]> code.delx.au - refind/blob - NEWS.txt
PRELIMINARY workaround for Shim 0.8 bug.
[refind] / NEWS.txt
1 0.9.2 (9/??/2015):
2 ------------------
3
4 - Implemented a workaround for a bug in Shim 0.8 that prevented
5 authentication of more than one binary. If any filesystem drivers were
6 installed, the first one would be verified, leaving rEFInd to be unable
7 to launch anything else unless it was signed by a key in the computer's
8 main Secure Boot db list.
9
10 0.9.1 (9/13/2015):
11 ------------------
12
13 - When rEFInd identifies the root (/) partition via the Freedesktop.org
14 Discoverable Partitions Specification, it now checks two of the
15 partition's attributes, as per the DPS (see
16 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
17 - The partition's read-only attribute determines whether to pass a "rw"
18 or "ro" option to the kernel.
19 - If the partition's do-not-automount flag is set, rEFInd will not pass
20 it as a "root=" option to the kernel. This flag can be used to remove
21 all but one partition from consideration as a root (/) partition if a
22 system has more than one with the correct type code.
23
24 - Improved Freedesktop.org Discoverable Partitions Specification support:
25 Previously, if no refind_linux.conf file was present but an /etc/fstab
26 file was found, rEFInd ignored the Discoverable Partitions Specification
27 filesystem-type codes. This was fine if /etc/fstab contained a valid "/"
28 filesystem specification, but if that was absent, the result was no
29 "root=" specification being present. Under these circumstances
30 (refind_linux.conf absent, /etc/fstab present but lacking a "/" entry),
31 rEFInd now tries to identify a device to specify as "root=" via the
32 Discoverable Partitions Specification.
33
34 - Fixed bug that caused "Found match!" and a prompt to press a key to
35 continue to be printed if any partition used the Freedesktop.org
36 Discoverable Partitions Specification root-partition GUID. (This
37 was leftover debugging/testing code that I somehow missed deleting.)
38
39 - Added icon for Elementary OS.
40
41 - Added /etc/lsb-release to files scanned for clues about the Linux
42 distribution. This file differentiates Mint and Elementary OS from Ubuntu
43 better than does /etc/os-release, and may also help with other
44 closely-related distributions.
45
46 - Improvements to handling of case-insensitive string comparisons. These
47 are buggy on some EFIs, and such bugs affect things like dont_scan_*
48 blacklists, removal of rEFInd's own directory from scanning, matching of
49 keyword names in refind.conf, and even loading of icons. I've replaced
50 many calls to problematic functions with safer calls, which should help a
51 lot. There may still be problems on some systems with some computers,
52 though; as far as I can tell, the bugs are buried deep in some EFI
53 firmware, so I can only replace some of the most direct calls to
54 potentially buggy system calls.
55
56 0.9.0 (7/26/2015):
57 ------------------
58
59 - New icon for Kali Linux, submitted by Francesco D'Eugenio.
60
61 - Minor code changes to ensure that rEFInd compiles with GCC 5.1. (Tested
62 with GNU-EFI on a Fedora 22 system; not yet tested with the TianoCore
63 EDK2.)
64
65 - Added new "fold_linux_kernels" token to refind.conf. This option, when
66 active (the default) "folds" all Linux kernels in a directory into a
67 single entry on the rEFInd menu. The kernel with the most recent time
68 stamp is launched by default. To launch another kernel, you must press F2
69 or Insert; additional kernels appear as options on the first kernel's
70 submenu. To see the pre-0.9.0 behavior, you must set "fold_linux_kernels
71 false" (or one of its synonyms, "off" or "0"). The point of this option
72 is to help de-clutter the rEFInd main menu.
73
74 - Added new Linux root (/) partition auto-discovery feature, based on
75 Freedesktop.org's Discoverable Partitions Spec (DPS)
76 (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
77 If no refind_linux.conf file or /etc/fstab file is found, and if a
78 partition with the correct DPS type code for the system architecture is
79 found, rEFInd adds "ro root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/{GUID}" to the kernel
80 options. This will not help on LVM setups, and will get it right for only
81 one installation on systems with multiple Linux installations, but it may
82 help some users, if/when the DPS type codes become more common.
83
84 - Fixed bug that caused a rEFInd crash if an empty refind_linux.conf
85 file was encountered.
