]> code.delx.au - refind/blob - NEWS.txt
0.6.11 release.
[refind] / NEWS.txt
1 0.6.11 (5/13/2013):
2 -------------------
3
4 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
5 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
6 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
7 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
8
9 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
10
11 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
12 directory names that contain spaces.
13
14 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
15 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
16 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
17 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
18 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
19
20 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
21 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
22
23 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
24 Utility" in menu.
25
26 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
27 partitions to fill the MBR.
28
29 0.6.10 (5/5/2013):
30 ------------------
31
32 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
33 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
34 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
35 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
36
37 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
38 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
39 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
40 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
41 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
42
43 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
44 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
45 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
46 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
47 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
48 is quietly ignored.
49
50 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
51 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
52
53 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
54 encountered when saving a screen shot.
55
56 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
57 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
58 sequence number, starting with "001".
59
60 0.6.9 (4/25/2013):
61 ------------------
62
63 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
64 Kemperman.
65
66 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
67 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
68
69 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
70 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
71 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
72
73 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
74 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
75 accidentally trash their systems.
76
77 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
78 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
79 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
80
81 0.6.8 (3/18/2013):
82 ------------------
83
84 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
85 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
86
87 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
88 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
89
90 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
91 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
92
93 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
94
95 0.6.7 (2/3/2013):
96 -----------------
97
98 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
99 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
100
101 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
102 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
103 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
104 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
105
106 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
107 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
108
109 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
110 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
111
112 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
113 also_scan_dirs list.
114
115 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
116
117 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
118 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
119 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
120
121 0.6.6 (1/26/2013):
122 ------------------
123
124 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
125 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
126 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
127 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
128 loader under the fallback name.
129
130 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
131 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
132 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
133 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
134 of 96 glyphs.
135
136 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
137 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
138
139 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
140 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
141
142 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
143 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
144 commented out or empty.
145
146 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
147 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
148
149 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
150 manual boot stanzas.
151
152 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
153 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
154
155 0.6.5 (1/16/2013):
156 ------------------
157
158 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
159 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
160
161 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
162
163 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
164
165 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
166 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
167
168 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
169
170 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
171 sized to cover these areas.
172
173 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
174 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
175 resolution!
176
177 0.6.4 (1/8/2013):
178 -----------------
179
180 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
181 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
182 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
183 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
184
185 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
186 startup on some systems.
187
188 0.6.3 (1/6/2013):
189 -----------------
190
191 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
192 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
193
194 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
195 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
196
197 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
198 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
199 burned to USB flash disks.
200
201 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
202 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
203 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
204
205 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
206 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
207 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
208 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
209 from that installation.
210
211 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
212 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
213 than in EFI/refind.
214
215 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
216 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
217
218 0.6.2 (12/30/2012):
219 -------------------
220
221 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
222 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
223 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
224
225 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
226 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
227 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
228 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
229 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
230
231 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
232 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
233 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
234 Linux with the "make" command.
235
236 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
237 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
238
239 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
240 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
241 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
242 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
243 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
244 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
245 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
246 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
247
248 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
249 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
250 default.)
251
252 0.6.1 (12/21/2012):
253 -------------------
254
255 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
256 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
257 use on emergency discs.
258
259 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
260 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
261 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
262 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
263 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
264 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
265 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
266 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
267 handle.
268
269 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
270
271 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
272 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
273 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
274 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
275 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
276 os_GENTOO.icns.
277
278 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
279 mode.
280
281 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
282 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
283 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
284 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
285
286 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
287 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
288 a boot loader launch failed.
289
290 0.6.0 (12/16/2012):
291 -------------------
292
293 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
294 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
295 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
296 options.
297
298 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
299 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
300 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
301 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
302
303 - Added ext4fs driver!
304
305 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
306
307 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
308
309 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
310 from a program that set the resolution itself.
311
312 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
313 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
314 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
315 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
316 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
317 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
318 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
319 mode.
320
321 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
322 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
323 display even in graphics mode.
324
325 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
326 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
327
328 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
329 disables the boot options editor.
330
331 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
332 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
333
334 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
335 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
336 from the /etc/default/grub file.
337
338 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
339 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
340
341 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
342 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
343 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
344 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
345 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
346 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
347
348 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
349 on Linux systems.
350
351 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
352 ---------------------
353
354 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
355
356 0.5.1 (12/11/2012):
357 -------------------
358
359 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
360 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
361 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
362 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
363
364 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
365 configuration file from a primary one.
366
367 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
368 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
369 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
370 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
371 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
372 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
373 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
374 LVM.)
375
376 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
377 on systems with Secure Boot active.
378
379 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
380 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
381 refind.conf.
382
383 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
384 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
385
386 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
387 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
388 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
389
390 0.5.0 (12/6/2012):
391 ------------------
392
393 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
394 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
395 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
396 This example results in the following string being passed as an
397 option:
398 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
399
400 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
401 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
402 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
403 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
404 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
405 for them makes sense.
406
407 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
408 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
409 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
410 EFI shells are also so limited.)
411
412 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
413 were not actually edited.
414
415 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
416 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
417 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
418 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
419 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
420
421 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
422 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
423 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
424 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
425 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
426 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
427 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
428 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
429
430 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
431 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
432 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
433
434 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
435 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
436 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
437
438 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
439 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
440 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
441 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
442
443 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
444 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
445 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
446
447 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
448 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
449
450 0.4.7 (11/6/2012):
451 ------------------
452
453 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
454
455 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
456 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
457 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
458
459 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
460 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
461 told isn't working as planned).
