]> code.delx.au - refind/blob - NEWS.txt
Release of version 0.10.3.
[refind] / NEWS.txt
1 0.10.3 (4/24/2016):
2 -------------------
3
4 - Altered RPM & Debian installation scripts so as to NOT call sbsign if
5 Secure Boot is disabled. This is a response to Ubuntu bug #1574372
6 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sbsigntool/+bug/1574372): In
7 Ubuntu 16.04, the sbsign program is segfaulting randomly, which prevents
8 proper installation of the program. This change at least permits proper
9 installation IF Secure Boot is disabled.
10
11 - Changed description of BIOS/CSM/legacy OS loaders on Macs to include the
12 string "(Legacy)", so as to more easily identify BIOS/CSM/legacy-mode OSes
13 in the rEFInd main menu.
14
15 - Added recognition of the fwupx64.efi file as a firmware update tool.
16 This filename is excluded from the first-row launchers, and is instead
17 presented on the second row, controlled by the "fwupdate" item on the
18 "showtools" option line. It's enabled by default. Note that it's still a
19 bit unclear to me how this tool is supposed to be used. rEFInd launches it
20 with no options, but if it should take options, this will have to be
21 changed in the future.
22
23 - Tightened exclusion of shell binary filenames from boot loader scan.
24 Previously, any filename containing the substring "shell" was excluded
25 from scans. Now it's tighter; only files matching one of the filenames in
26 the constant SHELL_NAMES in main.c are excluded. This change will enable
27 programs with names that include "shell", but that aren't in rEFInd's
28 SHELL_NAMES list, such as "shelly.efi", to be shown in the rEFInd main
29 menu.
30
31 - Fixed bug in NTFS driver that caused it to hang (and thus hang the
32 computer) in some situations, particularly when a file on an NTFS volume
33 had many fragments and when the computer's CSM was activated. (Fix
34 courtesy of "S L.")
35
36 - Modified SIP/CSR rotation code: If the csr-active-config EFI variable is
37 missing AND the firmware is Apple (as identified by the string "Apple"
38 being present in the ST->FirmwareVendor string), rEFInd treats the
39 computer as one on which SIP is available and set to the "enabled" state
40 (0x10). The upshot is that the SIP/CSR tool will appear if the showtools
41 and csr_values options are set appropriately in refind.conf, even if the
42 csr-active-config variable is missing from the NVRAM. The point of this
43 change is that I've received reports of some Macs that run OS X 10.11 but
44 that lack this variable. OS X acts as if SIP were enabled, but rEFInd is
45 then unable to disable SIP. This change gives rEFInd the ability to
46 disable SIP on such systems. The drawback is that the variable might be
47 set on some systems that don't run OS X 10.11. This should be harmless
48 from a technical point of view, but the presence of SIP indicators in
49 rEFInd could be confusing.
50
51 - Added refind-mkdefault script to simplify resetting rEFInd as the default
52 boot program in Linux. The intent is to run this after GRUB, Windows, OS
53 X, or some other tool takes over as the primary boot manager. It can be
54 called from a startup script to handle this task automatically.
55
56 0.10.2 (1/26/2016):
57 -------------------
58
59 - Fixed bug in refind-install that caused mountesp to be installed as a FILE
60 called /usr/local/bin on OS X if the /usr/local/bin directory did not
61 already exist.
62
63 - Fixed bug in mvrefind that caused it to fail to move bootmgfw.efi in
64 some situations, and another that caused it to give the resulting NVRAM
65 entry the default rEFInd name of "rEFInd Boot Manager," rather than the
66 intended "Windows Boot Manager" (to work around bugs in some EFIs).
67
68 - Worked around bug/quirk in some EFIs (in HP ProBook 6470b laptop, at
69 least) that prevented EFI filesystem drivers from working. (Drivers would
70 load but not provide access to filesystems.)
71
72 - Fixed refind-install bug that caused --usedefault option to not work in OS
73 X. (This bug did not affect Linux.)
74
75 - Improved Secure Boot detection in refind-install in Linux.
76
77 - Fixed bug that caused custom volume badges (vol_*.png) to be read only
78 from default location ("icons" subdirectory), effectively eliminating the
79 ability to adjust them.
80
81 - Added centos.crt and centos.cer public key files.
