REFInd
rEFInd is a boot manager for UEFI and EFI-based machines. It can be used to boot multiple operating systems that are installed on a single non-volatile device. It also provides a way to launch UEFI applications. It was forked from discontinued rEFIt in 2012, with 0.2.0 as its first release. rEFInd supports the IA-32, x86-64, and AArch64 architectures.
| rEFInd | |
|---|---|
 | |
 rEFInd with default theme showing boot selections of Windows 11 and openSUSE Tumbleweed (with both GNU GRUB and kernel EFI stub loader) | |
| Developer | Roderick W. Smith |
| Initial release | 14 March 2012 |
| Stable release | 0.14.2[1] 
/ 6 April 2024 |
| Written in | C |
| Operating system | Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, TrueOS |
| Platform | IA-32, x86-64, AArch64 |
| Size | ~ 4 MiB |
| Available in | English |
| Type | UEFI boot manager |
| License | GPL-3.0-or-later, BSD-3-Clause (original program), additional components released under various licenses |
| Website | www.rodsbooks.com/refind |
| Repository | |
rEFInd is a boot manager for UEFI and EFI-based machines.[2][3] It can be used to boot multiple operating systems that are installed on a single non-volatile device. It also provides a way to launch UEFI applications.[4][5]
It was forked from discontinued rEFIt in 2012, with 0.2.0 as its first release.[6][7]
rEFInd supports the IA-32, x86-64, and AArch64 architectures.
Features
[edit]rEFInd has several features:[8]
- Automatic operating systems detection.
- Customisable OS launch options.
- Graphical or text mode. Theme is customisable.[9]
- Mac-specific features, including spoofing booting process to enable secondary video chipsets on some Macs.
- Linux-specific features, including autodetecting EFI stub loader to boot Linux kernel directly and using fstab in lieu of rEFInd configuration file for boot order.
- Support for Secure Boot.
Adoption
[edit]rEFInd is the default UEFI boot manager for TrueOS.
rEFInd is included in official repositories of major Linux distributions, such as Arch Linux,[10] Debian,[11] Ubuntu,[12] and Gentoo.[13]
Development
[edit]GNU-EFI and TianoCore are supported as main development platforms for writing binary UEFI applications in C to launch right from the rEFInd GUI menu. Typical purposes of an EFI application are fixing boot problems and programmatically modifying settings within UEFI environment, which would otherwise be performed from within the BIOS of a personal computer (PC) without UEFI.[8]
rEFInd can be built with either GNU-EFI or TianoCore EDK2/UDK.[14]
Fork
[edit]RefindPlus is a fork of rEFInd that add several features and improvements for Mac devices, specifically MacPro3,1 and MacPro5,1, and equivalent Xserve.[15]
See also
[edit]- GNU GRUB - Another boot loader for Unix-like systems
- Comparison of boot loaders
- efibootmgr - manipulate the EFI Boot Manager: create and destroy boot entries, change the boot order and other
References
[edit]- ^ "The rEFInd Boot Manager: Revisions". Archived from the original on 2 May 2024. Retrieved 13 May 2025.
- ^ "Linux Multi-boot with Refind". TeeJeeTech. Retrieved 2021-09-03.
- ^ Axelsson, Mats Tage. "Refind Boot Manager". Linux Hint. Archived from the original on 2020-03-16. Retrieved 2021-09-03.
- ^ Watson, J.A (29 January 2013). "The rEFInd boot loader for UEFI Systems: A life (and sanity) saver". ZDnet. Retrieved 19 February 2016.
- ^ "rEFInd - ArchWiki". Arch Linux Wiki. Retrieved 7 March 2021.
- ^ "The rEFInd Boot Manager: Revisions". www.rodsbooks.com. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
- ^ "rEFIt - An EFI Boot Menu and Toolkit". refit.sourceforge.net. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
- ^ a b "The rEFInd Boot Manager: rEFInd Features". www.rodsbooks.com. Retrieved 7 March 2021.
- ^ "The rEFInd Boot Manager: Theming rEFInd". www.rodsbooks.com. Retrieved 7 March 2021.
- ^ "Arch Linux - refind 0.13.2-1 (any)". archlinux.org. Archived from the original on 2021-01-20. Retrieved 2021-09-03.
- ^ "Debian -- Details of package refind in bullseye". packages.debian.org. Retrieved 2021-09-03.
- ^ "Ubuntu – Package Download Selection -- refind_0.12.0-1_amd64.deb". packages.ubuntu.com. Retrieved 2021-09-03.
- ^ "sys-boot/refind – Gentoo Packages". packages.gentoo.org. Retrieved 2021-09-03.
- ^ "rEFInd / Code / [08c617] /BUILDING.txt". sourceforge.net. Retrieved 7 March 2021.
- ^ dakanji (6 March 2021), dakanji/RefindPlus, GitHub, retrieved 7 March 2021
