]> code.delx.au - refind/blob - NEWS.txt
Version 0.9.1 release
[refind] / NEWS.txt
1 0.9.1 (9/13/2015):
2 ------------------
3
4 - When rEFInd identifies the root (/) partition via the Freedesktop.org
5 Discoverable Partitions Specification, it now checks two of the
6 partition's attributes, as per the DPS (see
7 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
8 - The partition's read-only attribute determines whether to pass a "rw"
9 or "ro" option to the kernel.
10 - If the partition's do-not-automount flag is set, rEFInd will not pass
11 it as a "root=" option to the kernel. This flag can be used to remove
12 all but one partition from consideration as a root (/) partition if a
13 system has more than one with the correct type code.
14
15 - Improved Freedesktop.org Discoverable Partitions Specification support:
16 Previously, if no refind_linux.conf file was present but an /etc/fstab
17 file was found, rEFInd ignored the Discoverable Partitions Specification
18 filesystem-type codes. This was fine if /etc/fstab contained a valid "/"
19 filesystem specification, but if that was absent, the result was no
20 "root=" specification being present. Under these circumstances
21 (refind_linux.conf absent, /etc/fstab present but lacking a "/" entry),
22 rEFInd now tries to identify a device to specify as "root=" via the
23 Discoverable Partitions Specification.
24
25 - Fixed bug that caused "Found match!" and a prompt to press a key to
26 continue to be printed if any partition used the Freedesktop.org
27 Discoverable Partitions Specification root-partition GUID. (This
28 was leftover debugging/testing code that I somehow missed deleting.)
29
30 - Added icon for Elementary OS.
31
32 - Added /etc/lsb-release to files scanned for clues about the Linux
33 distribution. This file differentiates Mint and Elementary OS from Ubuntu
34 better than does /etc/os-release, and may also help with other
35 closely-related distributions.
36
37 - Improvements to handling of case-insensitive string comparisons. These
38 are buggy on some EFIs, and such bugs affect things like dont_scan_*
39 blacklists, removal of rEFInd's own directory from scanning, matching of
40 keyword names in refind.conf, and even loading of icons. I've replaced
41 many calls to problematic functions with safer calls, which should help a
42 lot. There may still be problems on some systems with some computers,
43 though; as far as I can tell, the bugs are buried deep in some EFI
44 firmware, so I can only replace some of the most direct calls to
45 potentially buggy system calls.
46
47 0.9.0 (7/26/2015):
48 ------------------
49
50 - New icon for Kali Linux, submitted by Francesco D'Eugenio.
51
52 - Minor code changes to ensure that rEFInd compiles with GCC 5.1. (Tested
53 with GNU-EFI on a Fedora 22 system; not yet tested with the TianoCore
54 EDK2.)
55
56 - Added new "fold_linux_kernels" token to refind.conf. This option, when
57 active (the default) "folds" all Linux kernels in a directory into a
58 single entry on the rEFInd menu. The kernel with the most recent time
59 stamp is launched by default. To launch another kernel, you must press F2
60 or Insert; additional kernels appear as options on the first kernel's
61 submenu. To see the pre-0.9.0 behavior, you must set "fold_linux_kernels
62 false" (or one of its synonyms, "off" or "0"). The point of this option
63 is to help de-clutter the rEFInd main menu.
64
65 - Added new Linux root (/) partition auto-discovery feature, based on
66 Freedesktop.org's Discoverable Partitions Spec (DPS)
67 (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
68 If no refind_linux.conf file or /etc/fstab file is found, and if a
69 partition with the correct DPS type code for the system architecture is
70 found, rEFInd adds "ro root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/{GUID}" to the kernel
71 options. This will not help on LVM setups, and will get it right for only
72 one installation on systems with multiple Linux installations, but it may
73 help some users, if/when the DPS type codes become more common.
74
75 - Fixed bug that caused a rEFInd crash if an empty refind_linux.conf
76 file was encountered.
77
78 - The mkrlconf.sh script now checks the OS on which it's running, which
79 should help avoid confusion or problems by users who mistakenly run it
80 under OS X.
81
82 - rEFInd now skips checking for various BIOS-mode boot sector signatures
83 when running on a UEFI-based PC; these checks are run only on Macs. This
84 may reduce startup time on systems with many partitions.