86
87 - The mkrlconf.sh script now checks the OS on which it's running, which
88 should help avoid confusion or problems by users who mistakenly run it
89 under OS X.
90
91 - rEFInd now skips checking for various BIOS-mode boot sector signatures
92 when running on a UEFI-based PC; these checks are run only on Macs. This
93 may reduce startup time on systems with many partitions.
94
95 - Fixed Debian debinstall script to work correctly on IA32 systems. It had
96 a bug that caused filesystem drivers and gptsync to not be packaged for
97 IA32.
98
99 - Modified Debian postinst file to call install.sh with --localkeys option
100 if sbsign and openssl are available, even when NOT in Secure Boot mode or
101 if shim is not detected. This helps with my Ubuntu PPA when using custom
102 Secure Boot keys, since the PPA is delivered unsigned. (Users will have
103 to have added their own local keys to their firmware's db.) For
104 consistency, I've made the same change to the RPM .spec file.
105
106 0.8.7 (3/1/2015):
107 -----------------
108
109 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused inappropriate installation under the
110 name bootx64.efi (or bootia32.efi) under Linux, with a failure to update
111 the boot entries in NVRAM, has been fixed.
112
113 - Added identification of XFS as filesystem type in volume descriptions.
114
115 - More fixes to filesystem type detection code. Previous version sometimes
116 identified FAT or NTFS (or anything with a boot loader) as a whole-disk
117 device rather than the correct filesystem type.
118
119 - Added protections to the code to reduce the risk of crashes that might
120 occur when dereferencing NULL pointers in various situations.
121
122 - I'm deprecating the use of filesystem numbers (as in "fs0:") because
123 they're unreliable -- filesystem numbers can change between boots and
124 might not be the same as those used in an EFI shell or other program.
125 Sooner or later I'll remove code supporting this feature. In the
126 meantime, if it doesn't work for you, please switch to using filesystem
127 labels, partition labels, or partition GUIDs.
128
129 - Added detection of FreeBSD's BIOS-mode GPT boot loader. Previously,
130 rEFInd could detect FreeBSD's BIOS-mode MBR boot loader, which gave
131 FreeBSD an appropriate icon on Macs; but the BIOS-mode GPT boot loader
132 code is different, so some recent FreeBSD installations showed up with
133 generic grey diamond icons. This change creates FreeBSD icons instead.
134
135 - Added "Secure Boot [active|inactive]" notice to "about" menu for x86
136 (32-bit) systems, since there are now a few 32-bit UEFI systems that
137 support Secure Boot. (AFAIK, these are mostly tablets and convertibles
138 such as the ASUS T100.)
139
140 - Added KeyTool.efi and KeyTool-signed.efi to list of MOK managers. KeyTool
141 is the "super-deluxe" Secure Boot key and hash manager provided as part
142 of the efitools package.
143
144 - Fixed more instances of "invalid parameter" errors on some EFIs.
145
146 - Improved Secure Boot detection in install.sh.
147
148 - install.sh should no longer complain when copying Shim or MokManager over
149 itself.
150
151 0.8.6 (2/8/2015):
152 -----------------
153
154 - Removed special case of ignoring an HFS+ name of "HFS+ volume", since the
155 old rEFInd HFS+ driver that produced this name for all HFS+ volumes has
156 long since been updated to deliver a real name.
157
158 - Addition of new Windows 8 OS icon. On Macs and for BIOS/legacy boots, the
159 new icon is now used for Windows Vista, 7, and 8, while the old one is
160 used for earlier versions of Windows. For EFI-mode boots, the new icon is
161 used universally.
162
163 - If the NTFS driver is loaded, rEFInd now scans NTFS volumes on Macs for
164 the presence of Windows boot files, and removes any NTFS volume that
165 lacks such files from the BIOS/legacy boot list. This should help
166 unclutter the display on Macs that contain NTFS data partitions.
167
168 - Fixed bug that caused misidentification of both whole disks and NTFS
169 volumes as being FAT. (This bug affected the identification of devices
170 and locations in the rEFInd menu, not actual access to devices.)
171
172 - Code refactoring to clear out legacy-boot functions from the
173 ever-expanding refind/main.c file.
174
175 - Added new "badges" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf. This
176 option hides the device-type badges associated with the OS boot options.
177
178 - Reverted rEFIt commit r472, introduced in rEFInd 0.8.5 to support more
179 BMP images because I've received bug reports that it's causing existing
180 selection images to fail to load.
