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