85
86 - Fixed Debian debinstall script to work correctly on IA32 systems. It had
87 a bug that caused filesystem drivers and gptsync to not be packaged for
88 IA32.
89
90 - Modified Debian postinst file to call install.sh with --localkeys option
91 if sbsign and openssl are available, even when NOT in Secure Boot mode or
92 if shim is not detected. This helps with my Ubuntu PPA when using custom
93 Secure Boot keys, since the PPA is delivered unsigned. (Users will have
94 to have added their own local keys to their firmware's db.) For
95 consistency, I've made the same change to the RPM .spec file.
96
97 0.8.7 (3/1/2015):
98 -----------------
99
100 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused inappropriate installation under the
101 name bootx64.efi (or bootia32.efi) under Linux, with a failure to update
102 the boot entries in NVRAM, has been fixed.
103
104 - Added identification of XFS as filesystem type in volume descriptions.
105
106 - More fixes to filesystem type detection code. Previous version sometimes
107 identified FAT or NTFS (or anything with a boot loader) as a whole-disk
108 device rather than the correct filesystem type.
109
110 - Added protections to the code to reduce the risk of crashes that might
111 occur when dereferencing NULL pointers in various situations.
112
113 - I'm deprecating the use of filesystem numbers (as in "fs0:") because
114 they're unreliable -- filesystem numbers can change between boots and
115 might not be the same as those used in an EFI shell or other program.
116 Sooner or later I'll remove code supporting this feature. In the
117 meantime, if it doesn't work for you, please switch to using filesystem
118 labels, partition labels, or partition GUIDs.
119
120 - Added detection of FreeBSD's BIOS-mode GPT boot loader. Previously,
121 rEFInd could detect FreeBSD's BIOS-mode MBR boot loader, which gave
122 FreeBSD an appropriate icon on Macs; but the BIOS-mode GPT boot loader
123 code is different, so some recent FreeBSD installations showed up with
124 generic grey diamond icons. This change creates FreeBSD icons instead.
125
126 - Added "Secure Boot [active|inactive]" notice to "about" menu for x86
127 (32-bit) systems, since there are now a few 32-bit UEFI systems that
128 support Secure Boot. (AFAIK, these are mostly tablets and convertibles
129 such as the ASUS T100.)
130
131 - Added KeyTool.efi and KeyTool-signed.efi to list of MOK managers. KeyTool
132 is the "super-deluxe" Secure Boot key and hash manager provided as part
133 of the efitools package.
134
135 - Fixed more instances of "invalid parameter" errors on some EFIs.
136
137 - Improved Secure Boot detection in install.sh.
138
139 - install.sh should no longer complain when copying Shim or MokManager over
140 itself.
141
142 0.8.6 (2/8/2015):
143 -----------------
144
145 - Removed special case of ignoring an HFS+ name of "HFS+ volume", since the
146 old rEFInd HFS+ driver that produced this name for all HFS+ volumes has
147 long since been updated to deliver a real name.
148
149 - Addition of new Windows 8 OS icon. On Macs and for BIOS/legacy boots, the
150 new icon is now used for Windows Vista, 7, and 8, while the old one is
151 used for earlier versions of Windows. For EFI-mode boots, the new icon is
152 used universally.
153
154 - If the NTFS driver is loaded, rEFInd now scans NTFS volumes on Macs for
155 the presence of Windows boot files, and removes any NTFS volume that
156 lacks such files from the BIOS/legacy boot list. This should help
157 unclutter the display on Macs that contain NTFS data partitions.
158
159 - Fixed bug that caused misidentification of both whole disks and NTFS
160 volumes as being FAT. (This bug affected the identification of devices
161 and locations in the rEFInd menu, not actual access to devices.)
162
163 - Code refactoring to clear out legacy-boot functions from the
164 ever-expanding refind/main.c file.
165
166 - Added new "badges" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf. This
167 option hides the device-type badges associated with the OS boot options.
168
169 - Reverted rEFIt commit r472, introduced in rEFInd 0.8.5 to support more
170 BMP images because I've received bug reports that it's causing existing
171 selection images to fail to load.
172
173 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused misidentification of installation
174 directory under OS X if an already-mounted ESP has spaces in its path.
175
176 - Fixed Mac-specific install.sh bug that could cause misidentification of
177 the ESP on disks with partition numbers of 10 or above.
