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