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1 0.6.6 (?/??/2013):
2 ------------------
3
4 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
5 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
6 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
7 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
8 of 96 glyphs.
9
10 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
11 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
12
13 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
14 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
15
16 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
17 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
18 commented out or empty.
19
20 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
21 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
22
23 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
24 manual boot stanzas.
25
26 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
27 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
28
29 0.6.5 (1/16/2013):
30 ------------------
31
32 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
33 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
34
35 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
36
37 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
38
39 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
40 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
41
42 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
43
44 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
45 sized to cover these areas.
46
47 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
48 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
49 resolution!
50
51 0.6.4 (1/8/2013):
52 -----------------
53
54 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
55 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
56 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
57 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
58
59 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
60 startup on some systems.
61
62 0.6.3 (1/6/2013):
63 -----------------
64
65 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
66 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
67
68 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
69 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
70
71 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
72 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
73 burned to USB flash disks.
74
75 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
76 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
77 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
78
79 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
80 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
81 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
82 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
83 from that installation.
84
85 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
86 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
87 than in EFI/refind.
88
89 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
90 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
91
92 0.6.2 (12/30/2012):
93 -------------------
94
95 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
96 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
97 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
98
99 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
100 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
101 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
102 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
103 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
104
105 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
106 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
107 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
108 Linux with the "make" command.
109
110 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
111 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
112
113 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
114 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
115 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
116 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
117 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
118 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
119 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
120 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
121
122 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
123 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
124 default.)
125
126 0.6.1 (12/21/2012):
127 -------------------
128
129 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
130 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
131 use on emergency discs.
132
133 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
134 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
135 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
136 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
137 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
138 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
139 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
140 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
141 handle.
142
143 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
144
145 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
146 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
147 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
148 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
149 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
150 os_GENTOO.icns.
151
152 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
153 mode.
154
155 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
156 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
157 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
158 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
159
160 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
161 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
162 a boot loader launch failed.
163
164 0.6.0 (12/16/2012):
165 -------------------
166
167 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
168 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
169 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
170 options.
171
172 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
173 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
174 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
175 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
176
177 - Added ext4fs driver!
178
179 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
180
181 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
182
183 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
184 from a program that set the resolution itself.
185
186 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
187 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
188 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
189 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
190 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
191 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
192 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
193 mode.
194
195 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
196 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
197 display even in graphics mode.
198
199 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
200 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
201
202 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
203 disables the boot options editor.
204
205 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
206 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
207
208 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
209 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
210 from the /etc/default/grub file.
211
212 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
213 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
214
215 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
216 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
217 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
218 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
219 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
220 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
221
222 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
223 on Linux systems.
224
225 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
226 ---------------------
227
228 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
229
230 0.5.1 (12/11/2012):
231 -------------------
232
233 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
234 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
235 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
236 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
237
238 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
239 configuration file from a primary one.
240
241 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
242 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
243 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
244 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
245 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
246 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
247 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
248 LVM.)
249
250 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
251 on systems with Secure Boot active.
252
253 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
254 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
255 refind.conf.
256
257 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
258 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
259
260 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
261 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
262 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
263
264 0.5.0 (12/6/2012):
265 ------------------
266
267 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
268 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
269 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
270 This example results in the following string being passed as an
271 option:
272 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
273
274 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
275 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
276 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
277 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
278 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
279 for them makes sense.
280
281 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
282 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
283 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
284 EFI shells are also so limited.)
285
286 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
287 were not actually edited.
288
289 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
290 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
291 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
292 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
293 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
294
295 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
296 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
297 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
298 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
299 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
300 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
301 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
302 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
303
304 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
305 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
306 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
307
308 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
309 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
310 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
311
312 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
313 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
314 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
315 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
316
317 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
318 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
319 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
320
321 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
322 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
323
324 0.4.7 (11/6/2012):
325 ------------------
326
327 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
328
329 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
330 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
331 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
332
333 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
334 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
335 told isn't working as planned).
336
337 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
338 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
339 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
340 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
341
342 0.4.6 (10/6/2012):
343 ------------------
344
345 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
346
347 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
348 for disks.
349
350 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
351 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
352 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
353 done this for two reasons:
354 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
355 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
356 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
357 default for them should help them.
358 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
359 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
360 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
361 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
362 default configurations.
363
364 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
365
366 0.4.5 (8/12/2012):
367 ------------------
368
369 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
370
371 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
372
373 0.4.4 (6/23/2012):
374 ------------------
375
376 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
377 32-bit systems.
378
379 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
380 on 32-bit systems.
381
382 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
383 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
384 loaders/OSes.
385
386 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
387
388 0.4.3 (6/21/2012):
389 ------------------
390
391 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
392 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
393
394 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
395 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
396 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
397 graphics or text mode itself.)
