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