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Improvements to handling of case-insensitive string comparisons, which
[refind] / NEWS.txt
1 0.9.1 (?/??/2015):
2 ------------------
3
4 - Added icon for Elementary OS.
5
6 - Added /etc/lsb-release to files scanned for clues about the Linux
7 distribution. This file differentiates Mint and Elementary OS from Ubuntu
8 better than does /etc/os-release, and may also help with other
9 closely-related distributions.
10
11 - Improvements to handling of case-insensitive string comparisons. These
12 are buggy on some EFIs, and such bugs affect things like dont_scan_*
13 blacklists, removal of rEFInd's own directory from scanning, matching of
14 keyword names in refind.conf, and even loading of icons. I've replaced
15 many calls to problematic functions with safer calls, which should help a
16 lot. There may still be problems on some systems with some computers,
17 though; as far as I can tell, the bugs are buried deep in some EFI
18 firmware, so I can only replace some of the most direct calls to
19 potentially buggy system calls.
20
21 0.9.0 (7/26/2015):
22 ------------------
23
24 - New icon for Kali Linux, submitted by Francesco D'Eugenio.
25
26 - Minor code changes to ensure that rEFInd compiles with GCC 5.1. (Tested
27 with GNU-EFI on a Fedora 22 system; not yet tested with the TianoCore
28 EDK2.)
29
30 - Added new "fold_linux_kernels" token to refind.conf. This option, when
31 active (the default) "folds" all Linux kernels in a directory into a
32 single entry on the rEFInd menu. The kernel with the most recent time
33 stamp is launched by default. To launch another kernel, you must press F2
34 or Insert; additional kernels appear as options on the first kernel's
35 submenu. To see the pre-0.9.0 behavior, you must set "fold_linux_kernels
36 false" (or one of its synonyms, "off" or "0"). The point of this option
37 is to help de-clutter the rEFInd main menu.
38
39 - Added new Linux root (/) partition auto-discovery feature, based on
40 Freedesktop.org's Discoverable Partitions Spec (DPS)
41 (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
42 If no refind_linux.conf file or /etc/fstab file is found, and if a
43 partition with the correct DPS type code for the system architecture is
44 found, rEFInd adds "ro root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/{GUID}" to the kernel
45 options. This will not help on LVM setups, and will get it right for only
46 one installation on systems with multiple Linux installations, but it may
47 help some users, if/when the DPS type codes become more common.
48
49 - Fixed bug that caused a rEFInd crash if an empty refind_linux.conf
50 file was encountered.
51
52 - The mkrlconf.sh script now checks the OS on which it's running, which
53 should help avoid confusion or problems by users who mistakenly run it
54 under OS X.
55
56 - rEFInd now skips checking for various BIOS-mode boot sector signatures
57 when running on a UEFI-based PC; these checks are run only on Macs. This
58 may reduce startup time on systems with many partitions.
59
60 - Fixed Debian debinstall script to work correctly on IA32 systems. It had
61 a bug that caused filesystem drivers and gptsync to not be packaged for
62 IA32.
63
64 - Modified Debian postinst file to call install.sh with --localkeys option
65 if sbsign and openssl are available, even when NOT in Secure Boot mode or
66 if shim is not detected. This helps with my Ubuntu PPA when using custom
67 Secure Boot keys, since the PPA is delivered unsigned. (Users will have
68 to have added their own local keys to their firmware's db.) For
69 consistency, I've made the same change to the RPM .spec file.
70
71 0.8.7 (3/1/2015):
72 -----------------
73
74 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused inappropriate installation under the
75 name bootx64.efi (or bootia32.efi) under Linux, with a failure to update
76 the boot entries in NVRAM, has been fixed.
77
78 - Added identification of XFS as filesystem type in volume descriptions.
79
80 - More fixes to filesystem type detection code. Previous version sometimes
81 identified FAT or NTFS (or anything with a boot loader) as a whole-disk
82 device rather than the correct filesystem type.
83
84 - Added protections to the code to reduce the risk of crashes that might
85 occur when dereferencing NULL pointers in various situations.
