7 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
8 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
9 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
10 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
11 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
12 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
15 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
18 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
20 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
21 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
28 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
29 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
31 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
32 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
33 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
34 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
35 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
36 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
37 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
38 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
39 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
40 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
41 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
43 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
44 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
45 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
46 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
47 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
49 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
50 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
55 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
56 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
57 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
58 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
59 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
60 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
62 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
63 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
64 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
65 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
66 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
67 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
68 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
69 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
70 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
71 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
72 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
73 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
74 that resets the video mode.
76 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
77 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
78 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
79 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
80 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
83 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
84 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
85 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
86 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
87 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
88 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
90 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
91 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
92 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
94 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
95 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
96 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
97 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
102 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
103 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
104 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
105 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
106 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
107 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
108 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
109 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
110 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
111 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
112 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
113 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
114 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
115 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
118 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
120 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
121 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
122 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
123 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
124 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
125 directories you like.
130 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
131 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
132 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
133 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
134 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
135 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
136 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
137 should work when a volume is unnamed.
139 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
140 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
141 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
146 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
147 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
149 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
150 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
151 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
152 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
153 documented the name....
155 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
156 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
157 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
159 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
160 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
161 directory) on certain systems.
163 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
164 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
169 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
170 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
171 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
172 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
173 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
174 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
175 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
176 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
177 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
178 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
179 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
182 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
183 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
184 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
185 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
188 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
189 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
191 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
194 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
195 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
196 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
197 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
198 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
200 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
201 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
202 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
203 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
204 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
205 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
210 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
211 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
212 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
213 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
214 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
215 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
216 small sample of computers.
218 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
219 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
220 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
221 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
222 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
224 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
229 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
230 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
231 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
232 versionless initrd file.
234 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
235 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
238 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
239 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
240 than this, but such systems are very rare.
245 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
246 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
247 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
248 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
250 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
251 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
252 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
253 directory as the kernel.
255 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
256 entries in refind.conf file.
258 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
259 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
265 - Initial public release