181
182 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused misidentification of installation
183 directory under OS X if an already-mounted ESP has spaces in its path.
184
185 - Fixed Mac-specific install.sh bug that could cause misidentification of
186 the ESP on disks with partition numbers of 10 or above.
187
188
189 0.8.5 (2/1/2015):
190 -----------------
191
192 - Added NTFS EFI filesystem driver.
193
194 - Minor improvements to filesystem driver framework code.
195
196 - Changes to
197
198 - Fixed bug in Btrfs driver's address reference.
199
200 - Improved install.sh to make it smarter about figuring out where to
201 install on Macs. Specifically, this version now upgrades existing
202 installations, if found (as it always has under Linux), rather than
203 blindly install to EFI/BOOT; it installs to EFI/refind if not existing
204 installation is found; it installs using the --shortform option to bless,
205 which seems to eliminate the 30-second delay problem; and it can handle
206 an HFS+ ESP, which it treats as a separate HFS+ volume (as if the user
207 had used --ownhfs). These changes do not affect behavior under Linux.
208
209 - Added missing check of architecture type for several tools.
210
211 - Applied rEFIt commit r472, which adds support for BMP images with negative
212 height fields, indicating that the image is NOT vertically flipped. This
213 commit and r467 were not incorporated in the original rEFInd because I
214 forked it from a Debian rEFIt package that had been patched to build
215 under GNU-EFI, and was apparently based on a slightly earlier version.
216
217 - Applied rEFIt commit r467, which improves Mac handling of legacy boots
218 from other than the first hard disk.
219
220
221 0.8.4 (12/8/2014):
222 ------------------
223
224 - Tweaked default for dont_scan_volumes: Removed "Recovery HD". This change
225 better suits the needs of OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") installations, but may
226 result in some stray Recovery HD entries on some Macs.
227
228 - Updated icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu.
229
230 - Added new configuration option, "enable_and_lock_vmx", which sets an
231 Intel CPU feature that's required for some types of virtualization to
232 work. Most EFIs enable setting this feature in their own setup utilities,
233 but some (such as most Macs) don't.
234
235 - If rEFInd can't locate an icons directory (either the default or one
236 specified by the icons_dir token), the program switches to text-only
237 mode.
238
239 - If a loader contains the string "grub" and no other clue to the loader's
240 OS association exists, search for os_grub.{png|icns} (which is not
241 provided with rEFInd) or os_linux.{png|icns}. (Previous versions provided
242 a generic loader icon for GRUB.)
243
244 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_files to not work with special-case
245 boot loaders (for OS X and Windows) when specifying the complete path to
246 the loader (e.g., EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi).
247
248 - Added support for the iPXE network boot tool (see BUILDING.txt for
249 building and basic use instructions).
250
251 0.8.3 (7/6/2014):
252 -----------------
253
254 - Added new feature: Setting "timeout = -1" in refind.conf causes rEFInd to
255 immediately boot the default option UNLESS a keypress is in the buffer
256 when rEFInd launches. In that case, if the keypress corresponds to a
257 shortcut key, the associated boot loader is launched; or if not, the menu
258 is displayed.
259
260 - Added new icons for Clover boot loader and for Mythbuntu Linux
261 distribution.
262
263 - rEFInd now displays the partition's label, when one is available, when
264 offering a BIOS-mode boot option for a partition with no filesystem
265 driver. This works only on Macs doing BIOS-mode booting.
266
267 - Removed GPLv2 code from the FSW core files. This was done because the
268 Btrfs driver is derived from the GRUB Btrfs driver, which is licensed
269 under the GPLv3. Ironically, the GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible
270 licenses, so ensuring that the Btrfs driver doesn't rely on GPLv2 code
271 was legally necessary. In most cases, I reverted to the original rEFIt
272 code, although I kept my own cache code; since I wrote it, I can
273 change its license to a BSD license.
274
275 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers immediately after loading
276 them. This didn't affect rEFInd's own drivers because they didn't include
277 the unload hooks, but it did affect some other drivers.
