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