X-Git-Url: https://code.delx.au/refind/blobdiff_plain/4c94b69651c2cde0d358ea2e7d4eb8e1a568d248..056ca03285e703164b72c615aeb079fe55113a5e:/NEWS.txt diff --git a/NEWS.txt b/NEWS.txt index b50a38a..071b2ce 100644 --- a/NEWS.txt +++ b/NEWS.txt @@ -1,3 +1,466 @@ +0.8.6 (?/??/2016): +------------------ + +- Addition of new Windows 8 OS icon. On Macs and for BIOS/legacy boots, the + new icon is now used for Windows Vista, 7, and 8, while the old one is + used for earlier versions of Windows. For EFI-mode boots, the new icon is + used universally. + +- If the NTFS driver is loaded, rEFInd now scans NTFS volumes on Macs for + the presence of Windows boot files, and removes any NTFS volume that + lacks such files from the BIOS/legacy boot list. This should help + unclutter the display on systems that contain NTFS data partitions. + +- Fixed bug that caused misidentification of both whole disks and NTFS + volumes as being FAT. (This bug affected the identification of devices + and locations in the rEFInd menu, not actual access to devices.) + +- Code refactoring to clear out legacy-boot functions from the + ever-expanding refind/main.c file. + +- Added new "badges" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf. This + option hides the device-type badges associated with the OS boot options. + +- Reverted rEFIt commit r472, introduced in rEFInd 0.8.5 to support more + BMP images because I've received bug reports that it's causing existing + selection images to fail to load. + +- Fixed install.sh bug that caused misidentification of installation + directory under OS X if an already-mounted ESP has spaces in its path. + +- Fixed install.sh bug that could cause misidentification of the ESP on + disks with partition numbers of 10 or above. + + +0.8.5 (2/1/2015): +----------------- + +- Added NTFS EFI filesystem driver. + +- Minor improvements to filesystem driver framework code. + +- Changes to + +- Fixed bug in Btrfs driver's address reference. + +- Improved install.sh to make it smarter about figuring out where to + install on Macs. Specifically, this version now upgrades existing + installations, if found (as it always has under Linux), rather than + blindly install to EFI/BOOT; it installs to EFI/refind if not existing + installation is found; it installs using the --shortform option to bless, + which seems to eliminate the 30-second delay problem; and it can handle + an HFS+ ESP, which it treats as a separate HFS+ volume (as if the user + had used --ownhfs). These changes do not affect behavior under Linux. + +- Added missing check of architecture type for several tools. + +- Applied rEFIt commit r472, which adds support for BMP images with negative + height fields, indicating that the image is NOT vertically flipped. This + commit and r467 were not incorporated in the original rEFInd because I + forked it from a Debian rEFIt package that had been patched to build + under GNU-EFI, and was apparently based on a slightly earlier version. + +- Applied rEFIt commit r467, which improves Mac handling of legacy boots + from other than the first hard disk. + + +0.8.4 (12/8/2014): +------------------ + +- Tweaked default for dont_scan_volumes: Removed "Recovery HD". This change + better suits the needs of OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") installations, but may + result in some stray Recovery HD entries on some Macs. + +- Updated icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu. + +- Added new configuration option, "enable_and_lock_vmx", which sets an + Intel CPU feature that's required for some types of virtualization to + work. Most EFIs enable setting this feature in their own setup utilities, + but some (such as most Macs) don't. + +- If rEFInd can't locate an icons directory (either the default or one + specified by the icons_dir token), the program switches to text-only + mode. + +- If a loader contains the string "grub" and no other clue to the loader's + OS association exists, search for os_grub.{png|icns} (which is not + provided with rEFInd) or os_linux.{png|icns}. (Previous versions provided + a generic loader icon for GRUB.) + +- Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_files to not work with special-case + boot loaders (for OS X and Windows) when specifying the complete path to + the loader (e.g., EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi). + +- Added support for the iPXE network boot tool (see BUILDING.txt for + building and basic use instructions). + +0.8.3 (7/6/2014): +----------------- + +- Added new feature: Setting "timeout = -1" in refind.conf causes rEFInd to + immediately boot the default option UNLESS a keypress is in the buffer + when rEFInd launches. In that case, if the keypress corresponds to a + shortcut key, the associated boot loader is launched; or if not, the menu + is displayed. + +- Added new icons for Clover boot loader and for Mythbuntu Linux + distribution. + +- rEFInd now displays the partition's label, when one is available, when + offering a BIOS-mode boot option for a partition with no filesystem + driver. This works only on Macs doing BIOS-mode booting. + +- Removed GPLv2 code from the FSW core files. This was done because the + Btrfs driver is derived from the GRUB Btrfs driver, which is licensed + under the GPLv3. Ironically, the GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible + licenses, so ensuring that the Btrfs driver doesn't rely on GPLv2 code + was legally necessary. In most cases, I reverted to the original rEFIt + code, although I kept my own cache code; since I wrote it, I can + change its license to a BSD license. + +- Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers immediately after loading + them. This didn't affect rEFInd's own drivers because they didn't include + the unload hooks, but it did affect some other drivers. + +- Changed default scan_all_linux_kernels setting from "false" to "true", + and commented the option out in refind.conf-sample. This should not + affect most people, since refind.conf-sample had this option commented + out, and most rEFInd users either use it that way or don't have Linux + kernels installed at all. I've made this change because I want rEFInd to + "do the right thing" by default in as many cases as possible. For a while + now, rEFInd has been excluding non-bootable files from its menu, and most + kernels "in the wild" now include the EFI stub. Thus, enabling this + support by default seems worthwhile. If you prefer to not scan Linux + kernels by default, simply uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" line + and ensure it's set to "false". + +0.8.2.1 (6/8/2014): +------------------- + +- Removed stray bit of debugging code that caused a prompt to press a + key to appear at rEFInd startup. + +0.8.2 (6/8/2014): +----------------- + +- Changed behavior when default_selection is not set: It now boots the + previously-booted loader, assuming it's still available; if not, rEFInd + boots the first loader (as it does now). Behavior is unchanged if + default_selection is set. Note that this behavior depends on the ability + of rEFInd to store an EFI variable in NVRAM. It therefore fails on + systems with flaky NVRAM storage. You can view the previously-booted + loader in the + /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740 + variable under Linux. + +- Added icon for Mageia Linux (os_mageia.png). + +- Fixed bug that could misidentify a not-quite-GUID as a GUID in a + manual boot stanza's "volume" line. + +- I've updated my personal build system, and therefore the rEFInd Makefiles + and related files, to use TianoCore UDK2014 rather than UDK2010. + +- Added "deep_uefi_legacy_scan" token. When not set (the default), rEFInd + does not modify EFI NVRAM settings when scanning for BIOS-mode boot + loaders on UEFI-based (non-Mac) computers. Some computers require + uncommenting this setting for rEFInd to reliably detect some BIOS-mode + boot devices. Passing "0", "off", or "false" as an option resets it to + the default value (useful in a loaded secondary configuration file to + override a setting in the main file). + +0.8.1 (5/15/2014): +------------------ + +- Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders stored + on the root directory of a partition. + +- Added two new bitmap fonts to those distributed with rEFInd: Ubuntu Mono + and Nimbus Mono. Both come in 12-, 14-, 16-, and 24-point sizes. + +- Messages about pauses for scanning and re-scanning of boot loaders are + now suppressed when doing an initial delayed scan when scan_delay is 1 + second. + +- Improved centering of legacy boot option descriptions on some systems' + screens. + +- Fixed bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot to boot from an inappropriate + device if that device had an innately high boot priority (as set by the + firmware). + +- Changed icons from ICNS to PNG form. There are several reasons to do + this, all of them minor; but together they're enough to warrant a change. + PNG is more common, and therefore more accessible to most users -- + particularly those who don't use OS X. The PNG files are smaller than + their ICNS equivalents. PNG supports a wider range of sizes (although I'm + not now using anything that ICNS doesn't support, I might in the future). + The icon-scaling support added a few versions ago makes ICNS's support + for multiple icon sizes relatively unimportant. + +- Reversed order of search for icons by extension: rEFInd now searches + for PNG files before ICNS files, rather than the other way around. This + makes it possible to override a volume icon for rEFInd by giving it the + name .VolumeIcon.png, even when a .VolumeIcon.icns file exists on the + volume and is used by OS X. + +- Fixed bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take higher-than-intended + precedence in icon setting for OS X. + +- Chainloading to BIOS-mode boot loaders now works on UEFI-based PCs when + rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI, not just when built with Tianocore. + +0.8.0 (5/4/2014): +----------------- + +- The "dont_scan_volumes" parameter now also works with legacy-boot + volumes. Unlike with EFI volumes, where the option you pass must exactly + match an entire volume name, when applied to legacy-boot volumes, it + matches any part of the description that appears beneath the item when + you select it in the rEFInd main menu. + +- Can now boot in legacy mode from second (and probably later) hard disks! + +- rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware name string shown in the + system information screen to 65 characters. This is done because at least + one EFI presents a longer string by default, and this causes the entire + information display to come up empty on 800x600 displays. + +- rEFInd now uses the partition's name (as stored in the GPT data + structures) as a fallback for the filesystem's name if the latter can't + be found. Exceptions are if the partition name is one of three generic + names used by GPT fdisk: "Microsoft basic data", "Linux filesystem", or + "Apple HFS/HFS+". These are ignored in favor of the descriptive fallback + (e.g., "20 GiB Btrfs volume") + +- It's now possible to specify a volume by partition GUID number in a + manual boot stanza. This should be more reliable (albeit also more + awkward) than using a filesystem number (such as fs0: or fs1:). + +- Fixed memory-allocation bug that could cause error message displays, + and possibly hangs, when re-scanning boot loaders. + +0.7.9 (4/20/2014): +------------------ + +- Attempt to fix rEFInd perpetually re-scanning after ejecting a disc on + some Macs. + +- Added check to remove redundant (or non-functional if Secure Boot is + active) kernel entries for Ubuntu, which is now including two versions of + kernels, one signed and the other unsigned. + +- Fixed bug in install.sh that could cause it to display error messages + if the dmraid utility was not installed. + +- The HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name. + +- Fixed some EFI filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups under + some circumstances. These bugs could affect any of the filesystem + drivers. + +- Added "gdisk" option to the "showtools" configuration file token. When + active, this adds gdisk.efi or gdisk_{arch}.efi, if present in the + EFI\tools directory, to the tools row. + +- Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility + utility." + + +0.7.8 (3/9/2014): +----------------- + +- Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian + packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run + any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the + hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run + install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64 + references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of + concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else. + +- Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of + the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively. + The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type + badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and + 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If + the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified, + rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn + to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf. + +- rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes. + This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it + can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a + graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so + scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128 + OS icon) is not likely to look good. + +- Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners: + Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll + be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the + behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the + banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display. + +- Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate + RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for + existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi + rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages + were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note, + however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd + The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine; + it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that + problems might arise. + +0.7.7 (1/3/2014): +----------------- + +- Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in + dont_scan_files. + +- Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list. + +- Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a + Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to + "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery + utility on the second row of icons. + +- The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files, + and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first + option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default + value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for + scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.) + +- Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch, + via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the + foo.conf file as the main configuration file. + +- Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with + duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so + would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given + UUID. + +- Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP + in Linux, if it's currently unmounted. + +- Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break + and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file + under some circumstances. + +0.7.6 (12/15/2013): +------------------- + +- Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be + comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in: + default_selection "fred,ginger" + This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if + it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default. + +- Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token + may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it + has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times. + If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted + as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For + instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default + from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple + "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of + times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that + times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC, + depending on your computer. + +- Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the + screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low + "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS + unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the + screensaver will be disabled. + +- Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd + to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the + way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT + install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will + overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable. + +0.7.5 (11/10/2013): +------------------- + +- Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as + bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled. + +- Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent + versions of OS X to fail. + +- Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI + drivers were present. + +- Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes + with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not + gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu. + When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to + gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to + black a second or so later. + +0.7.4.1 (8/25/2013): +-------------------- + +- My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly + released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the + problem. + +0.7.4 (8/25/2013): +------------------ + +- Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first + option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused + VMware's mboot64.efi to fail. + +- Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be + stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest, + or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi, + memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32 + systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools" + option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by + default. + +- Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space + to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default + that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for + extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name. + +- Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders + under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the + known case, but there may be others.) + +0.7.3 (8/7/2013): +----------------- + +- Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot + loaders on Macs. + +- Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs. + +0.7.2 (8/6/2013): +----------------- + +- Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first + row of icons if the second row of icons was empty. + +- Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when + using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token. + +- Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs. + (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.) + +- Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list; + it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi, + ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi, + HashTool-signed.efi". + +- Added icon for Funtoo Linux. + +- Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which + was broken. + +- Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which + was broken. + 0.7.1 (7/8/2013): -----------------