278
279 - Changed default scan_all_linux_kernels setting from "false" to "true",
280 and commented the option out in refind.conf-sample. This should not
281 affect most people, since refind.conf-sample had this option commented
282 out, and most rEFInd users either use it that way or don't have Linux
283 kernels installed at all. I've made this change because I want rEFInd to
284 "do the right thing" by default in as many cases as possible. For a while
285 now, rEFInd has been excluding non-bootable files from its menu, and most
286 kernels "in the wild" now include the EFI stub. Thus, enabling this
287 support by default seems worthwhile. If you prefer to not scan Linux
288 kernels by default, simply uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" line
289 and ensure it's set to "false".
290
291 0.8.2.1 (6/8/2014):
292 -------------------
293
294 - Removed stray bit of debugging code that caused a prompt to press a
295 key to appear at rEFInd startup.
296
297 0.8.2 (6/8/2014):
298 -----------------
299
300 - Changed behavior when default_selection is not set: It now boots the
301 previously-booted loader, assuming it's still available; if not, rEFInd
302 boots the first loader (as it does now). Behavior is unchanged if
303 default_selection is set. Note that this behavior depends on the ability
304 of rEFInd to store an EFI variable in NVRAM. It therefore fails on
305 systems with flaky NVRAM storage. You can view the previously-booted
306 loader in the
307 /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740
308 variable under Linux.
309
310 - Added icon for Mageia Linux (os_mageia.png).
311
312 - Fixed bug that could misidentify a not-quite-GUID as a GUID in a
313 manual boot stanza's "volume" line.
314
315 - I've updated my personal build system, and therefore the rEFInd Makefiles
316 and related files, to use TianoCore UDK2014 rather than UDK2010.
317
318 - Added "deep_uefi_legacy_scan" token. When not set (the default), rEFInd
319 does not modify EFI NVRAM settings when scanning for BIOS-mode boot
320 loaders on UEFI-based (non-Mac) computers. Some computers require
321 uncommenting this setting for rEFInd to reliably detect some BIOS-mode
322 boot devices. Passing "0", "off", or "false" as an option resets it to
323 the default value (useful in a loaded secondary configuration file to
324 override a setting in the main file).
325
326 0.8.1 (5/15/2014):
327 ------------------
328
329 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders stored
330 on the root directory of a partition.
331
332 - Added two new bitmap fonts to those distributed with rEFInd: Ubuntu Mono
333 and Nimbus Mono. Both come in 12-, 14-, 16-, and 24-point sizes.
334
335 - Messages about pauses for scanning and re-scanning of boot loaders are
336 now suppressed when doing an initial delayed scan when scan_delay is 1
337 second.
338
339 - Improved centering of legacy boot option descriptions on some systems'
340 screens.
341
342 - Fixed bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot to boot from an inappropriate
343 device if that device had an innately high boot priority (as set by the
344 firmware).
345
346 - Changed icons from ICNS to PNG form. There are several reasons to do
347 this, all of them minor; but together they're enough to warrant a change.
348 PNG is more common, and therefore more accessible to most users --
349 particularly those who don't use OS X. The PNG files are smaller than
350 their ICNS equivalents. PNG supports a wider range of sizes (although I'm
351 not now using anything that ICNS doesn't support, I might in the future).
352 The icon-scaling support added a few versions ago makes ICNS's support
353 for multiple icon sizes relatively unimportant.
354
355 - Reversed order of search for icons by extension: rEFInd now searches
356 for PNG files before ICNS files, rather than the other way around. This
357 makes it possible to override a volume icon for rEFInd by giving it the
358 name .VolumeIcon.png, even when a .VolumeIcon.icns file exists on the
359 volume and is used by OS X.
360
361 - Fixed bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take higher-than-intended
362 precedence in icon setting for OS X.
363
364 - Chainloading to BIOS-mode boot loaders now works on UEFI-based PCs when
365 rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI, not just when built with Tianocore.
366
367 0.8.0 (5/4/2014):
368 -----------------
369
370 - The "dont_scan_volumes" parameter now also works with legacy-boot
371 volumes. Unlike with EFI volumes, where the option you pass must exactly
372 match an entire volume name, when applied to legacy-boot volumes, it
373 matches any part of the description that appears beneath the item when
374 you select it in the rEFInd main menu.
375
376 - Can now boot in legacy mode from second (and probably later) hard disks!
377
378 - rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware name string shown in the
379 system information screen to 65 characters. This is done because at least
380 one EFI presents a longer string by default, and this causes the entire
381 information display to come up empty on 800x600 displays.