86
87 - I'm deprecating the use of filesystem numbers (as in "fs0:") because
88 they're unreliable -- filesystem numbers can change between boots and
89 might not be the same as those used in an EFI shell or other program.
90 Sooner or later I'll remove code supporting this feature. In the
91 meantime, if it doesn't work for you, please switch to using filesystem
92 labels, partition labels, or partition GUIDs.
93
94 - Added detection of FreeBSD's BIOS-mode GPT boot loader. Previously,
95 rEFInd could detect FreeBSD's BIOS-mode MBR boot loader, which gave
96 FreeBSD an appropriate icon on Macs; but the BIOS-mode GPT boot loader
97 code is different, so some recent FreeBSD installations showed up with
98 generic grey diamond icons. This change creates FreeBSD icons instead.
99
100 - Added "Secure Boot [active|inactive]" notice to "about" menu for x86
101 (32-bit) systems, since there are now a few 32-bit UEFI systems that
102 support Secure Boot. (AFAIK, these are mostly tablets and convertibles
103 such as the ASUS T100.)
104
105 - Added KeyTool.efi and KeyTool-signed.efi to list of MOK managers. KeyTool
106 is the "super-deluxe" Secure Boot key and hash manager provided as part
107 of the efitools package.
108
109 - Fixed more instances of "invalid parameter" errors on some EFIs.
110
111 - Improved Secure Boot detection in install.sh.
112
113 - install.sh should no longer complain when copying Shim or MokManager over
114 itself.
115
116 0.8.6 (2/8/2015):
117 -----------------
118
119 - Removed special case of ignoring an HFS+ name of "HFS+ volume", since the
120 old rEFInd HFS+ driver that produced this name for all HFS+ volumes has
121 long since been updated to deliver a real name.
122
123 - Addition of new Windows 8 OS icon. On Macs and for BIOS/legacy boots, the
124 new icon is now used for Windows Vista, 7, and 8, while the old one is
125 used for earlier versions of Windows. For EFI-mode boots, the new icon is
126 used universally.
127
128 - If the NTFS driver is loaded, rEFInd now scans NTFS volumes on Macs for
129 the presence of Windows boot files, and removes any NTFS volume that
130 lacks such files from the BIOS/legacy boot list. This should help
131 unclutter the display on Macs that contain NTFS data partitions.
132
133 - Fixed bug that caused misidentification of both whole disks and NTFS
134 volumes as being FAT. (This bug affected the identification of devices
135 and locations in the rEFInd menu, not actual access to devices.)
136
137 - Code refactoring to clear out legacy-boot functions from the
138 ever-expanding refind/main.c file.
139
140 - Added new "badges" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf. This
141 option hides the device-type badges associated with the OS boot options.
142
143 - Reverted rEFIt commit r472, introduced in rEFInd 0.8.5 to support more
144 BMP images because I've received bug reports that it's causing existing
145 selection images to fail to load.
146
147 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused misidentification of installation
148 directory under OS X if an already-mounted ESP has spaces in its path.
149
150 - Fixed Mac-specific install.sh bug that could cause misidentification of
151 the ESP on disks with partition numbers of 10 or above.
152
153
154 0.8.5 (2/1/2015):
155 -----------------
156
157 - Added NTFS EFI filesystem driver.
158
159 - Minor improvements to filesystem driver framework code.
160
161 - Changes to
162
163 - Fixed bug in Btrfs driver's address reference.
164
165 - Improved install.sh to make it smarter about figuring out where to
166 install on Macs. Specifically, this version now upgrades existing
167 installations, if found (as it always has under Linux), rather than
168 blindly install to EFI/BOOT; it installs to EFI/refind if not existing
169 installation is found; it installs using the --shortform option to bless,
170 which seems to eliminate the 30-second delay problem; and it can handle
171 an HFS+ ESP, which it treats as a separate HFS+ volume (as if the user
172 had used --ownhfs). These changes do not affect behavior under Linux.
173
174 - Added missing check of architecture type for several tools.
