#239 rEFInd folder structure and Tools location

[joevt]

I was having problems trying to get rEFInd to show the Shell option. I had to look at the source code to find out that it needs to be at one of the following locations:
\EFI\tools\shell.efi
\EFI\tools\shellx64.efi
\shell.efi
\shellx64.efi

None of those matches how I have rEFInd installed on an HFS+ partition. Basically, I just copy the contents of the refind-bin-0.11.4 folder to the HFS plus partition so that my shell is located at:
/Volumes/rEFInd/refind/tools_x64/shellx64.efi

Shouldn't rEFInd be able to find tools using a relative path from itself, like it does to find the refind.conf file and icons and drivers or am I misunderstanding how those other files are found?

Is there documentation that describes the necessary file structure of rEFInd, including the tools folder(s)?

[Roderick W. Smith]

First, you've posted this to the rEFIt project, but you're obviously using rEFInd (rEFIt's successor project), not rEFIt. See the rEFInd project page:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/

That said, rEFInd is not meant to be installed by dragging-and-dropping files the way you're doing it; you should be installing it by using the refind-install script or by following the manual installation instructions. rEFInd doesn't distribute a shell binary, except in the emergency images (CD-R and USB flash drive), and those are properly located in the EFI/tools directory.

[joevt]

Oh, sorry about that. I clicked the "list of active bugs" link at the top of http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/todo.html and didn't notice where I ended up.

The Manual Install instructions don't mention the Tools. Tools_x64 is copied by the cp -r refind commands to .../refind/tools_x64 just as drivers are copied to .../refind/drivers_x64. Tools specific instructions are given later in the "Installing Additonal Components" section of the page.

I guess I just find it strange that tools_x64 doesn't behave like drivers_x64 even though they have the same location and similar naming convention. Is there a reason for this differing behavior?

[Startergo]

Joe, if you install on HFS+ there is aspecific command to do so, but the tools work fine if I put them under \EFI\Tools\shell.efi in the root of the HFS+ partition where rEFInd resides. Note that this is not ESP (FAT32) folder, but just a regular folder in the root of the drive.

[joevt]

Yes, the paths I listed that work (such as \EFI\tools\shell.efi) are relative to the root of the partition that contains rEFInd (either EFI or a HFS+ partition). EFI in the path is a folder at the root and not the volume name of the root.

My complaint was that the tools folder was not relative to rEFInd like the drivers folder is.

[Startergo]

Aah yes I found that odd too.

[joevt]

While \EFI\Tools is fine for an EFI install, it makes slightly less sense for an --ownhfs install but it's not a big deal since it works as is.