382
383 - rEFInd now uses the partition's name (as stored in the GPT data
384 structures) as a fallback for the filesystem's name if the latter can't
385 be found. Exceptions are if the partition name is one of three generic
386 names used by GPT fdisk: "Microsoft basic data", "Linux filesystem", or
387 "Apple HFS/HFS+". These are ignored in favor of the descriptive fallback
388 (e.g., "20 GiB Btrfs volume")
389
390 - It's now possible to specify a volume by partition GUID number in a
391 manual boot stanza. This should be more reliable (albeit also more
392 awkward) than using a filesystem number (such as fs0: or fs1:).
393
394 - Fixed memory-allocation bug that could cause error message displays,
395 and possibly hangs, when re-scanning boot loaders.
396
397 0.7.9 (4/20/2014):
398 ------------------
399
400 - Attempt to fix rEFInd perpetually re-scanning after ejecting a disc on
401 some Macs.
402
403 - Added check to remove redundant (or non-functional if Secure Boot is
404 active) kernel entries for Ubuntu, which is now including two versions of
405 kernels, one signed and the other unsigned.
406
407 - Fixed bug in install.sh that could cause it to display error messages
408 if the dmraid utility was not installed.
409
410 - The HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name.
411
412 - Fixed some EFI filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups under
413 some circumstances. These bugs could affect any of the filesystem
414 drivers.
415
416 - Added "gdisk" option to the "showtools" configuration file token. When
417 active, this adds gdisk.efi or gdisk_{arch}.efi, if present in the
418 EFI\tools directory, to the tools row.
419
420 - Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility
421 utility."
422
423
424 0.7.8 (3/9/2014):
425 -----------------
426
427 - Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian
428 packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run
429 any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the
430 hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run
431 install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64
432 references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of
433 concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else.
434
435 - Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of
436 the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively.
437 The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type
438 badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and
439 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If
440 the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified,
441 rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn
442 to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf.
443
444 - rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes.
445 This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it
446 can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a
447 graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so
448 scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128
449 OS icon) is not likely to look good.
450
451 - Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners:
452 Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll
453 be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the
454 behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the
455 banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display.
456
457 - Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate
458 RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for
459 existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi
460 rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages
461 were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note,
462 however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd
463 The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine;
464 it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that
465 problems might arise.
466
467 0.7.7 (1/3/2014):
468 -----------------
469
470 - Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in
471 dont_scan_files.
472
473 - Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
474
475 - Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a
476 Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to
477 "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery
478 utility on the second row of icons.
479
480 - The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files,
481 and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first
482 option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default
483 value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for
484 scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.)
485
486 - Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch,
487 via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the
488 foo.conf file as the main configuration file.
489
490 - Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with
491 duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so
492 would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given
493 UUID.
494
495 - Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP
496 in Linux, if it's currently unmounted.
497
498 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
499 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
500 under some circumstances.
501
502 0.7.6 (12/15/2013):
503 -------------------
504
505 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
506 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
507 default_selection "fred,ginger"
508 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
509 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
510
511 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
512 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
513 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
514 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
515 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
516 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
517 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
518 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
519 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
520 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
521 depending on your computer.
522
523 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
524 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
525 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
526 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
527 screensaver will be disabled.
528
529 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
530 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
531 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
532 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
533 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
534
535 0.7.5 (11/10/2013):
536 -------------------
537
538 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
539 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
540
541 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
542 versions of OS X to fail.
543
544 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
545 drivers were present.
546
547 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
548 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
549 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
550 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
551 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
552 black a second or so later.
553
554 0.7.4.1 (8/25/2013):
555 --------------------
556
557 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
558 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
559 problem.
560
561 0.7.4 (8/25/2013):
562 ------------------
563
564 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
565 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
566 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
567
568 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
569 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
570 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
571 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
572 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
573 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
574 default.
575
576 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
577 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
578 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
579 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
580
581 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
582 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
583 known case, but there may be others.)
584
585 0.7.3 (8/7/2013):
586 -----------------
587
588 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
589 loaders on Macs.
590
591 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
592
593 0.7.2 (8/6/2013):
594 -----------------
595
596 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
597 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
598
599 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
600 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
601
602 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
603 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
604
605 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
606 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
607 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
608 HashTool-signed.efi".
609
610 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
611
612 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
613 was broken.