175
176 - Applied rEFIt commit r472, which adds support for BMP images with negative
177 height fields, indicating that the image is NOT vertically flipped. This
178 commit and r467 were not incorporated in the original rEFInd because I
179 forked it from a Debian rEFIt package that had been patched to build
180 under GNU-EFI, and was apparently based on a slightly earlier version.
181
182 - Applied rEFIt commit r467, which improves Mac handling of legacy boots
183 from other than the first hard disk.
184
185
186 0.8.4 (12/8/2014):
187 ------------------
188
189 - Tweaked default for dont_scan_volumes: Removed "Recovery HD". This change
190 better suits the needs of OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") installations, but may
191 result in some stray Recovery HD entries on some Macs.
192
193 - Updated icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu.
194
195 - Added new configuration option, "enable_and_lock_vmx", which sets an
196 Intel CPU feature that's required for some types of virtualization to
197 work. Most EFIs enable setting this feature in their own setup utilities,
198 but some (such as most Macs) don't.
199
200 - If rEFInd can't locate an icons directory (either the default or one
201 specified by the icons_dir token), the program switches to text-only
202 mode.
203
204 - If a loader contains the string "grub" and no other clue to the loader's
205 OS association exists, search for os_grub.{png|icns} (which is not
206 provided with rEFInd) or os_linux.{png|icns}. (Previous versions provided
207 a generic loader icon for GRUB.)
208
209 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_files to not work with special-case
210 boot loaders (for OS X and Windows) when specifying the complete path to
211 the loader (e.g., EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi).
212
213 - Added support for the iPXE network boot tool (see BUILDING.txt for
214 building and basic use instructions).
215
216 0.8.3 (7/6/2014):
217 -----------------
218
219 - Added new feature: Setting "timeout = -1" in refind.conf causes rEFInd to
220 immediately boot the default option UNLESS a keypress is in the buffer
221 when rEFInd launches. In that case, if the keypress corresponds to a
222 shortcut key, the associated boot loader is launched; or if not, the menu
223 is displayed.
224
225 - Added new icons for Clover boot loader and for Mythbuntu Linux
226 distribution.
227
228 - rEFInd now displays the partition's label, when one is available, when
229 offering a BIOS-mode boot option for a partition with no filesystem
230 driver. This works only on Macs doing BIOS-mode booting.
231
232 - Removed GPLv2 code from the FSW core files. This was done because the
233 Btrfs driver is derived from the GRUB Btrfs driver, which is licensed
234 under the GPLv3. Ironically, the GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible
235 licenses, so ensuring that the Btrfs driver doesn't rely on GPLv2 code
236 was legally necessary. In most cases, I reverted to the original rEFIt
237 code, although I kept my own cache code; since I wrote it, I can
238 change its license to a BSD license.
239
240 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers immediately after loading
241 them. This didn't affect rEFInd's own drivers because they didn't include
242 the unload hooks, but it did affect some other drivers.
243
244 - Changed default scan_all_linux_kernels setting from "false" to "true",
245 and commented the option out in refind.conf-sample. This should not
246 affect most people, since refind.conf-sample had this option commented
247 out, and most rEFInd users either use it that way or don't have Linux
248 kernels installed at all. I've made this change because I want rEFInd to
249 "do the right thing" by default in as many cases as possible. For a while
250 now, rEFInd has been excluding non-bootable files from its menu, and most
251 kernels "in the wild" now include the EFI stub. Thus, enabling this
252 support by default seems worthwhile. If you prefer to not scan Linux
253 kernels by default, simply uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" line
254 and ensure it's set to "false".
255
256 0.8.2.1 (6/8/2014):
257 -------------------
258
259 - Removed stray bit of debugging code that caused a prompt to press a
260 key to appear at rEFInd startup.
261
262 0.8.2 (6/8/2014):
263 -----------------
264
265 - Changed behavior when default_selection is not set: It now boots the
266 previously-booted loader, assuming it's still available; if not, rEFInd
267 boots the first loader (as it does now). Behavior is unchanged if
268 default_selection is set. Note that this behavior depends on the ability
269 of rEFInd to store an EFI variable in NVRAM. It therefore fails on
270 systems with flaky NVRAM storage. You can view the previously-booted
271 loader in the
272 /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740
273 variable under Linux.
