4 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
5 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
6 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
7 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
8 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
9 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
10 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
12 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
13 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
14 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
16 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
17 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
18 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
19 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
21 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
22 file when launched from rEFInd.
27 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
28 received reports that it's not working as intended.
30 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
31 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
32 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
33 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
34 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
35 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
37 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
38 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
43 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
44 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
45 sample configuration file for a full description.
47 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
48 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
49 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
50 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
51 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
53 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
54 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
57 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
58 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
63 - Improved menu navigation:
64 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
65 down arrows move between rows.
66 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
67 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
68 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
69 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
71 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
72 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
73 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
78 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
79 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
80 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
81 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
82 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
83 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
86 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
89 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
91 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
92 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
99 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
100 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
102 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
103 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
104 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
105 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
106 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
107 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
108 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
109 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
110 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
111 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
112 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
114 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
115 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
116 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
117 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
118 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
120 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
121 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
126 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
127 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
128 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
129 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
130 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
131 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
133 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
134 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
135 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
136 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
137 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
138 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
139 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
140 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
141 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
142 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
143 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
144 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
145 that resets the video mode.
147 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
148 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
149 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
150 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
151 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
154 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
155 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
156 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
157 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
158 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
159 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
161 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
162 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
163 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
165 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
166 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
167 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
168 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
173 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
174 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
175 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
176 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
177 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
178 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
179 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
180 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
181 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
182 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
183 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
184 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
185 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
186 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
189 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
191 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
192 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
193 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
194 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
195 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
196 directories you like.
201 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
202 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
203 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
204 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
205 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
206 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
207 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
208 should work when a volume is unnamed.
210 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
211 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
212 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
217 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
218 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
220 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
221 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
222 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
223 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
224 documented the name....
226 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
227 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
228 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
230 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
231 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
232 directory) on certain systems.
234 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
235 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
240 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
241 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
242 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
243 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
244 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
245 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
246 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
247 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
248 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
249 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
250 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
253 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
254 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
255 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
256 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
259 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
260 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
262 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
265 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
266 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
267 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
268 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
269 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
271 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
272 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
273 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
274 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
275 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
276 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
281 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
282 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
283 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
284 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
285 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
286 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
287 small sample of computers.
289 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
290 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
291 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
292 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
293 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
295 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
300 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
301 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
302 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
303 versionless initrd file.
305 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
306 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
309 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
310 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
311 than this, but such systems are very rare.
316 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
317 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
318 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
319 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
321 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
322 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
323 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
324 directory as the kernel.
326 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
327 entries in refind.conf file.
329 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
330 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
336 - Initial public release