178
179
180 0.8.5 (2/1/2015):
181 -----------------
182
183 - Added NTFS EFI filesystem driver.
184
185 - Minor improvements to filesystem driver framework code.
186
187 - Changes to
188
189 - Fixed bug in Btrfs driver's address reference.
190
191 - Improved install.sh to make it smarter about figuring out where to
192 install on Macs. Specifically, this version now upgrades existing
193 installations, if found (as it always has under Linux), rather than
194 blindly install to EFI/BOOT; it installs to EFI/refind if not existing
195 installation is found; it installs using the --shortform option to bless,
196 which seems to eliminate the 30-second delay problem; and it can handle
197 an HFS+ ESP, which it treats as a separate HFS+ volume (as if the user
198 had used --ownhfs). These changes do not affect behavior under Linux.
199
200 - Added missing check of architecture type for several tools.
201
202 - Applied rEFIt commit r472, which adds support for BMP images with negative
203 height fields, indicating that the image is NOT vertically flipped. This
204 commit and r467 were not incorporated in the original rEFInd because I
205 forked it from a Debian rEFIt package that had been patched to build
206 under GNU-EFI, and was apparently based on a slightly earlier version.
207
208 - Applied rEFIt commit r467, which improves Mac handling of legacy boots
209 from other than the first hard disk.
210
211
212 0.8.4 (12/8/2014):
213 ------------------
214
215 - Tweaked default for dont_scan_volumes: Removed "Recovery HD". This change
216 better suits the needs of OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") installations, but may
217 result in some stray Recovery HD entries on some Macs.
218
219 - Updated icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu.
220
221 - Added new configuration option, "enable_and_lock_vmx", which sets an
222 Intel CPU feature that's required for some types of virtualization to
223 work. Most EFIs enable setting this feature in their own setup utilities,
224 but some (such as most Macs) don't.
225
226 - If rEFInd can't locate an icons directory (either the default or one
227 specified by the icons_dir token), the program switches to text-only
228 mode.
229
230 - If a loader contains the string "grub" and no other clue to the loader's
231 OS association exists, search for os_grub.{png|icns} (which is not
232 provided with rEFInd) or os_linux.{png|icns}. (Previous versions provided
233 a generic loader icon for GRUB.)
234
235 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_files to not work with special-case
236 boot loaders (for OS X and Windows) when specifying the complete path to
237 the loader (e.g., EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi).
238
239 - Added support for the iPXE network boot tool (see BUILDING.txt for
240 building and basic use instructions).
241
242 0.8.3 (7/6/2014):
243 -----------------
244
245 - Added new feature: Setting "timeout = -1" in refind.conf causes rEFInd to
246 immediately boot the default option UNLESS a keypress is in the buffer
247 when rEFInd launches. In that case, if the keypress corresponds to a
248 shortcut key, the associated boot loader is launched; or if not, the menu
249 is displayed.
250
251 - Added new icons for Clover boot loader and for Mythbuntu Linux
252 distribution.
253
254 - rEFInd now displays the partition's label, when one is available, when
255 offering a BIOS-mode boot option for a partition with no filesystem
256 driver. This works only on Macs doing BIOS-mode booting.
257
258 - Removed GPLv2 code from the FSW core files. This was done because the
259 Btrfs driver is derived from the GRUB Btrfs driver, which is licensed
260 under the GPLv3. Ironically, the GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible
261 licenses, so ensuring that the Btrfs driver doesn't rely on GPLv2 code
262 was legally necessary. In most cases, I reverted to the original rEFIt
263 code, although I kept my own cache code; since I wrote it, I can
264 change its license to a BSD license.
265
266 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers immediately after loading
267 them. This didn't affect rEFInd's own drivers because they didn't include
268 the unload hooks, but it did affect some other drivers.
269
270 - Changed default scan_all_linux_kernels setting from "false" to "true",
271 and commented the option out in refind.conf-sample. This should not
272 affect most people, since refind.conf-sample had this option commented
273 out, and most rEFInd users either use it that way or don't have Linux
274 kernels installed at all. I've made this change because I want rEFInd to
275 "do the right thing" by default in as many cases as possible. For a while
276 now, rEFInd has been excluding non-bootable files from its menu, and most
277 kernels "in the wild" now include the EFI stub. Thus, enabling this
278 support by default seems worthwhile. If you prefer to not scan Linux
279 kernels by default, simply uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" line
280 and ensure it's set to "false".