274
275 - Added icon for Mageia Linux (os_mageia.png).
276
277 - Fixed bug that could misidentify a not-quite-GUID as a GUID in a
278 manual boot stanza's "volume" line.
279
280 - I've updated my personal build system, and therefore the rEFInd Makefiles
281 and related files, to use TianoCore UDK2014 rather than UDK2010.
282
283 - Added "deep_uefi_legacy_scan" token. When not set (the default), rEFInd
284 does not modify EFI NVRAM settings when scanning for BIOS-mode boot
285 loaders on UEFI-based (non-Mac) computers. Some computers require
286 uncommenting this setting for rEFInd to reliably detect some BIOS-mode
287 boot devices. Passing "0", "off", or "false" as an option resets it to
288 the default value (useful in a loaded secondary configuration file to
289 override a setting in the main file).
290
291 0.8.1 (5/15/2014):
292 ------------------
293
294 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders stored
295 on the root directory of a partition.
296
297 - Added two new bitmap fonts to those distributed with rEFInd: Ubuntu Mono
298 and Nimbus Mono. Both come in 12-, 14-, 16-, and 24-point sizes.
299
300 - Messages about pauses for scanning and re-scanning of boot loaders are
301 now suppressed when doing an initial delayed scan when scan_delay is 1
302 second.
303
304 - Improved centering of legacy boot option descriptions on some systems'
305 screens.
306
307 - Fixed bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot to boot from an inappropriate
308 device if that device had an innately high boot priority (as set by the
309 firmware).
310
311 - Changed icons from ICNS to PNG form. There are several reasons to do
312 this, all of them minor; but together they're enough to warrant a change.
313 PNG is more common, and therefore more accessible to most users --
314 particularly those who don't use OS X. The PNG files are smaller than
315 their ICNS equivalents. PNG supports a wider range of sizes (although I'm
316 not now using anything that ICNS doesn't support, I might in the future).
317 The icon-scaling support added a few versions ago makes ICNS's support
318 for multiple icon sizes relatively unimportant.
319
320 - Reversed order of search for icons by extension: rEFInd now searches
321 for PNG files before ICNS files, rather than the other way around. This
322 makes it possible to override a volume icon for rEFInd by giving it the
323 name .VolumeIcon.png, even when a .VolumeIcon.icns file exists on the
324 volume and is used by OS X.
325
326 - Fixed bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take higher-than-intended
327 precedence in icon setting for OS X.
328
329 - Chainloading to BIOS-mode boot loaders now works on UEFI-based PCs when
330 rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI, not just when built with Tianocore.
331
332 0.8.0 (5/4/2014):
333 -----------------
334
335 - The "dont_scan_volumes" parameter now also works with legacy-boot
336 volumes. Unlike with EFI volumes, where the option you pass must exactly
337 match an entire volume name, when applied to legacy-boot volumes, it
338 matches any part of the description that appears beneath the item when
339 you select it in the rEFInd main menu.
340
341 - Can now boot in legacy mode from second (and probably later) hard disks!
342
343 - rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware name string shown in the
344 system information screen to 65 characters. This is done because at least
345 one EFI presents a longer string by default, and this causes the entire
346 information display to come up empty on 800x600 displays.
347
348 - rEFInd now uses the partition's name (as stored in the GPT data
349 structures) as a fallback for the filesystem's name if the latter can't
350 be found. Exceptions are if the partition name is one of three generic
351 names used by GPT fdisk: "Microsoft basic data", "Linux filesystem", or
352 "Apple HFS/HFS+". These are ignored in favor of the descriptive fallback
353 (e.g., "20 GiB Btrfs volume")
354
355 - It's now possible to specify a volume by partition GUID number in a
356 manual boot stanza. This should be more reliable (albeit also more
357 awkward) than using a filesystem number (such as fs0: or fs1:).
358
359 - Fixed memory-allocation bug that could cause error message displays,
360 and possibly hangs, when re-scanning boot loaders.
361
362 0.7.9 (4/20/2014):
363 ------------------
364
365 - Attempt to fix rEFInd perpetually re-scanning after ejecting a disc on
366 some Macs.