82
83 0.10.1 (12/12/2015):
84 --------------------
85
86 - Change to PPA version: Installing the PPA now queries the user about
87 whether to install to the ESP. Upgrades will remember the initial
88 selection.
89
90 - Modified time-based sorting of loaders in a single directory to push
91 anything starting with "vmlinuz-0-rescue" to the end of the list. Fedora
92 gives its rescue kernels filenames that begin with that string, and if
93 such a kernel happens to be the most recent, treating it normally will
94 cause it to become the default when kernel folding is in use. This is
95 almost certainly undesirable, so this change keeps the rescue kernel at
96 the end of the list instead, which is saner.
97
98 - Significantly reworked the project's Makefiles. This should have no
99 impact on ordinary users, and even most developers should barely notice
100 it; but it should make future extensions to additional platforms or
101 building in different environments easier.
102
103 - Added workaround to gptsync for issue with some Macs' EFIs that caused
104 the program to skip through all prompts, thus accepting the default
105 option. This would normally cause gptsync to do nothing.
106
107 - Added type code 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC (Apple Core Storage,
108 gdisk type AF05) to list of partition types recognized by gptsync.
109
110 - Removed Luxi Sans Mono font, since I discovered it was not open source;
111 and changed the default font from Nimbus Mono to Liberation Mono.
112
113 - Added support for compiling rEFInd for ARM64 (aka AARCH64 or aa64). This
114 works with both GNU-EFI and Tianocore UDK2014.SP1.P1. This support is
115 currently poorly tested. In particular, I used QEMU on an x86-64 computer
116 to create a virtualized ARM64 environment; I've not yet tested on a real
117 computer. I couldn't get QEMU to create a video card, so I used a serial
118 terminal, which means that the graphics features are untested -- I ran
119 rEFInd with "textonly" uncommented in refind.conf. I've tested the ext4fs
120 driver but no other drivers, although they all compile. (So does gptsync,
121 although it's unlikely to be useful on ARM64.) Some rEFInd features are
122 meaningless on ARM64, such as BIOS-mode boot support, anything geared
123 toward Macs (csr_values/csr_rotate, spoof_osx_version, etc.), and
124 enable_and_lock_vmx.
125
126 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan EFI boot loaders on
127 removable media when rEFInd itself was launched from the fallback
128 filename.
129
130 - Moved detailed descriptions of refind-install from installing.html to
131 a refind-install man page. To keep this information Web-accessible, I've
132 also created HTML versions of the three man pages and linked them into
133 the HTML documentation.
134
135 - Updated LodePNG to latest version (20151024).
136
137 - Fixed bugs in mkrlconf and in refind-install that could cause some kernel
138 options to be excluded from refind_linux.conf. There were two trouble
139 conditions:
140 - Previously, these scripts assumed that the first option in
141 /proc/cmdline was the kernel's filename, but this isn't always the
142 case. (In particular, when gummiboot launches the kernel, this is not
143 true. It might be an incorrect assumption in some other cases, too.)
144 The fix involves checking for likely signs of a kernel filename before
145 discarding this first option.
146 - These scripts cut the "initrd=*" option from /proc/cmdline, but the
147 call to "sed" was overzealous and cut until the end of input. This
148 usually worked, since the initrd= option was usually last on the line;
149 but if it wasn't, any options following initrd= would be lost.
150
151 - Added "kernel*" as a matching pattern for Linux kernels, since this is
152 what Gentoo uses by default.
153
154 - The refind-install script can now be run as a symbolic link in Linux.
155 This enables creating a /usr/sbin/refind-install link in Linux packages,
156 with the binaries stashed wherever the package system likes them. This
157 feature does NOT work in OS X, but there's relatively little need for it
158 there.
159
160 0.10.0 (11/8/2015):
161 -------------------
162
163 - Fixed bug that caused refind-install to not unmount the ESP when it
164 should under OS X.
165
166 - Modified refind-install and mkrlconf scripts to use /proc/cmdline as
167 source for default boot options EXCEPT when refind-install receives the
168 --root option. In that case, refind-install continues to use
169 /etc/default/grub as the source of default options. The idea behind this
170 change is that it's more reliable to get boot options from /proc/cmdline
171 when the targeted system is the one that's booted; but --root would be
172 used from emergency disks or live CDs, in which case the current boot
173 options would be completely wrong, so extracting boot options from GRUB
174 files is the best bet for getting close to the right options.