614
615 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
616 was broken.
617
618 0.7.1 (7/8/2013):
619 -----------------
620
621 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
622
623 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
624 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
625 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
626
627 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
628 volume specification, if present.
629
630 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
631
632 0.7.0 (6/27/2013):
633 ------------------
634
635 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
636 type for volumes that lack labels.
637
638 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
639 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
640 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
641 though.
642
643 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
644 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
645 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
646 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
647 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
648 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
649 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
650 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
651
652 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
653 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
654 non-EFI loaders, etc.
655
656 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
657 code.
658
659 0.6.12 (6/18/2013):
660 -------------------
661
662 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
663 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
664
665 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
666 script.
667
668 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
669 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
670 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
671 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
672
673 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
674 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
675 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
676 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
677
678 0.6.11 (5/13/2013):
679 -------------------
680
681 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
682 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
683 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
684 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
685
686 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
687
688 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
689 directory names that contain spaces.
690
691 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
692 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
693 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
694 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
695 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
696
697 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
698 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
699
700 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
701 Utility" in menu.
702
703 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
704 partitions to fill the MBR.
705
706 0.6.10 (5/5/2013):
707 ------------------
708
709 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
710 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
711 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
712 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
713
714 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
715 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
716 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
717 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
718 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
719
720 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
721 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
722 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
723 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
724 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
725 is quietly ignored.
726
727 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
728 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
729
730 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
731 encountered when saving a screen shot.
732
733 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
734 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
735 sequence number, starting with "001".
736
737 0.6.9 (4/25/2013):
738 ------------------
739
740 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
741 Kemperman.
742
743 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
744 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
745
746 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
747 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
748 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
749
750 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
751 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
752 accidentally trash their systems.
753
754 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
755 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
756 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
757
758 0.6.8 (3/18/2013):
759 ------------------
760
761 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
762 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
763
764 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
765 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
766
767 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
768 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
769
770 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
771
772 0.6.7 (2/3/2013):
773 -----------------
774
775 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
776 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
777
778 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
779 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
780 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
781 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
782
783 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
784 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
785
786 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
787 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
788
789 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
790 also_scan_dirs list.
791
792 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
793
794 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
795 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
796 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
797
798 0.6.6 (1/26/2013):
799 ------------------
800
801 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
802 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
803 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
804 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
805 loader under the fallback name.
806
807 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
808 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
809 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
810 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
811 of 96 glyphs.
812
813 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
814 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
815
816 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
817 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
818
819 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
820 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
821 commented out or empty.
822
823 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
824 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
825
826 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
827 manual boot stanzas.
828
829 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
830 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
831
832 0.6.5 (1/16/2013):
833 ------------------
834
835 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
836 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
837
838 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
839
840 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
841
842 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
843 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
844
845 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
846
847 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
848 sized to cover these areas.
849
850 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
851 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
852 resolution!
853
854 0.6.4 (1/8/2013):
855 -----------------
856
857 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
858 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
859 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
860 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
861
862 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
863 startup on some systems.
864
865 0.6.3 (1/6/2013):
866 -----------------
867
868 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
869 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
870
871 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
872 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
873
874 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
875 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
876 burned to USB flash disks.
877
878 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
879 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
880 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
881
882 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
883 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
884 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
885 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
886 from that installation.
887
888 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
889 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
890 than in EFI/refind.
891
892 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
893 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
894
895 0.6.2 (12/30/2012):
896 -------------------
897
898 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
899 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
900 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
901
902 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
903 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
904 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
905 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
906 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
907
908 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
909 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
910 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
911 Linux with the "make" command.
912
913 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
914 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
915
916 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
917 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
918 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
919 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
920 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
921 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
922 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
923 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
924
925 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
926 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
927 default.)
928
929 0.6.1 (12/21/2012):
930 -------------------
931
932 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
933 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
934 use on emergency discs.
935
936 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
937 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
938 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
939 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
940 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
941 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
942 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
943 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
944 handle.
945
946 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
947
948 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
949 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
950 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
951 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
952 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
953 os_GENTOO.icns.
954
955 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
956 mode.
957
958 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
959 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
960 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
961 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
962
963 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
964 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
965 a boot loader launch failed.
966
967 0.6.0 (12/16/2012):
968 -------------------
969
970 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
971 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
972 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
973 options.
