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