.). This system security model has worked well for decades on traditional Unix systems, which have been administered by computer professionals and used by individuals with less experience. For administrative tasks, the root account is used; on Macs, this access is generally granted by the sudo command or by various GUI tools. Most Macs are single-user computers that are administered by their users. Such people often lack the knowledge of the professional system administrators who have traditionally managed Unix systems; but they must still perform system administration tasks such as installing new software and configuring network settings. OS X has always provided some measure of security by requiring users to enter their passwords before performing these dangerous tasks, and by providing GUI tools to help guide users through these tasks in a way that minimizes the risk of damage.
+ +Apple has apparently decided that these safeguards are no longer sufficient. I won't try to speak for Apple or explain their motivations, but the result of Apple's decisions is SIP. With SIP active, as is the default, OS X limits your ability to perform some of these administrative tasks. You can still install and remove most third-party programs, configure your network, and so on; but some critical directories can no longer be written, even as root, and some utilities cannot be used in certain ways, even as root. These restrictions impact rEFInd because one of the affected tools, a command called bless, is required to tell the Mac to boot rEFInd rather than to boot OS X directly.
+ +The end result of SIP is that rEFInd cannot be installed under OS X 10.11 in the way described on the Installing rEFInd page—at least, not without first booting into Recovery mode, in which SIP restrictions are ignored or disabling SIP. This page covers these two options in more detail, as well as a third: Using another OS to install rEFInd.
+ + +Unless you've deleted its partition, the Recovery HD partition should be present on your Mac as a way to perform emergency recovery operations. The nature of this tool means that SIP cannot be enabled, so you can install rEFInd from a boot to this partition. The trouble is that this installation is not a full-fledged OS X system, so you may have trouble using it if you're not comfortable with such a bare-bones environment. Nontheless, it is arguably the best way to install rEFInd on a Mac that runs OS X 10.11. To do so, follow these steps:
+ +At this point, rEFInd should come up and enable you to boot into OS X and any other OS(es) that are already installed. You should not need to perform these steps again unless OS X re-installs its own boot loader or a subsequent OS installation overrides the default boot option. You can install an updated rEFInd and it should install correctly, provided you're installing it to the EFI System Partition (ESP). The refind-install script may complain about a failure, but because you're overwriting one rEFInd binary with another one, it should continue to boot.
+ + +Another option is to disable SIP for your regular boot. This is a viable option if you're an expert who needs regular access to tools with which SIP interferes, such as low-level disk utilities. Regular users should probably avoid this option unless the preceding procedure does not work—and in that case, you should disable SIP temporarily and then re-enable it when you've finished installing rEFInd.
+ +To disable SIP, you must first boot into the Recovery HD, as in the previous procedure, and launch a Terminal window. Instead of locating and running the refind-instal script, though, you should type:
+ +# csrutil disable+ +
This command will disable SIP for all OSes that honor this setting. (In theory, multiple versions of OS X might be installed on a single computer, and all of them that support SIP should honor the SIP settings. To the best of my knowledge, no non-Apple OS honors SIP settings, although that could change.)
+ +Once you've typed this command, you can reboot the computer. When you return to your regular OS X installation, SIP should be disabled and rEFInd should install normally, as described on the Installing rEFInd page. You will also be able to use disk partitioning tools like my GPT fdisk, write to directories that are normally off-limits, and so on. Note that disabling SIP does not disable normal Unix-style protections—you'll still need to use sudo (or enter your password in a GUI dialog box) to acquire root privileges to perform these system-administration tasks. You'll be no less safe with SIP disabled under OS X 10.11 than you would be with OS X 10.10 or earlier.
+ +If you want to re-enable SIP, you can do so in exactly the way you disabled it, except that you should type csrutil enable rather than csrutil disable in the Recovery environment.
+ + +A final option for installing rEFInd on a Mac that runs with SIP enabled is to do the installation using another OS. This other OS could be an OS that's already installed or an emergency boot disk, such as an Ubuntu installation/recovery system.
+ +If you follow this path, you'll need to know something about how to boot and use your non-Apple OS. The options are quite varied, so I can't provide every detail; however, I do have a few tips:
+ +I've tested this method of installing rEFInd on my MacBook Air, but I can't promise it will work on all Macs—or even on an identical Mac with a configuration that's different from mine. My preference is to install rEFInd under OS X on Macs, because Apple likes to do things differently from everybody else, and so a Mac's firmware might not react in the usual way to tools like efibootmgr in Linux or bcdedit in Windows.
+ + +Although the goal of increased security is a good one, SIP is causing problems for intermediate and advanced users. The good news is that the process to install rEFInd on a system that runs OS X 10.11, although more complex than it used to be, is not an impossible one. Furthermore, once you've done it, you shouldn't have to do it again for a while. (An update to OS X's boot loader is entirely possible, though. If nothing else, the next major OS X update may require re-installing rEFInd.)