462
463 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
464 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
465 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
466 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
467
468 0.4.6 (10/6/2012):
469 ------------------
470
471 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
472
473 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
474 for disks.
475
476 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
477 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
478 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
479 done this for two reasons:
480 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
481 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
482 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
483 default for them should help them.
484 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
485 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
486 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
487 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
488 default configurations.
489
490 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
491
492 0.4.5 (8/12/2012):
493 ------------------
494
495 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
496
497 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
498
499 0.4.4 (6/23/2012):
500 ------------------
501
502 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
503 32-bit systems.
504
505 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
506 on 32-bit systems.
507
508 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
509 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
510 loaders/OSes.
511
512 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
513
514 0.4.3 (6/21/2012):
515 ------------------
516
517 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
518 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
519
520 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
521 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
522 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
523 graphics or text mode itself.)
524
525 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
526 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
527 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
528 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
529 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
530 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
531 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
532
533 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
534
535 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
536 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
537 "linux.conf" themselves.
538
539 0.4.2 (6/3/2012):
540 -----------------
541
542 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
543 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
544 via rEFInd.
545
546 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
547 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
548 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
549 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
550 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
551 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
552 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
553 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
554 the boot order).
555
556 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
557 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
558
559 0.4.1 (5/25/2012):
560 ------------------
561
562 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
563 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
564 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
565 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
566 system hasn't hung.
567
568 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
569 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
570
571 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
572
573 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
574 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
575 label.)
576
577 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
578 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
579
580 0.4.0 (5/20/2012):
581 ------------------
582
583 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
584 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
585 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
586 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
587 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
588 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
589 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
590
591 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
592 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
593 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
594
595 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
596 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
597 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
598 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
599
600 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
601 file when launched from rEFInd.
602
603 0.3.5 (5/15/2012):
604 ------------------
605
606 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
607 received reports that it's not working as intended.
608
609 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
610 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
611 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
612 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
613 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
614 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
615
616 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
617 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
618
619 0.3.4 (5/9/2012):
620 -----------------
621
622 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
623 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
624 sample configuration file for a full description.
625
626 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
627 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
628 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
629 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
630 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
631
632 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
633 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
634 target).
635
636 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
637 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
638
639 0.3.3 (5/6/2012):
640 -----------------
641
642 - Improved menu navigation:
643 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
644 down arrows move between rows.
645 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
646 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
647 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
648 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
649
650 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
651 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
652 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
653
654 0.3.2 (5/4/2012):
655 -----------------
656
657 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
658 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
659 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
660 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
661 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
662 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
663 will fail to work.
664
665 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
666 mode.
667
668 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
669
670 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
671 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
672 options.
673
674
675 0.3.1 (4/27/2012):
676 ------------------
677
678 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
679 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
680
681 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
682 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
683 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
684 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
685 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
686 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
687 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
688 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
689 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
690 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
691 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
692
693 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
694 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
695 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
696 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
697 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
698
699 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
700 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
701
702 0.3.0 (4/22/2012):
703 ------------------
704
705 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
706 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
707 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
708 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
709 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
710 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
711
712 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
713 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
714 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
715 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
716 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
717 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
718 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
719 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
720 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
721 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
722 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
723 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
724 that resets the video mode.
725
726 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
727 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
728 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
729 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
730 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
731 details.
732
733 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
734 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
735 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
736 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
737 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
738 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
739
740 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
741 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
742 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
743
744 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
745 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
746 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
747 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
748
749 0.2.7 (4/19/2012):
750 ------------------
751
752 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
753 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
754 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
755 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
756 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
757 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
758 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
759 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
760 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
761 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
762 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
763 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
764 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
765 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
766 installation.
767
768 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
769
770 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
771 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
772 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
773 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
774 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
775 directories you like.
776
777 0.2.6 (4/14/2012):
778 ------------------
779
780 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
781 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
782 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
783 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
784 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
785 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
786 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
787 should work when a volume is unnamed.
788
789 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
790 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
791 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
792
793 0.2.5 (4/9/2012):
794 -----------------
795
796 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
797 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
798
799 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
800 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
801 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
802 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
803 documented the name....
804
805 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
806 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
807 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
808
809 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
810 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
811 directory) on certain systems.
812
813 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
814 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
815
816 0.2.4 (4/5/2012):
817 -----------------
818
819 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
820 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
821 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
822 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
823 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
824 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
825 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
826 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
827 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
828 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
829 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
830 to me.
831
832 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
833 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
834 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
835 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
836 simultaneously.)
837
838 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
839 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
840
841 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
842 image.
843
844 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
845 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
846 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
847 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
848 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
849
850 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
851 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
852 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
853 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
854 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
855 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
856
857 0.2.3 (3/26/2012):
858 ------------------
859
860 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
861 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
862 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
863 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
864 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
865 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
866 small sample of computers.
867
868 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
869 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
870 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
871 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
872 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
873
874 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
875
876 0.2.2 (3/23/2012):
877 ------------------
878
879 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
880 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
881 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
882 versionless initrd file.
883
884 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
885 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
886 continues.
887
888 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
889 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
890 than this, but such systems are very rare.
891
892 0.2.1 (3/19/2012):
893 ------------------
894
895 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
896 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
897 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
898 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
899
900 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
901 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
902 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
903 directory as the kernel.
904
905 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
906 entries in refind.conf file.
907
908 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
909 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
910
911
912 0.2.0 (3/14/2012):
913 ------------------
914
915 - Initial public release