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