281
282 0.8.2.1 (6/8/2014):
283 -------------------
284
285 - Removed stray bit of debugging code that caused a prompt to press a
286 key to appear at rEFInd startup.
287
288 0.8.2 (6/8/2014):
289 -----------------
290
291 - Changed behavior when default_selection is not set: It now boots the
292 previously-booted loader, assuming it's still available; if not, rEFInd
293 boots the first loader (as it does now). Behavior is unchanged if
294 default_selection is set. Note that this behavior depends on the ability
295 of rEFInd to store an EFI variable in NVRAM. It therefore fails on
296 systems with flaky NVRAM storage. You can view the previously-booted
297 loader in the
298 /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740
299 variable under Linux.
300
301 - Added icon for Mageia Linux (os_mageia.png).
302
303 - Fixed bug that could misidentify a not-quite-GUID as a GUID in a
304 manual boot stanza's "volume" line.
305
306 - I've updated my personal build system, and therefore the rEFInd Makefiles
307 and related files, to use TianoCore UDK2014 rather than UDK2010.
308
309 - Added "deep_uefi_legacy_scan" token. When not set (the default), rEFInd
310 does not modify EFI NVRAM settings when scanning for BIOS-mode boot
311 loaders on UEFI-based (non-Mac) computers. Some computers require
312 uncommenting this setting for rEFInd to reliably detect some BIOS-mode
313 boot devices. Passing "0", "off", or "false" as an option resets it to
314 the default value (useful in a loaded secondary configuration file to
315 override a setting in the main file).
316
317 0.8.1 (5/15/2014):
318 ------------------
319
320 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders stored
321 on the root directory of a partition.
322
323 - Added two new bitmap fonts to those distributed with rEFInd: Ubuntu Mono
324 and Nimbus Mono. Both come in 12-, 14-, 16-, and 24-point sizes.
325
326 - Messages about pauses for scanning and re-scanning of boot loaders are
327 now suppressed when doing an initial delayed scan when scan_delay is 1
328 second.
329
330 - Improved centering of legacy boot option descriptions on some systems'
331 screens.
332
333 - Fixed bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot to boot from an inappropriate
334 device if that device had an innately high boot priority (as set by the
335 firmware).
336
337 - Changed icons from ICNS to PNG form. There are several reasons to do
338 this, all of them minor; but together they're enough to warrant a change.
339 PNG is more common, and therefore more accessible to most users --
340 particularly those who don't use OS X. The PNG files are smaller than
341 their ICNS equivalents. PNG supports a wider range of sizes (although I'm
342 not now using anything that ICNS doesn't support, I might in the future).
343 The icon-scaling support added a few versions ago makes ICNS's support
344 for multiple icon sizes relatively unimportant.
345
346 - Reversed order of search for icons by extension: rEFInd now searches
347 for PNG files before ICNS files, rather than the other way around. This
348 makes it possible to override a volume icon for rEFInd by giving it the
349 name .VolumeIcon.png, even when a .VolumeIcon.icns file exists on the
350 volume and is used by OS X.
351
352 - Fixed bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take higher-than-intended
353 precedence in icon setting for OS X.
354
355 - Chainloading to BIOS-mode boot loaders now works on UEFI-based PCs when
356 rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI, not just when built with Tianocore.
357
358 0.8.0 (5/4/2014):
359 -----------------
360
361 - The "dont_scan_volumes" parameter now also works with legacy-boot
362 volumes. Unlike with EFI volumes, where the option you pass must exactly
363 match an entire volume name, when applied to legacy-boot volumes, it
364 matches any part of the description that appears beneath the item when
365 you select it in the rEFInd main menu.
366
367 - Can now boot in legacy mode from second (and probably later) hard disks!
368
369 - rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware name string shown in the
370 system information screen to 65 characters. This is done because at least
371 one EFI presents a longer string by default, and this causes the entire
372 information display to come up empty on 800x600 displays.
