4 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
5 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
6 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
7 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
8 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
9 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
11 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
12 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
13 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
14 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
15 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
16 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
17 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
18 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
19 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
20 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
21 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
22 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
23 that resets the video mode.
25 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
26 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
27 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
28 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
29 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
32 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
33 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
34 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
35 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
36 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
37 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
39 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
40 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
41 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
43 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
44 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
45 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
46 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
51 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
52 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
53 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
54 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
55 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
56 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
57 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
58 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
59 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
60 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
61 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
62 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
63 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
64 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
67 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
69 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
70 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
71 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
72 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
73 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
79 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
80 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
81 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
82 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
83 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
84 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
85 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
86 should work when a volume is unnamed.
88 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
89 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
90 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
95 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
96 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
98 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
99 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
100 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
101 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
102 documented the name....
104 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
105 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
106 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
108 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
109 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
110 directory) on certain systems.
112 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
113 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
118 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
119 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
120 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
121 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
122 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
123 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
124 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
125 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
126 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
127 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
128 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
131 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
132 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
133 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
134 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
137 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
138 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
140 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
143 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
144 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
145 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
146 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
147 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
149 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
150 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
151 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
152 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
153 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
154 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
159 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
160 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
161 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
162 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
163 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
164 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
165 small sample of computers.
167 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
168 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
169 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
170 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
171 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
173 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
178 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
179 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
180 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
181 versionless initrd file.
183 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
184 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
187 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
188 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
189 than this, but such systems are very rare.
194 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
195 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
196 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
197 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
199 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
200 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
201 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
202 directory as the kernel.
204 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
205 entries in refind.conf file.
207 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
208 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
214 - Initial public release