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