974
975 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
976 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
977 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
978 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
979
980 - Added ext4fs driver!
981
982 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
983
984 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
985
986 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
987 from a program that set the resolution itself.
988
989 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
990 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
991 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
992 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
993 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
994 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
995 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
996 mode.
997
998 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
999 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
1000 display even in graphics mode.
1001
1002 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
1003 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
1004
1005 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
1006 disables the boot options editor.
1007
1008 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
1009 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
1010
1011 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
1012 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
1013 from the /etc/default/grub file.
1014
1015 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
1016 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
1017
1018 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
1019 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
1020 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
1021 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
1022 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
1023 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
1024
1025 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
1026 on Linux systems.
1027
1028 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
1029 ---------------------
1030
1031 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
1032
1033 0.5.1 (12/11/2012):
1034 -------------------
1035
1036 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
1037 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
1038 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
1039 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
1040
1041 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
1042 configuration file from a primary one.
1043
1044 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
1045 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
1046 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
1047 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
1048 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
1049 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
1050 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
1051 LVM.)
1052
1053 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
1054 on systems with Secure Boot active.
1055
1056 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
1057 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
1058 refind.conf.
1059
1060 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
1061 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
1062
1063 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
1064 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
1065 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
1066
1067 0.5.0 (12/6/2012):
1068 ------------------
1069
1070 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
1071 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
1072 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
1073 This example results in the following string being passed as an
1074 option:
1075 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
1076
1077 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
1078 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
1079 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
1080 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
1081 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
1082 for them makes sense.
1083
1084 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
1085 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
1086 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
1087 EFI shells are also so limited.)
1088
1089 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
1090 were not actually edited.
1091
1092 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
1093 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
1094 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
1095 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
1096 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
1097
1098 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
1099 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
1100 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
1101 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
1102 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
1103 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
1104 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
1105 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
1106
1107 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
1108 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
1109 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
1110
1111 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
1112 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
1113 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
1114
1115 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
1116 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
1117 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
1118 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
1119
1120 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
1121 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
1122 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
1123
1124 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
1125 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
1126
1127 0.4.7 (11/6/2012):
1128 ------------------
1129
1130 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
1131
1132 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
1133 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
1134 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
1135
1136 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
1137 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
1138 told isn't working as planned).
1139
1140 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
1141 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
1142 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
1143 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
1144
1145 0.4.6 (10/6/2012):
1146 ------------------
1147
1148 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
1149
1150 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
1151 for disks.
1152
1153 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
1154 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
1155 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
1156 done this for two reasons:
1157 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
1158 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
1159 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
1160 default for them should help them.
1161 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
1162 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
1163 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
1164 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
1165 default configurations.
1166
1167 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
1168
1169 0.4.5 (8/12/2012):
1170 ------------------
1171
1172 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
1173
1174 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
1175
1176 0.4.4 (6/23/2012):
1177 ------------------
1178
1179 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
1180 32-bit systems.
1181
1182 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
1183 on 32-bit systems.
1184
1185 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
1186 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
1187 loaders/OSes.
1188
1189 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
1190
1191 0.4.3 (6/21/2012):
1192 ------------------
1193
1194 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
1195 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
1196
1197 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
1198 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
1199 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
1200 graphics or text mode itself.)
1201
1202 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
1203 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
1204 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
1205 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
1206 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
1207 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
1208 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
1209
1210 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
1211
1212 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
1213 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
1214 "linux.conf" themselves.
1215
1216 0.4.2 (6/3/2012):
1217 -----------------
1218
1219 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
1220 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
1221 via rEFInd.
1222
1223 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
1224 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
1225 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
1226 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
1227 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
1228 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
1229 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
1230 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
1231 the boot order).
1232
1233 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
1234 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
1235
1236 0.4.1 (5/25/2012):
1237 ------------------
1238
1239 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
1240 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
1241 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
1242 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
1243 system hasn't hung.
1244
1245 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
1246 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
1247
1248 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
1249
1250 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
1251 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
1252 label.)
1253
1254 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
1255 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
1256
1257 0.4.0 (5/20/2012):
1258 ------------------
1259
1260 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
1261 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
1262 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
1263 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
1264 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
1265 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
1266 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
1267
1268 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
1269 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
1270 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
1271
1272 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
1273 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
1274 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
1275 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
1276
1277 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
1278 file when launched from rEFInd.