398
399 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
400 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
401 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
402 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
403 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
404 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
405 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
406
407 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
408
409 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
410 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
411 "linux.conf" themselves.
412
413 0.4.2 (6/3/2012):
414 -----------------
415
416 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
417 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
418 via rEFInd.
419
420 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
421 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
422 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
423 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
424 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
425 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
426 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
427 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
428 the boot order).
429
430 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
431 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
432
433 0.4.1 (5/25/2012):
434 ------------------
435
436 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
437 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
438 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
439 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
440 system hasn't hung.
441
442 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
443 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
444
445 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
446
447 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
448 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
449 label.)
450
451 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
452 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
453
454 0.4.0 (5/20/2012):
455 ------------------
456
457 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
458 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
459 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
460 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
461 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
462 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
463 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
464
465 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
466 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
467 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
468
469 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
470 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
471 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
472 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
473
474 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
475 file when launched from rEFInd.
476
477 0.3.5 (5/15/2012):
478 ------------------
479
480 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
481 received reports that it's not working as intended.
482
483 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
484 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
485 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
486 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
487 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
488 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
489
490 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
491 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
492
493 0.3.4 (5/9/2012):
494 -----------------
495
496 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
497 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
498 sample configuration file for a full description.
499
500 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
501 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
502 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
503 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
504 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
505
506 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
507 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
508 target).
509
510 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
511 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
512
513 0.3.3 (5/6/2012):
514 -----------------
515
516 - Improved menu navigation:
517 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
518 down arrows move between rows.
519 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
520 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
521 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
522 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
523
524 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
525 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
526 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
527
528 0.3.2 (5/4/2012):
529 -----------------
530
531 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
532 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
533 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
534 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
535 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
536 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
537 will fail to work.
538
539 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
540 mode.
541
542 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
543
544 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
545 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
546 options.
547
548
549 0.3.1 (4/27/2012):
550 ------------------
551
552 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
553 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
554
555 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
556 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
557 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
558 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
559 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
560 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
561 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
562 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
563 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
564 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
565 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
566
567 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
568 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
569 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
570 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
571 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
572
573 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
574 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
575
576 0.3.0 (4/22/2012):
577 ------------------
578
579 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
580 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
581 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
582 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
583 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
584 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
585
586 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
587 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
588 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
589 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
590 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
591 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
592 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
593 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
594 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
595 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
596 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
597 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
598 that resets the video mode.
599
600 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
601 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
602 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
603 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
604 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
605 details.
606
607 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
608 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
609 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
610 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
611 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
612 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
613
614 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
615 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
616 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
617
618 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
619 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
620 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
621 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
622
623 0.2.7 (4/19/2012):
624 ------------------
625
626 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
627 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
628 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
629 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
630 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
631 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
632 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
633 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
634 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
635 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
636 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
637 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
638 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
639 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
640 installation.
641
642 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
643
644 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
645 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
646 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
647 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
648 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
649 directories you like.
650
651 0.2.6 (4/14/2012):
652 ------------------
653
654 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
655 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
656 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
657 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
658 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
659 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
660 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
661 should work when a volume is unnamed.
662
663 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
664 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
665 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
666
667 0.2.5 (4/9/2012):
668 -----------------
669
670 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
671 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
672
673 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
674 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
675 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
676 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
677 documented the name....
678
679 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
680 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
681 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
682
683 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
684 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
685 directory) on certain systems.
686
687 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
688 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
689
690 0.2.4 (4/5/2012):
691 -----------------
692
693 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
694 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
695 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
696 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
697 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
698 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
699 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
700 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
701 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
702 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
703 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
704 to me.
705
706 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
707 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
708 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
709 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
710 simultaneously.)
711
712 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
713 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
714
715 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
716 image.
717
718 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
719 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
720 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
721 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
722 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
723
724 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
725 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
726 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
727 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
728 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
729 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
730
731 0.2.3 (3/26/2012):
732 ------------------
733
734 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
735 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
736 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
737 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
738 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
739 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
740 small sample of computers.
741
742 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
743 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
744 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
745 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
746 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
747
748 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
749
750 0.2.2 (3/23/2012):
751 ------------------
752
753 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
754 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
755 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
756 versionless initrd file.
757
758 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
759 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
760 continues.
761
762 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
763 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
764 than this, but such systems are very rare.
765
766 0.2.1 (3/19/2012):
767 ------------------
768
769 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
770 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
771 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
772 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
773
774 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
775 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
776 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
777 directory as the kernel.
778
779 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
780 entries in refind.conf file.
781
782 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
783 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
784
785
786 0.2.0 (3/14/2012):
787 ------------------
788
789 - Initial public release