373
374 - rEFInd now uses the partition's name (as stored in the GPT data
375 structures) as a fallback for the filesystem's name if the latter can't
376 be found. Exceptions are if the partition name is one of three generic
377 names used by GPT fdisk: "Microsoft basic data", "Linux filesystem", or
378 "Apple HFS/HFS+". These are ignored in favor of the descriptive fallback
379 (e.g., "20 GiB Btrfs volume")
380
381 - It's now possible to specify a volume by partition GUID number in a
382 manual boot stanza. This should be more reliable (albeit also more
383 awkward) than using a filesystem number (such as fs0: or fs1:).
384
385 - Fixed memory-allocation bug that could cause error message displays,
386 and possibly hangs, when re-scanning boot loaders.
387
388 0.7.9 (4/20/2014):
389 ------------------
390
391 - Attempt to fix rEFInd perpetually re-scanning after ejecting a disc on
392 some Macs.
393
394 - Added check to remove redundant (or non-functional if Secure Boot is
395 active) kernel entries for Ubuntu, which is now including two versions of
396 kernels, one signed and the other unsigned.
397
398 - Fixed bug in install.sh that could cause it to display error messages
399 if the dmraid utility was not installed.
400
401 - The HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name.
402
403 - Fixed some EFI filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups under
404 some circumstances. These bugs could affect any of the filesystem
405 drivers.
406
407 - Added "gdisk" option to the "showtools" configuration file token. When
408 active, this adds gdisk.efi or gdisk_{arch}.efi, if present in the
409 EFI\tools directory, to the tools row.
410
411 - Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility
412 utility."
413
414
415 0.7.8 (3/9/2014):
416 -----------------
417
418 - Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian
419 packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run
420 any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the
421 hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run
422 install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64
423 references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of
424 concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else.
425
426 - Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of
427 the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively.
428 The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type
429 badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and
430 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If
431 the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified,
432 rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn
433 to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf.
434
435 - rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes.
436 This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it
437 can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a
438 graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so
439 scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128
440 OS icon) is not likely to look good.
441
442 - Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners:
443 Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll
444 be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the
445 behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the
446 banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display.
447
448 - Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate
449 RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for
450 existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi
451 rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages
452 were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note,
453 however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd
454 The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine;
455 it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that
456 problems might arise.
457
458 0.7.7 (1/3/2014):
459 -----------------
460
461 - Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in
462 dont_scan_files.
463
464 - Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
465
466 - Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a
467 Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to
468 "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery
469 utility on the second row of icons.
470
471 - The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files,
472 and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first
473 option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default
474 value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for
475 scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.)
476
477 - Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch,
478 via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the
479 foo.conf file as the main configuration file.
480
481 - Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with
482 duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so
483 would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given
484 UUID.
485
486 - Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP
487 in Linux, if it's currently unmounted.
488
489 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
490 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
491 under some circumstances.
492
493 0.7.6 (12/15/2013):
494 -------------------
495
496 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
497 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
498 default_selection "fred,ginger"
499 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
500 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
501
502 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
503 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
504 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
505 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
506 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
507 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
508 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
509 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
510 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
511 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
512 depending on your computer.
513
514 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
515 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
516 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
517 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
518 screensaver will be disabled.
519
520 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
521 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
522 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
523 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
524 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
525
526 0.7.5 (11/10/2013):
527 -------------------
528
529 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
530 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
531
532 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
533 versions of OS X to fail.
534
535 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
536 drivers were present.
537
538 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
539 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
540 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
541 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
542 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
543 black a second or so later.
544
545 0.7.4.1 (8/25/2013):
546 --------------------
547
548 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
549 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
550 problem.
551
552 0.7.4 (8/25/2013):
553 ------------------
554
555 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
556 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
557 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
558
559 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
560 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
561 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
562 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
563 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
564 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
565 default.
566
567 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
568 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
569 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
570 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
571
572 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
573 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
574 known case, but there may be others.)
575
576 0.7.3 (8/7/2013):
577 -----------------
578
579 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
580 loaders on Macs.
581
582 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
583
584 0.7.2 (8/6/2013):
585 -----------------
586
587 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
588 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
589
590 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
591 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
592
593 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
594 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
595
596 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
597 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
598 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
599 HashTool-signed.efi".
600
601 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
602
603 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
604 was broken.
605
606 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
607 was broken.
608
609 0.7.1 (7/8/2013):
610 -----------------
611
612 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
613
614 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
615 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
616 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
617
618 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
619 volume specification, if present.