175
176 - Added "@/boot" to default also_scan_dirs setting. This makes kernels
177 show up on Btrfs volumes under Ubuntu (and perhaps others), at least when
178 the Btrfs driver is loaded.
179
180 - Added new System Integrity Protection (SIP) rotation feature for Macs
181 running OS X 10.11 or later. This feature is disabled by default, except
182 on CD-R and USB flash drive images, on which it's enabled. To enable it,
183 you must make TWO changes to refind.conf: Uncomment the new "csr_values"
184 item and add "csr_rotate" to the "showtools" line (uncommenting it, too,
185 if it's commented out). If desired, you can set more values on
186 "csr_values"; these are comma-delimited one-byte hexadecimal values that
187 define various SIP states. When SIP/CSR rotation is activated, a new
188 shield icon appears among the tools. Selecting it causes the next defined
189 value to be set and a confirmation message to appear for three seconds.
190
191 - Added display of current System Integrity Protection (SIP) mode to
192 "About" display.
193
194 - Added mountesp script for OS X to (you guessed it!) mount the ESP.
195
196 - Renamed support scripts: install.sh to refind-install, mvrefind.sh to
197 mvrefind, and mkrlconf.sh to mkrlconf.
198
199 - New icons! The old ones were getting to be a jumbled mess of styles,
200 particularly for OS tags. I used the AwOken icon set
201 (http://alecive.deviantart.com/art/AwOken-163570862) for the core icons,
202 then expanded from there by creating my own icons and modifying icons for
203 Debian and Elementary OS. I'm also trying to keep better track of
204 copyrights and licenses on icons. Between that and some icons being for
205 OSes that probably see very little use (FreeDOS and eComstation, for
206 instance), a few OS icons have been lost. If you prefer the old icons,
207 you can continue to use them by upgrading rEFInd, renaming icons-backup
208 to something else (say, icons-classic), and then adding an "icons" line
209 in refind.conf to point to the old icons directory.
210
211 - Changed from .zip to .tar.gz as source code archive format. I did this
212 because Linux is the only officially-supported build platform, and
213 tarballs are a more natural fit to a Linux environment. I'm leaving .zip,
214 .deb, and .rpm files as the formats for binary packages.
215
216 - Added detection of System Integrity Protection (SIP; aka "rootless") mode
217 to OS X portion of install.sh script. When detected, and if no existing
218 rEFInd installation is found, the script now prints a warning and brief
219 instructions of how to enter the Recovery mode to install rEFInd and
220 suggests aborting the installation. (The user can override and attempt
221 installation anyhow.) If SIP is detected along with an existing rEFInd
222 installation, the script moderates the warning and explains that an
223 update of a working rEFInd will probably succeed, but that re-installing
224 to fix a broken rEFInd will probably fail.
225
226 - Added new "spoof_osx_version" token, which takes an OS X version number
227 (such as "10.9") as an option. This feature, when enabled, causes rEFInd
228 to tell a Mac's firmware that the specified version of OS X is being
229 launched. This option is usually unnecessary, but it can help properly
230 initialize some hardware -- particularly secondary video devices. OTOH,
231 on some Macs it can cause hardware (notably keyboards and mice) to become
232 unresponsive, so you should not use this option unnecessarily.
233
234 - Worked around an EFI bug that affected my 32-bit Mac Mini: That system
235 seems to have a broken EFI, or possibly a buggy CPU, that causes some
236 (but not all) conversions from floating-point to integer numbers to hang
237 the computer. Such operations were performed only in rEFInd's
238 graphics-resizing code, and so would manifest only when icons or
239 background images were resized. My fix eliminates the use of
240 floating-point operations in the affected function, which eliminates the
241 crashes. There may be some degradation in the quality of resized images,
242 though, particularly on 32-bit systems. (64-bit systems use larger
243 integers, which enable greater precision in my floating-point
244 workaround.)
245
246 - Under OS X, install.sh can now be run from the recovery system. This may
247 help work around OS X 10.11's problems with System Integrity Protection,
248 since it should be possible to reboot into the recovery system to install
249 rEFInd without disabling SIP for the main installation, even for just one
250 boot.