367
368 - Added check to remove redundant (or non-functional if Secure Boot is
369 active) kernel entries for Ubuntu, which is now including two versions of
370 kernels, one signed and the other unsigned.
371
372 - Fixed bug in install.sh that could cause it to display error messages
373 if the dmraid utility was not installed.
374
375 - The HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name.
376
377 - Fixed some EFI filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups under
378 some circumstances. These bugs could affect any of the filesystem
379 drivers.
380
381 - Added "gdisk" option to the "showtools" configuration file token. When
382 active, this adds gdisk.efi or gdisk_{arch}.efi, if present in the
383 EFI\tools directory, to the tools row.
384
385 - Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility
386 utility."
387
388
389 0.7.8 (3/9/2014):
390 -----------------
391
392 - Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian
393 packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run
394 any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the
395 hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run
396 install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64
397 references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of
398 concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else.
399
400 - Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of
401 the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively.
402 The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type
403 badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and
404 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If
405 the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified,
406 rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn
407 to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf.
408
409 - rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes.
410 This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it
411 can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a
412 graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so
413 scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128
414 OS icon) is not likely to look good.
415
416 - Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners:
417 Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll
418 be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the
419 behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the
420 banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display.
421
422 - Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate
423 RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for
424 existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi
425 rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages
426 were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note,
427 however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd
428 The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine;
429 it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that
430 problems might arise.
431
432 0.7.7 (1/3/2014):
433 -----------------
434
435 - Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in
436 dont_scan_files.
437
438 - Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
439
440 - Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a
441 Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to
442 "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery
443 utility on the second row of icons.
444
445 - The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files,
446 and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first
447 option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default
448 value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for
449 scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.)
450
451 - Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch,
452 via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the
453 foo.conf file as the main configuration file.
454
455 - Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with
456 duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so
457 would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given
458 UUID.
459
460 - Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP
461 in Linux, if it's currently unmounted.
462
463 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
464 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
465 under some circumstances.
466
467 0.7.6 (12/15/2013):
468 -------------------
469
470 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
471 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
472 default_selection "fred,ginger"
473 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
474 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
475
476 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
477 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
478 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
479 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
480 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
481 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
482 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
483 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
484 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
485 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
486 depending on your computer.
487
488 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
489 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
490 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
491 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
492 screensaver will be disabled.
493
494 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
495 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
496 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
497 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
498 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
499
500 0.7.5 (11/10/2013):
501 -------------------
502
503 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
504 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
505
506 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
507 versions of OS X to fail.
508
509 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
510 drivers were present.
511
512 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
513 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
514 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
515 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
516 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
517 black a second or so later.
518
519 0.7.4.1 (8/25/2013):
520 --------------------
521
522 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
523 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
524 problem.
525
526 0.7.4 (8/25/2013):
527 ------------------
528
529 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
530 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
531 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
532
533 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
534 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
535 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
536 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
537 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
538 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
539 default.
540
541 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
542 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
543 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
544 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
545
546 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
547 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
548 known case, but there may be others.)
549
550 0.7.3 (8/7/2013):
551 -----------------
552
553 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
554 loaders on Macs.
555
556 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
557
558 0.7.2 (8/6/2013):
559 -----------------
560
561 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
562 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
563
564 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
565 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
566
567 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
568 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
569
570 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
571 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
572 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
573 HashTool-signed.efi".
574
575 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
576
577 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
578 was broken.
579
580 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
581 was broken.
582
583 0.7.1 (7/8/2013):
584 -----------------
585
586 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
587
588 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
589 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
590 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
591
592 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
593 volume specification, if present.
594
595 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
596
597 0.7.0 (6/27/2013):
598 ------------------
599
600 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
601 type for volumes that lack labels.
602
603 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
604 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
605 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
606 though.
607
608 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
609 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
610 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
611 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
612 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
613 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
614 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
615 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
616
617 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
618 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
619 non-EFI loaders, etc.
620
621 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
622 code.
623
624 0.6.12 (6/18/2013):
625 -------------------
626
627 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
628 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
629
630 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
631 script.