620
621 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
622
623 0.7.0 (6/27/2013):
624 ------------------
625
626 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
627 type for volumes that lack labels.
628
629 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
630 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
631 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
632 though.
633
634 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
635 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
636 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
637 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
638 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
639 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
640 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
641 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
642
643 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
644 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
645 non-EFI loaders, etc.
646
647 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
648 code.
649
650 0.6.12 (6/18/2013):
651 -------------------
652
653 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
654 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
655
656 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
657 script.
658
659 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
660 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
661 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
662 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
663
664 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
665 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
666 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
667 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
668
669 0.6.11 (5/13/2013):
670 -------------------
671
672 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
673 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
674 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
675 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
676
677 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
678
679 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
680 directory names that contain spaces.
681
682 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
683 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
684 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
685 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
686 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
687
688 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
689 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
690
691 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
692 Utility" in menu.
693
694 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
695 partitions to fill the MBR.
696
697 0.6.10 (5/5/2013):
698 ------------------
699
700 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
701 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
702 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
703 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
704
705 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
706 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
707 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
708 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
709 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
710
711 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
712 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
713 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
714 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
715 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
716 is quietly ignored.
717
718 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
719 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
720
721 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
722 encountered when saving a screen shot.
723
724 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
725 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
726 sequence number, starting with "001".
727
728 0.6.9 (4/25/2013):
729 ------------------
730
731 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
732 Kemperman.
733
734 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
735 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
736
737 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
738 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
739 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
740
741 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
742 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
743 accidentally trash their systems.
744
745 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
746 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
747 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
748
749 0.6.8 (3/18/2013):
750 ------------------
751
752 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
753 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
754
755 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
756 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
757
758 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
759 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
760
761 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
762
763 0.6.7 (2/3/2013):
764 -----------------
765
766 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
767 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
768
769 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
770 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
771 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
772 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
773
774 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
775 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
776
777 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
778 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
779
780 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
781 also_scan_dirs list.
782
783 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
784
785 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
786 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
787 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
788
789 0.6.6 (1/26/2013):
790 ------------------
791
792 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
793 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
794 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
795 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
796 loader under the fallback name.
797
798 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
799 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
800 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
801 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
802 of 96 glyphs.
803
804 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
805 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
806
807 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
808 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
809
810 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
811 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
812 commented out or empty.
813
814 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
815 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
816
817 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
818 manual boot stanzas.
819
820 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
821 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
822
823 0.6.5 (1/16/2013):
824 ------------------
825
826 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
827 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
828
829 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
830
831 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
832
833 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
834 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
835
836 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
837
838 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
839 sized to cover these areas.
840
841 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
842 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
843 resolution!
844
845 0.6.4 (1/8/2013):
846 -----------------
847
848 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
849 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
850 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
851 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
852
853 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
854 startup on some systems.
855
856 0.6.3 (1/6/2013):
857 -----------------
858
859 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
860 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
861
862 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
863 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
864
865 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
866 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
867 burned to USB flash disks.
868
869 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
870 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
871 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
872
873 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
874 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
875 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
876 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
877 from that installation.
878
879 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
880 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
881 than in EFI/refind.
882
883 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
884 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
885
886 0.6.2 (12/30/2012):
887 -------------------
888
889 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
890 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
891 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
892
893 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
894 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
895 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
896 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
897 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
898
899 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
900 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
901 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
902 Linux with the "make" command.
903
904 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
905 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
906
907 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
908 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
909 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
910 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
911 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
912 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
913 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
914 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
915
916 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
917 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
918 default.)
919
920 0.6.1 (12/21/2012):
921 -------------------
922
923 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
924 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
925 use on emergency discs.
926
927 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
928 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
929 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
930 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
931 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
932 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
933 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
934 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
935 handle.
936
937 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
938
939 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
940 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
941 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
942 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
943 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
944 os_GENTOO.icns.
945
946 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
947 mode.
948
949 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
950 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
951 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
952 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
953
954 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
955 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
956 a boot loader launch failed.
957
958 0.6.0 (12/16/2012):
959 -------------------
960
961 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
962 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
963 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
964 options.
965
966 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
967 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
968 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
969 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
970
971 - Added ext4fs driver!