+ + + + + +copyright © 2015 by Roderick W. Smith
+ +This document is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (FDL), version 1.3.
+ +If you have problems with or comments about this Web page, please e-mail me at rodsmith@rodsbooks.com. Thanks.
+ + + + + +Return to my main Web page.
+ + diff --git a/docs/refind/submenu.png b/docs/refind/submenu.png index 00151c8..5d31f81 100644 Binary files a/docs/refind/submenu.png and b/docs/refind/submenu.png differ diff --git a/docs/refind/themes.html b/docs/refind/themes.html index 85e0bac..3cfb5b7 100644 --- a/docs/refind/themes.html +++ b/docs/refind/themes.html @@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.comOriginally written: 4/19/2012; last Web page update: -9/19/2015, referencing rEFInd 0.9.2
+11/1/2015, referencing rEFInd 0.9.3This 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!
@@ -132,7 +132,7 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.comrEFInd relies on both built-in and external graphical elements in its user interface, and all of these elements can be replaced by user-specified files. This fact makes rEFInd's "look and feel" highly adjustable even by non-programmers. This page will help you get started in making such changes to each of the major sets of features: banners and backgrounds, icons, and fonts. I conclude this page with pointers to a few themes that users have created for rEFInd.
+rEFInd relies on both built-in and external graphical elements in its user interface, and all of these elements can be replaced by user-specified files. This fact makes rEFInd's "look and feel" highly adjustable even by non-programmers. This page will help you get started in making such changes to each of the major sets of features: banners and backgrounds, icons, icon selection backgrounds, and fonts. I conclude this page with pointers to a few themes that users have created for rEFInd.
You can create a new background image and logo by placing a PNG or BMP file in rEFInd's main directory and passing its filename to rEFInd with the banner option in refind.conf. If the image is smaller than the screen, the color in the top-left pixel of the image will be used for the rest of the display. This pixel's color is also used as the background color for submenu text, even for full-screen backgrounds. Using a full-screen background image can produce a dramatically different "look" for rEFInd:
The core icons in rEFInd 0.9.3 and later come from the AwOken 2.5 icon +set, with additional icons created by me, and a few others taken from +other sources. (The details are documented in the README file in +the icons subdirectory.) These icons have a "flat" appearance, but +with drop shadows to provide a type of depth. Most of the individual icons +use just one color, aside from the drop shadow. Of course, the point of +themes is that you might get bored with, or simply not like, the default +graphics, so you can change them.
+As described on various other pages of this document, rEFInd relies on icon files located in its icons subdirectory, and occasionally elsewhere, to define its overall appearance. You can adjust rEFInd's icons in a few ways:
As an example of what the combination of icons and backgrounds can do, consider my own Snowy theme, showing the same boot options as the preceding image:
+ +I used icons from the Oxygen Icons project, both from the Oxygen Refit package and from Gentoo's oxygen-icons package. These icons supplemented or replaced icons that rEFIt used; however, many OS icons (such as those for Windows and Mac OS) are carried over from rEFIt. I've also used a handful of icons for individual Linux distributions from other sources—usually documentation associated with the distribution in question.
-In addition to this default icon set, I've received word of a few other rEFInd themes:
If you've created or discovered another rEFInd theme, please tell me about it so that I can provide a link to it from this page.
diff --git a/docs/refind/using.html b/docs/refind/using.html index a873a15..8a79513 100644 --- a/docs/refind/using.html +++ b/docs/refind/using.html @@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.comOriginally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update: -9/19/2015, referencing rEFInd 0.9.2
+11/1/2015, referencing rEFInd 0.9.3This 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!
@@ -164,15 +164,15 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.comAssuming rEFInd starts up correctly, you should see its main screen, which resembles the following:
-If you don't press a key before the timeout expires, the default boot loader will launch. (The timeout is shown beneath the description line until you press a key—note that it's absent from the preceding screen shot.) This is normally the item that you launched the last time rEFInd ran, but you can adjust the default by editing the configuration file. (In this example, it's the Ubuntu Linux loader, which is further identified by text as boot\vmlinuz-3.16.0-31-generic.efi.signed from 49 GiB ext4 volume.)
+If you don't press a key before the timeout expires, the default boot loader will launch. (The timeout is shown beneath the description line until you press a key.) This is normally the item that you launched the last time rEFInd ran, but you can adjust the default by editing the configuration file. (In this example, it's the Ubuntu Linux loader, which is further identified by text as EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi from ESP.)
-This display is dominated by the central set of OS tags (icons), which in this example includes tags for Windows, OS X, Ubuntu, and an unknown Linux distribution. All but the last of these are on hard disks, but the unknown Linux boot loader is on an optical disc, as revealed by the small icons (known as badges) in the lower-right corner of the OS icons.
