The refind-bin file contains rEFInd binaries and filesystem driver binaries
for use on an EFI System Partition (ESP) or a Macintosh's OS X root
partition. These binaries have been signed with my own Secure Boot key and
so can be used with shim on Secure Boot systems; however, you'll have to
enroll the key with MokManager.
The refind-bin-gnuefi file is similar to refind-bin, except that the
refind_x64.efi binary was built using GNU-EFI rather than TianoCore EDK2.
This change helps some Arch Linux users who are running into problems
booting some (but not all) 3.7.x and 3.8.x kernels with the stock rEFInd
and some other tools; but this version can't launch BIOS-mode boot loaders.
The refind-cd file contains a bootable CD image file; burn it to an optical
disc and you should be able to boot rEFInd to test it without installing it
on your hard disk. This image is more likely to work on PCs than on Macs;
at least on some early Intel-based Macs, the CD boot process has special
requirements that this image doesn't meet. This image includes four EFI
filesystem drivers, as well as an open source EFI shell that's not included
in the other packages, which can make it useful for some simple emergency
recovery tasks on an EFI computer.
The refind-flashdrive file is similar to the refind-cd file, but it's
intended to create a bootable USB flash drive. You'll need to use the dd
utility in Linux or OS X, or something equivalent to it, to copy the image
file to a USB flash drive.
The refind-src file contains the source code to rEFInd (both the main
program and the EFI filesystem drivers), which you can build yourself. The
build process is based on Linux and uses the TianoCore toolkit or the
GNU-EFI library (for the main rEFInd program) and the TianoCore toolkit
(for the EFI filesystem drivers). It may be possible to adapt the build
process to work under OS X or Windows, but you're on your own if you try
this.
The binary RPM file can be installed directly on Red Hat, OpenSUSE, and
similar RPM-based distributions. It contains binaries that are equivalent
to those of the binary zip file, although they were built separately. Upon
installation, it copies the files to the ESP and registers rEFInd as the
default boot loader with the ESP, assuming the computer was booted in EFI
mode.
The binary Debian package is equivalent to the binary RPM file and can be
used in much the same way on Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, and other Linux
distributions that employ Debian packages.
The source RPM file might be buildable directly on an RPM-based
distribution, but distribution-specific details of GNU-EFI and TianoCore
file locations may prevent this from working. You can tweak the refind.spec
file (included in the refind-src file) and/or the various Makefiles (as
described in the BUILDING.txt file in the refind-src file) as necessary for
your platform.