972
973 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
974
975 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
976
977 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
978 from a program that set the resolution itself.
979
980 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
981 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
982 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
983 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
984 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
985 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
986 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
987 mode.
988
989 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
990 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
991 display even in graphics mode.
992
993 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
994 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
995
996 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
997 disables the boot options editor.
998
999 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
1000 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
1001
1002 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
1003 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
1004 from the /etc/default/grub file.
1005
1006 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
1007 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
1008
1009 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
1010 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
1011 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
1012 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
1013 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
1014 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
1015
1016 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
1017 on Linux systems.
1018
1019 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
1020 ---------------------
1021
1022 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
1023
1024 0.5.1 (12/11/2012):
1025 -------------------
1026
1027 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
1028 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
1029 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
1030 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
1031
1032 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
1033 configuration file from a primary one.
1034
1035 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
1036 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
1037 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
1038 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
1039 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
1040 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
1041 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
1042 LVM.)
1043
1044 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
1045 on systems with Secure Boot active.
1046
1047 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
1048 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
1049 refind.conf.
1050
1051 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
1052 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
1053
1054 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
1055 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
1056 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
1057
1058 0.5.0 (12/6/2012):
1059 ------------------
1060
1061 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
1062 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
1063 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
1064 This example results in the following string being passed as an
1065 option:
1066 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
1067
1068 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
1069 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
1070 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
1071 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
1072 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
1073 for them makes sense.
1074
1075 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
1076 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
1077 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
1078 EFI shells are also so limited.)
1079
1080 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
1081 were not actually edited.
1082
1083 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
1084 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
1085 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
1086 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
1087 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
1088
1089 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
1090 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
1091 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
1092 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
1093 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
1094 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
1095 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
1096 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
1097
1098 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
1099 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
1100 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
1101
1102 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
1103 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
1104 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
1105
1106 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
1107 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
1108 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
1109 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
1110
1111 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
1112 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
1113 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
1114
1115 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
1116 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
1117
1118 0.4.7 (11/6/2012):
1119 ------------------
1120
1121 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
1122
1123 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
1124 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
1125 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
1126
1127 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
1128 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
1129 told isn't working as planned).
1130
1131 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
1132 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
1133 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
1134 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
1135
1136 0.4.6 (10/6/2012):
1137 ------------------
1138
1139 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
1140
1141 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
1142 for disks.
1143
1144 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
1145 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
1146 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
1147 done this for two reasons:
1148 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
1149 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
1150 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
1151 default for them should help them.
1152 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
1153 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
1154 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
1155 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
1156 default configurations.
1157
1158 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
1159
1160 0.4.5 (8/12/2012):
1161 ------------------
1162
1163 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
1164
1165 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
1166
1167 0.4.4 (6/23/2012):
1168 ------------------
1169
1170 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
1171 32-bit systems.
1172
1173 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
1174 on 32-bit systems.
1175
1176 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
1177 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
1178 loaders/OSes.
1179
1180 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
1181
1182 0.4.3 (6/21/2012):
1183 ------------------
1184
1185 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
1186 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
1187
1188 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
1189 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
1190 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
1191 graphics or text mode itself.)
1192
1193 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
1194 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
1195 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
1196 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
1197 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
1198 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
1199 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
1200
1201 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
1202
1203 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
1204 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
1205 "linux.conf" themselves.
1206
1207 0.4.2 (6/3/2012):
1208 -----------------
1209
1210 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
1211 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
1212 via rEFInd.
1213
1214 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
1215 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
1216 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
1217 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
1218 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
1219 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
1220 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
1221 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
1222 the boot order).
1223
1224 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
1225 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
1226
1227 0.4.1 (5/25/2012):
1228 ------------------
1229
1230 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
1231 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
1232 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
1233 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
1234 system hasn't hung.
1235
1236 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
1237 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
1238
1239 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
1240
1241 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
1242 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
1243 label.)
1244
1245 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
1246 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
1247
1248 0.4.0 (5/20/2012):
1249 ------------------
1250
1251 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
1252 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
1253 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
1254 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
1255 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
1256 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
1257 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
1258
1259 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
1260 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
1261 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
1262
1263 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
1264 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
1265 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
1266 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
1267
1268 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
1269 file when launched from rEFInd.
1270
1271 0.3.5 (5/15/2012):
1272 ------------------
1273
1274 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
1275 received reports that it's not working as intended.