632
633 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
634 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
635 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
636 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
637
638 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
639 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
640 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
641 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
642
643 0.6.11 (5/13/2013):
644 -------------------
645
646 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
647 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
648 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
649 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
650
651 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
652
653 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
654 directory names that contain spaces.
655
656 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
657 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
658 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
659 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
660 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
661
662 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
663 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
664
665 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
666 Utility" in menu.
667
668 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
669 partitions to fill the MBR.
670
671 0.6.10 (5/5/2013):
672 ------------------
673
674 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
675 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
676 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
677 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
678
679 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
680 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
681 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
682 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
683 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
684
685 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
686 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
687 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
688 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
689 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
690 is quietly ignored.
691
692 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
693 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
694
695 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
696 encountered when saving a screen shot.
697
698 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
699 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
700 sequence number, starting with "001".
701
702 0.6.9 (4/25/2013):
703 ------------------
704
705 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
706 Kemperman.
707
708 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
709 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
710
711 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
712 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
713 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
714
715 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
716 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
717 accidentally trash their systems.
718
719 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
720 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
721 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
722
723 0.6.8 (3/18/2013):
724 ------------------
725
726 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
727 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
728
729 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
730 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
731
732 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
733 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
734
735 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
736
737 0.6.7 (2/3/2013):
738 -----------------
739
740 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
741 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
742
743 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
744 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
745 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
746 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
747
748 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
749 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
750
751 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
752 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
753
754 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
755 also_scan_dirs list.
756
757 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
758
759 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
760 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
761 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
762
763 0.6.6 (1/26/2013):
764 ------------------
765
766 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
767 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
768 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
769 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
770 loader under the fallback name.
771
772 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
773 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
774 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
775 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
776 of 96 glyphs.
777
778 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
779 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
780
781 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
782 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
783
784 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
785 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
786 commented out or empty.
787
788 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
789 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
790
791 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
792 manual boot stanzas.
793
794 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
795 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
796
797 0.6.5 (1/16/2013):
798 ------------------
799
800 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
801 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
802
803 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
804
805 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
806
807 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
808 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
809
810 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
811
812 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
813 sized to cover these areas.
814
815 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
816 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
817 resolution!
818
819 0.6.4 (1/8/2013):
820 -----------------
821
822 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
823 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
824 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
825 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
826
827 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
828 startup on some systems.
829
830 0.6.3 (1/6/2013):
831 -----------------
832
833 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
834 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
835
836 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
837 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
838
839 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
840 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
841 burned to USB flash disks.
842
843 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
844 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
845 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
846
847 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
848 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
849 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
850 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
851 from that installation.
852
853 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
854 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
855 than in EFI/refind.
856
857 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
858 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
859
860 0.6.2 (12/30/2012):
861 -------------------
862
863 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
864 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
865 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
866
867 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
868 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
869 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
870 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
871 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
872
873 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
874 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
875 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
876 Linux with the "make" command.
877
878 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
879 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
880
881 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
882 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
883 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
884 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
885 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
886 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
887 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
888 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
889
890 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
891 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
892 default.)
893
894 0.6.1 (12/21/2012):
895 -------------------
896
897 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
898 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
899 use on emergency discs.
900
901 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
902 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
903 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
904 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
905 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
906 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
907 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
908 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
909 handle.
910
911 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
912
913 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
914 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
915 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
916 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
917 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
918 os_GENTOO.icns.
919
920 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
921 mode.
922
923 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
924 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
925 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
926 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
927
928 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
929 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
930 a boot loader launch failed.
931
932 0.6.0 (12/16/2012):
933 -------------------
934
935 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
936 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
937 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
938 options.
939
940 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
941 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
942 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
943 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
944
945 - Added ext4fs driver!
946
947 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
948
949 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
950
951 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
952 from a program that set the resolution itself.
953
954 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
955 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
956 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
957 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
958 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
959 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
960 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
961 mode.
962
963 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
964 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
965 display even in graphics mode.
966
967 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
968 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
969
970 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
971 disables the boot options editor.