1279
1280 0.3.5 (5/15/2012):
1281 ------------------
1282
1283 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
1284 received reports that it's not working as intended.
1285
1286 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
1287 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
1288 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
1289 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
1290 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
1291 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
1292
1293 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
1294 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
1295
1296 0.3.4 (5/9/2012):
1297 -----------------
1298
1299 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
1300 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
1301 sample configuration file for a full description.
1302
1303 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
1304 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
1305 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
1306 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
1307 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
1308
1309 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
1310 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
1311 target).
1312
1313 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
1314 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
1315
1316 0.3.3 (5/6/2012):
1317 -----------------
1318
1319 - Improved menu navigation:
1320 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
1321 down arrows move between rows.
1322 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
1323 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
1324 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
1325 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
1326
1327 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
1328 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
1329 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
1330
1331 0.3.2 (5/4/2012):
1332 -----------------
1333
1334 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
1335 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
1336 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
1337 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
1338 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
1339 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
1340 will fail to work.
1341
1342 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
1343 mode.
1344
1345 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
1346
1347 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
1348 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
1349 options.
1350
1351
1352 0.3.1 (4/27/2012):
1353 ------------------
1354
1355 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
1356 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
1357
1358 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
1359 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
1360 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
1361 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
1362 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
1363 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
1364 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
1365 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
1366 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
1367 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
1368 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
1369
1370 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
1371 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
1372 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
1373 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
1374 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
1375
1376 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
1377 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
1378
1379 0.3.0 (4/22/2012):
1380 ------------------
1381
1382 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
1383 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
1384 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
1385 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
1386 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
1387 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
1388
1389 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
1390 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
1391 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
1392 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
1393 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
1394 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
1395 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
1396 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
1397 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
1398 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
1399 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
1400 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
1401 that resets the video mode.
1402
1403 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
1404 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
1405 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
1406 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
1407 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
1408 details.
1409
1410 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
1411 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
1412 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
1413 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
1414 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
1415 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
1416
1417 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
1418 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
1419 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
1420
1421 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
1422 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
1423 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
1424 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
1425
1426 0.2.7 (4/19/2012):
1427 ------------------
1428
1429 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
1430 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
1431 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
1432 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
1433 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
1434 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
1435 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
1436 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
1437 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
1438 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
1439 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
1440 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
1441 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
1442 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
1443 installation.
1444
1445 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
1446
1447 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
1448 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
1449 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
1450 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
1451 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
1452 directories you like.
1453
1454 0.2.6 (4/14/2012):
1455 ------------------
1456
1457 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
1458 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
1459 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
1460 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
1461 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
1462 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
1463 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
1464 should work when a volume is unnamed.
1465
1466 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
1467 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
1468 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
1469
1470 0.2.5 (4/9/2012):
1471 -----------------
1472
1473 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
1474 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
1475
1476 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
1477 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
1478 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
1479 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
1480 documented the name....
1481
1482 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
1483 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
1484 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
1485
1486 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
1487 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
1488 directory) on certain systems.
1489
1490 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
1491 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1492
1493 0.2.4 (4/5/2012):
1494 -----------------
1495
1496 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1497 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1498 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1499 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1500 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1501 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1502 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1503 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1504 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1505 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1506 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1507 to me.
1508
1509 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1510 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1511 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1512 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1513 simultaneously.)
1514
1515 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1516 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1517
1518 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1519 image.
1520
1521 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1522 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1523 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1524 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1525 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1526
1527 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1528 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1529 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1530 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1531 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1532 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1533
1534 0.2.3 (3/26/2012):
1535 ------------------
1536
1537 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1538 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1539 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1540 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1541 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1542 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1543 small sample of computers.
1544
1545 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1546 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1547 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1548 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1549 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1550
1551 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1552
1553 0.2.2 (3/23/2012):
1554 ------------------
1555
1556 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1557 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1558 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1559 versionless initrd file.
1560
1561 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1562 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1563 continues.
1564
1565 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1566 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1567 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1568
1569 0.2.1 (3/19/2012):
1570 ------------------
1571
1572 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1573 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1574 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1575 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1576
1577 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1578 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1579 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1580 directory as the kernel.
1581
1582 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1583 entries in refind.conf file.
1584
1585 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1586 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1587
1588
1589 0.2.0 (3/14/2012):
1590 ------------------
1591
1592 - Initial public release