1276
1277 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
1278 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
1279 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
1280 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
1281 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
1282 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
1283
1284 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
1285 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
1286
1287 0.3.4 (5/9/2012):
1288 -----------------
1289
1290 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
1291 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
1292 sample configuration file for a full description.
1293
1294 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
1295 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
1296 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
1297 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
1298 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
1299
1300 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
1301 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
1302 target).
1303
1304 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
1305 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
1306
1307 0.3.3 (5/6/2012):
1308 -----------------
1309
1310 - Improved menu navigation:
1311 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
1312 down arrows move between rows.
1313 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
1314 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
1315 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
1316 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
1317
1318 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
1319 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
1320 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
1321
1322 0.3.2 (5/4/2012):
1323 -----------------
1324
1325 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
1326 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
1327 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
1328 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
1329 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
1330 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
1331 will fail to work.
1332
1333 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
1334 mode.
1335
1336 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
1337
1338 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
1339 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
1340 options.
1341
1342
1343 0.3.1 (4/27/2012):
1344 ------------------
1345
1346 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
1347 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
1348
1349 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
1350 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
1351 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
1352 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
1353 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
1354 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
1355 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
1356 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
1357 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
1358 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
1359 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
1360
1361 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
1362 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
1363 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
1364 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
1365 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
1366
1367 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
1368 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
1369
1370 0.3.0 (4/22/2012):
1371 ------------------
1372
1373 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
1374 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
1375 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
1376 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
1377 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
1378 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
1379
1380 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
1381 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
1382 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
1383 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
1384 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
1385 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
1386 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
1387 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
1388 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
1389 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
1390 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
1391 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
1392 that resets the video mode.
1393
1394 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
1395 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
1396 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
1397 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
1398 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
1399 details.
1400
1401 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
1402 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
1403 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
1404 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
1405 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
1406 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
1407
1408 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
1409 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
1410 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
1411
1412 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
1413 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
1414 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
1415 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
1416
1417 0.2.7 (4/19/2012):
1418 ------------------
1419
1420 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
1421 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
1422 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
1423 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
1424 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
1425 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
1426 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
1427 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
1428 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
1429 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
1430 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
1431 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
1432 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
1433 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
1434 installation.
1435
1436 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
1437
1438 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
1439 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
1440 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
1441 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
1442 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
1443 directories you like.
1444
1445 0.2.6 (4/14/2012):
1446 ------------------
1447
1448 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
1449 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
1450 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
1451 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
1452 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
1453 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
1454 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
1455 should work when a volume is unnamed.
1456
1457 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
1458 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
1459 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
1460
1461 0.2.5 (4/9/2012):
1462 -----------------
1463
1464 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
1465 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
1466
1467 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
1468 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
1469 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
1470 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
1471 documented the name....
1472
1473 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
1474 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
1475 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
1476
1477 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
1478 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
1479 directory) on certain systems.
1480
1481 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
1482 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1483
1484 0.2.4 (4/5/2012):
1485 -----------------
1486
1487 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1488 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1489 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1490 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1491 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1492 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1493 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1494 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1495 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1496 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1497 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1498 to me.
1499
1500 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1501 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1502 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1503 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1504 simultaneously.)
1505
1506 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1507 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1508
1509 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1510 image.
1511
1512 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1513 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1514 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1515 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1516 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1517
1518 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1519 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1520 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1521 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1522 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1523 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1524
1525 0.2.3 (3/26/2012):
1526 ------------------
1527
1528 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1529 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1530 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1531 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1532 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1533 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1534 small sample of computers.
1535
1536 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1537 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1538 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1539 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1540 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1541
1542 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1543
1544 0.2.2 (3/23/2012):
1545 ------------------
1546
1547 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1548 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1549 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1550 versionless initrd file.
1551
1552 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1553 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1554 continues.
1555
1556 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1557 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1558 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1559
1560 0.2.1 (3/19/2012):
1561 ------------------
1562
1563 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1564 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1565 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1566 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1567
1568 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1569 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1570 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1571 directory as the kernel.
1572
1573 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1574 entries in refind.conf file.
1575
1576 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1577 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1578
1579
1580 0.2.0 (3/14/2012):
1581 ------------------
1582
1583 - Initial public release