972
973 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
974 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
975
976 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
977 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
978 from the /etc/default/grub file.
979
980 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
981 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
982
983 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
984 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
985 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
986 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
987 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
988 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
989
990 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
991 on Linux systems.
992
993 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
994 ---------------------
995
996 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
997
998 0.5.1 (12/11/2012):
999 -------------------
1000
1001 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
1002 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
1003 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
1004 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
1005
1006 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
1007 configuration file from a primary one.
1008
1009 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
1010 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
1011 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
1012 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
1013 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
1014 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
1015 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
1016 LVM.)
1017
1018 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
1019 on systems with Secure Boot active.
1020
1021 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
1022 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
1023 refind.conf.
1024
1025 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
1026 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
1027
1028 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
1029 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
1030 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
1031
1032 0.5.0 (12/6/2012):
1033 ------------------
1034
1035 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
1036 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
1037 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
1038 This example results in the following string being passed as an
1039 option:
1040 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
1041
1042 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
1043 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
1044 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
1045 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
1046 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
1047 for them makes sense.
1048
1049 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
1050 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
1051 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
1052 EFI shells are also so limited.)
1053
1054 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
1055 were not actually edited.
1056
1057 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
1058 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
1059 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
1060 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
1061 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
1062
1063 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
1064 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
1065 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
1066 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
1067 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
1068 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
1069 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
1070 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
1071
1072 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
1073 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
1074 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
1075
1076 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
1077 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
1078 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
1079
1080 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
1081 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
1082 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
1083 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
1084
1085 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
1086 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
1087 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
1088
1089 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
1090 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
1091
1092 0.4.7 (11/6/2012):
1093 ------------------
1094
1095 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
1096
1097 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
1098 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
1099 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
1100
1101 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
1102 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
1103 told isn't working as planned).
1104
1105 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
1106 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
1107 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
1108 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
1109
1110 0.4.6 (10/6/2012):
1111 ------------------
1112
1113 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
1114
1115 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
1116 for disks.
1117
1118 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
1119 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
1120 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
1121 done this for two reasons:
1122 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
1123 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
1124 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
1125 default for them should help them.
1126 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
1127 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
1128 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
1129 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
1130 default configurations.
1131
1132 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
1133
1134 0.4.5 (8/12/2012):
1135 ------------------
1136
1137 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
1138
1139 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
1140
1141 0.4.4 (6/23/2012):
1142 ------------------
1143
1144 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
1145 32-bit systems.
1146
1147 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
1148 on 32-bit systems.
1149
1150 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
1151 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
1152 loaders/OSes.
1153
1154 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
1155
1156 0.4.3 (6/21/2012):
1157 ------------------
1158
1159 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
1160 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
1161
1162 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
1163 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
1164 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
1165 graphics or text mode itself.)
1166
1167 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
1168 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
1169 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
1170 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
1171 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
1172 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
1173 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
1174
1175 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
1176
1177 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
1178 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
1179 "linux.conf" themselves.
1180
1181 0.4.2 (6/3/2012):
1182 -----------------
1183
1184 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
1185 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
1186 via rEFInd.
1187
1188 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
1189 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
1190 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
1191 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
1192 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
1193 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
1194 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
1195 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
1196 the boot order).
1197
1198 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
1199 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
1200
1201 0.4.1 (5/25/2012):
1202 ------------------
1203
1204 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
1205 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
1206 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
1207 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
1208 system hasn't hung.
1209
1210 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
1211 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
1212
1213 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
1214
1215 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
1216 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
1217 label.)
1218
1219 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
1220 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
1221
1222 0.4.0 (5/20/2012):
1223 ------------------
1224
1225 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
1226 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
1227 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
1228 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
1229 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
1230 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
1231 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
1232
1233 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
1234 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
1235 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
1236
1237 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
1238 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
1239 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
1240 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
1241
1242 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
1243 file when launched from rEFInd.
1244
1245 0.3.5 (5/15/2012):
1246 ------------------
1247
1248 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
1249 received reports that it's not working as intended.