+This display is dominated by the central set of OS tags (icons), which in this example includes tags for an unknown Linux distribution, Ubuntu, OS X, and Windows. All but the first of these are on hard disks, but the unknown Linux boot loader is on an optical disc, as revealed by the small icons (known as badges) in the lower-right corner of the OS icons.
-In this example, the Ubuntu 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 and/or left of the boot loader list, indicating that the boot loader list will scroll when you move off the edge. (Such an arrow is visible to the right in the sample screen.) 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 six tags are present:
+In this example, the Ubuntu 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 and/or left of the boot loader list, indicating that the boot loader list will scroll when you move off the edge. (Such an arrow is visible to the right in the sample screen.) 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 eight tags are present:
By default, the options to display an information page, shutdown the computer, and reboot the computer are present. Options to launch a shell, launch gdisk, launch a memory test utility, launch the Apple recovery utility, launch the Windows recovery utility, and launch a Secure Boot key management utility will also appear automatically if these utilities are installed. The tag to reboot into the firmware appears if your firmware supports this feature. Options to launch the hybrid MBR tool (gptsync) and to exit from rEFInd are not displayed by default; you must edit the configuration file to enable these features, or to disable those that are displayed by default if you don't want them.
+By default, the options to display an information page, shutdown the computer, and reboot the computer are present. Options to launch a shell, launch gdisk, launch a memory test utility, launch the Apple recovery utility, launch the Windows recovery utility, and launch a Secure Boot key management utility will also appear automatically if these utilities are installed. A tag to reboot into the firmware appears if your firmware supports this feature. Options to launch the hybrid MBR tool (gptsync) and to exit from rEFInd are not displayed by default; you must edit the configuration file to enable these features, or to disable those that are displayed by default if you don't want them.
To launch an OS or utility, you should select its tag and then press the Enter key or the space bar.
@@ -209,7 +213,7 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.comIf you press the Insert, F2, or + key, rEFInd will show a menu that may hold additional options, depending on the OS type. (OS X and Linux are most likely to hold interesting options on their submenus.) 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 Return to Main Menu to return to the main menu.
From the options submenu, you can press the Insert, F2, or + key again to edit your boot loader options. You're most likely to want to do this when booting Linux via its EFI stub loader, since you can then enter arbitrary kernel options. A simple text-mode line editor opens (shown below), enabling you to move a cursor back and forth in the line with your arrow keys, delete text, and type in new text. If you want to boot with your edited options, press the Enter key. If you decide you picked the wrong entry, press the Esc key. Note that long option lists, as shown in the figure, scroll off the edge of the screen. Moving the cursor past the screen edge scrolls the entire line of text.
@@ -338,19 +342,19 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.comSometimes it's necessary to boot a legacy (BIOS-based) OS on an EFI computer. This is especially true on Macs, since this is the usual method of dual-booting OS X and Windows. In fact, even most Linux distributions install more easily in BIOS mode on Macs, although running Linux in EFI mode has its advantages. (See my EFI-Booting Ubuntu on a Mac page for an in-depth look at this topic.)
+Sometimes it's necessary to boot a legacy (BIOS-based) OS on an EFI computer. This is especially true on Macs, since this has been the usual method of dual-booting OS X and Windows. (Since the release of Windows 8, though, booting Windows in EFI mode on Macs has become both more practical and more common.) In the past, many Linux distributions installed more easily in BIOS mode on Macs, but many Linux distributions now favor native EFI-mode installation on Macs. (See my EFI-Booting Ubuntu on a Mac page for an in-depth look at this topic.)
-On UEFI-based PCs, booting some OSes in EFI mode and others in BIOS mode is less often necessary, since it's usually easy to install all your OSes in BIOS mode. If you have a working EFI-mode OS installation, though, and if you want to install an OS that lacks EFI-mode boot support, you may need to boot in both modes. This may happen if you want to add one of the BSDs (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and so on) to a working system, for instance. You might also want to boot a BIOS-mode emergency recovery CD, such as Parted Magic or System Rescue CD.
+On UEFI-based PCs, booting some OSes in EFI mode and others in BIOS mode is less often necessary, since it's usually easy to install all your OSes in BIOS mode. If you have a working EFI-mode OS installation, though, and if you want to install an OS that lacks EFI-mode boot support, you may need to boot in both modes. Most of the BSDs (FreeBSD being a notable exception), Haiku, DOS, Windows XP and earlier, and many more obscure OSes still lack EFI support and so must be booted in BIOS mode. You might also want to boot a BIOS-mode emergency recovery CD, such as Parted Magic or System Rescue CD. Note, however, that EFI-mode support is being added to OSes. It's possible that some of those I've mentioned here will support EFI-mode booting by the time you read this!
