X-Git-Url: https://code.delx.au/refind/blobdiff_plain/c1935b0f6d9272cfa51e9a6c1e342c252ea41b1f..e07b72471fa62945801b4a4e3bcac662a1b4888d:/docs/refind/revisions.html
diff --git a/docs/refind/revisions.html b/docs/refind/revisions.html
index e0cbbbb..e77b7e3 100644
--- a/docs/refind/revisions.html
+++ b/docs/refind/revisions.html
@@ -14,8 +14,7 @@
by Roderick W. Smith, rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
-Last Web page update: 12/5/2012
-
+Last Web page update: 6/27/2013
I'm a technical writer and consultant specializing in Linux technologies. This Web page is provided free of charge and with no annoying outside ads; however, I did take time to prepare it, and Web hosting does cost money. If you find this Web page useful, please consider making a small donation to help keep this site up and running. Thanks!
@@ -25,49 +24,87 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
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@@ -93,7 +130,39 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
-- 0.5.0 (12/5/2012)—I've focused on adding support for Matthew J. Garrett's shim program to this version of rEFInd; with this support, rEFInd is capable of launching Linux kernels and other programs signed with a suitable key while the computer is in Secure Boot mode. This initial release, however, requires significant manual configuration and has some known bugs and limitations. See the Managing Secure Boot page for details. Beyond this major new feature, this version includes several more minor improvements. These include a change to the resolution token so that it applies to text mode as well as to graphics mode; a bug fix that caused the line editor to blank out lines that were left unedited; a new dont_scan_files option to blacklist boot programs by filename; support for launching MokManager and Apple's Recovery HD partitions via tools (2nd-row) icons; new --usedefault and --drivers options to the install.sh script; and a change of the esp installation script option to --esp.
+- 0.7.0 (6/27/2013)—Improvements to the filesystem drivers dominate this version. The biggest change is a new Btrfs driver, created by Samuel Liao and based in part on the GRUB 2.0 Btrfs support. The drivers also now include a read cache to improve their speed. This has only a tiny effect on most computers, but on some it can speed boot times by a few seconds, and under VirtualBox the effect is dramatic—the ext2fs driver goes from a sluggish three minutes to load a kernel and initrd to three seconds. I've also changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit, which may enable some of them to work with larger filesystems, although this isn't yet tested. The main rEFInd binary sports only two changes: It can now identify Btrfs volumes as such for labelling purposes and it can now filter out invalid loaders (those for the wrong architecture or Linux kernels that lack EFI stub loader support, for instance).
+
+- 0.6.12 (6/18/2013)—This version changes relatively little code, but it adds one feature that will simplify rEFInd installation for some users: The program can now deduce minimal Linux boot options based on an /etc/fstab file if that file is on the same partition as the kernel (in other words, if you do not use a separate /boot partition). Put another way, refind_linux.conf is no longer required for some installations, although it's still desirable. If you're already using rEFInd, this isn't likely to be important, but it can help when you're just starting out. In addition, this version adds support for the Linux Foundation's PreBootloader in the install.sh script. I've also changed the default 64-bit shell included on the CD-R and USB flash drive images to a modified version 2 shell, so as to enable use of the bcfg command to help install rEFInd (or make other changes to the firmware's boot manager configuration).
+
+- 0.6.11 (5/13/2013)—Two new features may have a noticeable affect for many users: First, rEFInd now ignores symbolic links on filesystems that support them. I've implemented this change because I've been receiving too many reports from users who want to remove redundant or non-functional Linux boot entries caused by symbolic links created by distributions. Although this is possible by editing the dont_scan_dirs or dont_scan_files options in refind.conf, telling users how to do this has become tedious. If you want to use links to create multiple entries for one kernel or boot loader, use hard links instead of symbolic links. The second major user-visible change is that rEFInd now tries to guess the distribution type based on the naming of the kernel file (effective only for Fedora and RHEL) or the contents of the /etc/os-release file (effective only if the installation does not have a separate /boot partition or if /etc/os-release is copied to that location on the partition that holds the kernel). There are several other minor cosmetic issues that some users may notice, including icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu and a change in the name of the "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" option to "Reboot to Computer Setup Utility." I've also fixed a bug in gptsync that could cause it to hang if the disk had too few GPT partitions. Finally, I've improved the install.sh script so that it works better from a path with directory names that include spaces.
+
+- 0.6.10 (5/5/2013)—This version adds a number of minor improvements: The ability to create multiple screen shots under a sequence of names rather than using just one name; a new screen saver feature, activated by the screensaver token in refind.conf; and an option to reboot the computer into the firmware's setup utility on computers that support this feature. I've also added an OS for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns), and I've updated the LodePNG library to the latest version, which might improve rendering of some PNG files.
