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