-For all such cases, rEFInd supports booting legacy OSes; however, the details vary between Macs and UEFI PCs. Also, be aware that some UEFI PCs lack the Compatibility Support Module (CSM) that's required for this feature to work. This is true even of some computers that can boot BIOS-based OSes natively. This can happen because the firmware is basically a BIOS with a UEFI implementation tacked on top of it; such systems rely on the native BIOS to boot, and may not provide a way for EFI applications to access the BIOS features via CSM mechanisms. If you have such a computer and if you enable a legacy boot option in the configuration file, rEFInd notifies you of its inability to present legacy boot options when it starts up. rEFInd's legacy boot support also depends on features that are not available in the GNU-EFI development package, so you may see a similar notice if you run a version of rEFInd compiled with that package. (The primary build available on the Getting rEFInd page is compiled with the TianoCore EDK2 package, which does support the BIOS boot features.)
+To help out when you need to boot in BIOS mode, rEFInd supports booting legacy OSes; however, the details vary between Macs and UEFI PCs. Also, be aware that some UEFI PCs lack the Compatibility Support Module (CSM) that's required for this feature to work. This is true even of some computers that can boot BIOS-based OSes natively. This can happen because the firmware is basically a BIOS with a UEFI implementation tacked on top of it; such systems rely on the native BIOS to boot, and may not provide a way for EFI applications to access the BIOS features via CSM mechanisms. If you have such a computer and if you enable a legacy boot option in the configuration file, rEFInd notifies you of its inability to present legacy boot options when it starts up.
The scanfor option, described on the Configuring the Boot Manager page, controls rEFInd's detection of legacy OSes. On Macs, the default is to scan for such OSes, since a common boot scenario on Macs is dual-booting OS X and Windows, and of course BIOS support is required for this. On UEFI PCs, rEFInd defaults to not scanning for legacy OSes; thus, you must edit the scanfor item in the configuration file if you want to boot a legacy OS on a UEFI PC.
- -On Macs, rEFInd uses a flexible scanning algorithm inherited from rEFIt. This procedure detects most legacy OSes on most disks, although it can sometimes miss an OS. This scanning algorithm can often identify the legacy OS you've installed and present a suitable icon. On UEFI PCs, rEFInd relies on the computer's NVRAM settings to determine which legacy boot loaders to scan, but rEFInd does tell the firmware to find every BIOS-mode boot option and add it to its NVRAM list. On most UEFI PCs, at least one hard disk and your optical drive appear as options. On one computer I tested (a Lenovo laptop), the internal hard disk appears in the rEFInd menu as a removable disk, and selecting any BIOS-mode option causes the computer to attempt a network boot. Three other computers I've tested behave more sensibly. If you opt to scan for BIOS-mode optical disks (scanfor cd) on UEFI-based PCs, an icon will appear whether or not your drive holds a CD. The UEFI scanning procedure is also incapable of detecting the OS type, so you'll see a generic legacy OS icon, as shown at the right.
+On Macs, rEFInd uses a flexible scanning algorithm inherited from rEFIt. This procedure detects most legacy OSes on most disks, although it can sometimes miss an OS. This scanning algorithm can often identify the legacy OS you've installed and present a suitable icon. On UEFI PCs, rEFInd relies on the computer's NVRAM settings to determine which legacy boot loaders to scan, but rEFInd does tell the firmware to find every BIOS-mode boot option and add it to its NVRAM list. On most UEFI PCs, at least one hard disk and your optical drive appear as options. On one computer I tested (a Lenovo laptop), the internal hard disk appears in the rEFInd menu as a removable disk. If you have multiple hard disks, you may need to uncomment the uefi_deep_legacy_scan option to get entries for booting all of your disks. If you opt to scan for BIOS-mode optical disks (scanfor cd) on UEFI-based PCs, an icon will appear whether or not your drive holds a CD. The UEFI scanning procedure is also incapable of detecting the OS type, so you'll see a generic legacy OS icon, as shown at the right.
On both PCs and Macs, if you see non-functional legacy boot options, you can remove them by using the dont_scan_volumes token in refind.conf: Add any substring from the description that appears when you highlight the non-functional option to the set of options to have rEFInd ignore that entry. (Note that you must provide a complete volume name when excluding EFI volumes from scanning. The legacy-mode exclusion operation is more flexible in this regard.)
diff --git a/docs/refind/yosemite.html b/docs/refind/yosemite.html index 14ea693..df97811 100644 --- a/docs/refind/yosemite.html +++ b/docs/refind/yosemite.html @@ -182,7 +182,7 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com - +Installing rEFInd using El Capitan
Return to my main Web page.