+
+- 0.6.9 (4/25/2013)—The most visible change to this version is to the rEFInd banner image, which now includes an icon provided by Erik Kemperman. The biggest change with this version is the inclusion of an updated version of gptsync, which is popular on Macs as a means of maintaining the hybrid MBR that's required to boot Windows in BIOS mode on that platform. Because hybrid MBRs are ugly and dangerous, though, the rEFInd install.sh script installs the program only under OS X, and even then it must be activated by uncommending the scanfor line in refind.conf and adding gptsync to its options list. If you want to use gptsync on a PC, you can, but you'll need to copy the program file manually to the ESP's EFI/tools directory. Other changes with this version include working around a suspected firmware bug that can cause hangs when rEFInd starts on some systems and changing the timeout code so that rEFInd will launch its default OS even if the computer is started without a keyboard.
+
+- 0.6.8 (3/18/2013)—This version fixes a few obscure bugs but adds only one minor new feature. Most notably, it fixes a problem that caused "Invalid Parameter" errors to appear when scanning for boot loaders on some systems; fixes a bug that caused icons defined in files named after boot loaders to not appear; and fixes a bug in the install.sh script that caused the script to fail on some systems. It also enables you to name a shell shell.efi in the root directory (previously only shell_arch.efi worked in the root directory, although shell.efi worked in the EFI/tools directory).
+
+- 0.6.7 (2/3/2013)—This version fixes a few bugs and adds some minor features relating to Secure Boot. Bug fixes include keeping rEFInd out of its own menu when it's launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi; keeping the dont_scan_volumes option out of the also_scan_dirs list; a fix for dont_scan_volumes so that it applies to the OS X boot loader; and a fix for a bug that caused PNG files in a user-specified icons directory to be ignored if an ICNS file was available in the standard icons directory. New features include support for the Linux Foundation's HashTool.efi as a MOK utility, scanning for MOK utilities on all volumes, and a more verbose error message when a Secure Boot authentication failure occurs.
+
+- 0.6.6 (1/26/2013)—This version includes two new features and a number of minor bug fixes. The first new feature is support for changing rEFInd's font via the font token in refind.conf. You're limited to monospace fonts that are encoded as PNG files; you can't use variable-width fonts or normal font files like TrueType fonts. The fonts support only ASCII characters. See the fonts section on the Theming rEFInd page for details. I've also changed the default font to a slightly larger one that's anti-aliased. The second new feature is that rEFInd now detects when the EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi (or EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi on 32-bit systems) boot loader is a duplicate of another boot loader, and automatically excludes it from the OS list. This is useful on systems that boot with Windows, since Windows tends to install its boot loader twice, once using the EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi filename. Bug fixes are described in the NEWS.txt file, and include fixes for bugs that prevented manual boot stanzas in included configuration files from being detected; that caused an ASSERT error to appear on the screen on some systems if default_selection was not set; the caused Binary is whitelisted messages to persist on the screen when loading signed EFI drivers with Secure Boot active; that caused rEFInd to ignore icon tokens in refind.conf manual boot stanzas; and that caused the install.sh script to fail to update drivers when rEFInd was installed to EFI/BOOT.
+
+- 0.6.5 (1/16/2013)—Most of this version's changes relate to icon, graphics, and theming features. The biggest code change is in support for PNG files for banners, icons, and selection backgrounds. I've also fixed bugs that prevented large banners from being used; you can now use banners as big as the screen (or bigger, but they'll be cropped), as illustrated on the Theming rEFInd page. The text color also now automatically switches between black and white depending on the background over which it's displayed. If you don't use these features, you're likely to notice some changes in where certain elements are displayed. Most obviously, the banner appears higher on the screen than it did previously, so as to minimize the chance of overlap with text displays such as the information screen. These text displays should appear correctly even on tiny 640x480 displays (they were blank on such small displays in the past). I've added icons for Haiku and ALT Linux. Finally, the only non-graphics development is the addition of a "safe mode" boot option for OS X, which you can disable by adding safemode to the hideui option in refind.conf.
+
+- 0.6.4 (1/8/2013)—Bug fixes motivate this release; it corrects a couple of memory management bugs in 0.6.3 that cause rEFInd to hang at startup on some computers (unfortunately not on any of mine, so I missed this). I've also made a small change to the install.sh script so that it installs the ext2fs driver rather than the ext4fs driver if the script detects that a Linux kernel is on an ext2fs or ext3fs partition. This can keep rEFInd from scanning ext4fs partitions and picking up non-functional symbolic links to vmlinuz on such partitions.
+
+- 0.6.3 (1/6/2013)—The installation script and related tools see the biggest changes in this version of the program. The install.sh script can now detect a rEFInd installation in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot and update it rather than install to the default location of EFI/refind. It will also install to one of these fallback locations if it's run in BIOS mode, thus helping users who want to get a BIOS-mode install of Linux running on an EFI-based computer. A new mvrefind.sh script can move the installation between these three locations (or more exotic locations). Outside of scripts, the dont_scan_dirs and also_scan_dirs tokens can now accept volume specifications, as in myvol:EFI/bogus to not scan (or scan) the EFI/bogus directory on the myvol volume. I've also fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to ignore default boot loaders on removable disks if rEFInd was installed using the fallback filename. I've also modified the ISO-9660 driver so that it works with ISO-9660 images written to non-optical media. This may help with getting "hybrid ISO" images written to USB flash drives to boot.