1250
1251 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
1252 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
1253 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
1254 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
1255 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
1256 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
1257
1258 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
1259 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
1260
1261 0.3.4 (5/9/2012):
1262 -----------------
1263
1264 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
1265 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
1266 sample configuration file for a full description.
1267
1268 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
1269 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
1270 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
1271 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
1272 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
1273
1274 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
1275 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
1276 target).
1277
1278 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
1279 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
1280
1281 0.3.3 (5/6/2012):
1282 -----------------
1283
1284 - Improved menu navigation:
1285 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
1286 down arrows move between rows.
1287 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
1288 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
1289 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
1290 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
1291
1292 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
1293 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
1294 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
1295
1296 0.3.2 (5/4/2012):
1297 -----------------
1298
1299 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
1300 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
1301 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
1302 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
1303 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
1304 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
1305 will fail to work.
1306
1307 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
1308 mode.
1309
1310 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
1311
1312 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
1313 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
1314 options.
1315
1316
1317 0.3.1 (4/27/2012):
1318 ------------------
1319
1320 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
1321 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
1322
1323 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
1324 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
1325 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
1326 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
1327 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
1328 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
1329 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
1330 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
1331 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
1332 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
1333 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
1334
1335 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
1336 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
1337 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
1338 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
1339 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
1340
1341 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
1342 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
1343
1344 0.3.0 (4/22/2012):
1345 ------------------
1346
1347 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
1348 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
1349 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
1350 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
1351 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
1352 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
1353
1354 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
1355 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
1356 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
1357 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
1358 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
1359 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
1360 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
1361 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
1362 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
1363 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
1364 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
1365 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
1366 that resets the video mode.
1367
1368 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
1369 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
1370 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
1371 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
1372 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
1373 details.
1374
1375 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
1376 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
1377 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
1378 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
1379 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
1380 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
1381
1382 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
1383 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
1384 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
1385
1386 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
1387 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
1388 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
1389 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
1390
1391 0.2.7 (4/19/2012):
1392 ------------------
1393
1394 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
1395 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
1396 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
1397 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
1398 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
1399 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
1400 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
1401 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
1402 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
1403 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
1404 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
1405 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
1406 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
1407 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
1408 installation.
1409
1410 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
1411
1412 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
1413 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
1414 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
1415 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
1416 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
1417 directories you like.
1418
1419 0.2.6 (4/14/2012):
1420 ------------------
1421
1422 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
1423 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
1424 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
1425 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
1426 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
1427 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
1428 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
1429 should work when a volume is unnamed.
1430
1431 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
1432 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
1433 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
1434
1435 0.2.5 (4/9/2012):
1436 -----------------
1437
1438 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
1439 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
1440
1441 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
1442 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
1443 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
1444 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
1445 documented the name....
1446
1447 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
1448 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
1449 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
1450
1451 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
1452 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
1453 directory) on certain systems.
1454
1455 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
1456 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1457
1458 0.2.4 (4/5/2012):
1459 -----------------
1460
1461 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1462 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1463 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1464 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1465 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1466 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1467 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1468 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1469 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1470 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1471 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1472 to me.
1473
1474 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1475 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1476 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1477 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1478 simultaneously.)
1479
1480 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1481 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1482
1483 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1484 image.
1485
1486 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1487 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1488 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1489 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1490 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1491
1492 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1493 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1494 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1495 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1496 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1497 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1498
1499 0.2.3 (3/26/2012):
1500 ------------------
1501
1502 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1503 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1504 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1505 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1506 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1507 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1508 small sample of computers.
1509
1510 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1511 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1512 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1513 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1514 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1515
1516 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1517
1518 0.2.2 (3/23/2012):
1519 ------------------
1520
1521 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1522 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1523 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1524 versionless initrd file.
1525
1526 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1527 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1528 continues.
1529
1530 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1531 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1532 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1533
1534 0.2.1 (3/19/2012):
1535 ------------------
1536
1537 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1538 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1539 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1540 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1541
1542 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1543 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1544 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1545 directory as the kernel.
1546
1547 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1548 entries in refind.conf file.
1549
1550 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1551 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1552
1553
1554 0.2.0 (3/14/2012):
1555 ------------------
1556
1557 - Initial public release