+
+- 0.6.2 (12/30/2012)—This version's biggest changes are "behind-the-scenes" improvements. Specifically, I've completely re-worked the shim/MOK Secure Boot code, based largely on an approach used by James Bottomley in his PreLoader boot loader. This fixes some bugs, such as the inability to launch more than one EFI boot loader in Secure Boot mode. The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with GNU-EFI, which may help distribution maintainers. I'm also providing RPM packages of rEFInd, although I recommend installing from the binary zip file. Finally, I've changed rEFInd's default text-mode setting behavior to not adjust the text mode. (Recent previous versions forced the system to use text mode 0, which cuased problems on some systems.)
+
+- 0.6.1 (12/21/2012)—(Mayan apocalypse edition!) This version features a number of refinements and minor bug fixes. The install.sh script now includes a new --root option to enable easier installation of rEFInd to a regular OS installation from an emergency disc. The ext4fs driver now supports the meta_bg filesystem feature. I've fixed a number of obscure display resolution-setting bugs and a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying certain error messages but before prompting you to continue. Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label as the "from" location for a boot loader, rEFInd now describes the filesystem by its type (FAT, ext4fs, etc.) and/or size. rEFInd also now uses the filesystem label as a hint about what type of icon to display for a boot loader.
+
+- 0.6.0 (12/16/2012)—The donation of a working ext4fs driver from Stefan Agner has prompted another big jump in the rEFInd version number, since this driver will greatly simplify installation on many systems: You may be able to simply run the install.sh script to get a working rEFInd that boots your Linux kernels directly, bypassing GRUB or ELILO. Other improvements in this version include bug fixes and minor changes to install.sh, the addition of hint text to the rEFInd main menu, the ability to disable the options editor via the editor option to hideui in refind.conf, a new textmode option to refind.conf to set the size of the text-mode display, a change to the code that adds your initial RAM disk to the boot options so that if you specify one manually (via refind_linux.conf), it will take precedence, and assorted obscure bug fixes. The NEWS.txt file goes into more details about many of these changes, as do the relevant pages of this HTML documentation.
+
+- 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012)—This is a micro-update to fix a bug in the install.sh script that prevented it from working under OS X. Aside from that, and a few small documentation changes, this version changes nothing in rEFInd.
+
+- 0.5.1 (12/11/2012)—The most important changes to this version are to the install.sh script. It now supports two options, --shim and --localkeys, to aid in installation on a Secure Boot system. See the Installing rEFInd and Managing Secure Boot pages for details. The script also now creates a sample /boot/refind_linux.conf file to assist in setting up boots via the Linux EFI stub loader. All of these install.sh improvements work only in Linux. A separate mkrlconf.sh script creates a /boot/refind_linux.conf file if it doesn't exist, for help in post-installation configuration. In rEFInd itself, I've fixed the bug that caused ELILO to be unable to locate its configuration file when launched in Secure Boot mode and fixed a couple of more obscure bugs. I've also added an include token to refind.conf, to enable you to create a secondary configuration file (say, one managed by scripts while leaving the main file untouched; or one dedicated to manual boot stanzas).
+
+- 0.5.0 (12/6/2012)—I've focused on adding support for Matthew J. Garrett's shim program to this version of rEFInd; with this support, rEFInd is capable of launching Linux kernels and other programs signed with a suitable key while the computer is in Secure Boot mode. This initial release, however, requires significant manual configuration and has some known bugs and limitations. See the Managing Secure Boot page for details. Beyond this major new feature, this version includes several more minor improvements. These include a change to the resolution token so that it applies to text mode as well as to graphics mode; a bug fix that caused the line editor to blank out lines that were left unedited; a new dont_scan_files option to blacklist boot programs by filename; support for launching MokManager and Apple's Recovery HD partitions via tools (2nd-row) icons; new --usedefault and --drivers options to the install.sh script; a change of the esp installation script option to --esp; and the ability to use quote marks inside option strings by doubling them up.
- 0.4.7 (11/6/2012)—The most important new feature in this version is a boot options editor. From rEFInd's main menu, press Insert or F2 to see the options menu. Select one of the options and press Insert or F2 again and the screen switches to a text-mode display in which you can edit the options that will be passed to the boot loader. A second new feature is a new icon for gummiboot, which is another EFI boot manager. This version also alters the behavior of the scan_delay option, since I've been told that the previous version didn't work; the new one does. Finally, this version omits the space that followed boot options when booting most OSes. This behavior was inherited from rEFIt; a comment in the source code indicates it's needed by OS X, but I've been told it causes boot failures when launching Linux on some Macs. Thus, rEFInd now adds this space only when booting Mac OS X.
@@ -143,7 +212,7 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
-copyright © 2012 by Roderick W. Smith
+copyright © 2012–2013 by Roderick W. Smith
This document is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (FDL), version 1.3.