251
252 0.9.2 (9/19/2015):
253 ------------------
254
255 - Added "--keepname" option to install.sh. This option causes install.sh
256 to keep refind_x64.efi named as such rather than rename it as grubx64.efi
257 when using Shim. This option is meaningful only if the --shim option is
258 also used. This option passes the refind_x64.efi filename as an option to
259 Shim, which overrides the default filename of grubx64.efi. A big caveat:
260 Only Shim 0.7 and later supports this feature. (Shim 0.4 also works if a
261 refind_x64.efi is referred to as "\refind_x64.efi" on the command line,
262 but the need for a leading backslash to refer to a file in the same
263 directory as Shim is so confusing and wrong that I cannot in good
264 conscience support it.) I've not seen signed Shim binaries between 0.4
265 and 0.7, so I don't know if any of them might work.
266
267 - Implemented a workaround for a bug in Shim 0.8 that prevented
268 authentication of more than one binary. If any filesystem drivers were
269 installed, the first one would be verified, leaving rEFInd unable to
270 launch anything else unless it was signed by a key in the computer's main
271 Secure Boot db list.
272
273 0.9.1 (9/13/2015):
274 ------------------
275
276 - When rEFInd identifies the root (/) partition via the Freedesktop.org
277 Discoverable Partitions Specification, it now checks two of the
278 partition's attributes, as per the DPS (see
279 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
280 - The partition's read-only attribute determines whether to pass a "rw"
281 or "ro" option to the kernel.
282 - If the partition's do-not-automount flag is set, rEFInd will not pass
283 it as a "root=" option to the kernel. This flag can be used to remove
284 all but one partition from consideration as a root (/) partition if a
285 system has more than one with the correct type code.
286
287 - Improved Freedesktop.org Discoverable Partitions Specification support:
288 Previously, if no refind_linux.conf file was present but an /etc/fstab
289 file was found, rEFInd ignored the Discoverable Partitions Specification
290 filesystem-type codes. This was fine if /etc/fstab contained a valid "/"
291 filesystem specification, but if that was absent, the result was no
292 "root=" specification being present. Under these circumstances
293 (refind_linux.conf absent, /etc/fstab present but lacking a "/" entry),
294 rEFInd now tries to identify a device to specify as "root=" via the
295 Discoverable Partitions Specification.
296
297 - Fixed bug that caused "Found match!" and a prompt to press a key to
298 continue to be printed if any partition used the Freedesktop.org
299 Discoverable Partitions Specification root-partition GUID. (This
300 was leftover debugging/testing code that I somehow missed deleting.)
301
302 - Added icon for Elementary OS.
303
304 - Added /etc/lsb-release to files scanned for clues about the Linux
305 distribution. This file differentiates Mint and Elementary OS from Ubuntu
306 better than does /etc/os-release, and may also help with other
307 closely-related distributions.
308
309 - Improvements to handling of case-insensitive string comparisons. These
310 are buggy on some EFIs, and such bugs affect things like dont_scan_*
311 blacklists, removal of rEFInd's own directory from scanning, matching of
312 keyword names in refind.conf, and even loading of icons. I've replaced
313 many calls to problematic functions with safer calls, which should help a
314 lot. There may still be problems on some systems with some computers,
315 though; as far as I can tell, the bugs are buried deep in some EFI
316 firmware, so I can only replace some of the most direct calls to
317 potentially buggy system calls.
318
319 0.9.0 (7/26/2015):
320 ------------------
321
322 - New icon for Kali Linux, submitted by Francesco D'Eugenio.
323
324 - Minor code changes to ensure that rEFInd compiles with GCC 5.1. (Tested
325 with GNU-EFI on a Fedora 22 system; not yet tested with the TianoCore
326 EDK2.)
327
328 - Added new "fold_linux_kernels" token to refind.conf. This option, when
329 active (the default) "folds" all Linux kernels in a directory into a
330 single entry on the rEFInd menu. The kernel with the most recent time
331 stamp is launched by default. To launch another kernel, you must press F2
332 or Insert; additional kernels appear as options on the first kernel's
333 submenu. To see the pre-0.9.0 behavior, you must set "fold_linux_kernels
334 false" (or one of its synonyms, "off" or "0"). The point of this option
335 is to help de-clutter the rEFInd main menu.
336
337 - Added new Linux root (/) partition auto-discovery feature, based on
338 Freedesktop.org's Discoverable Partitions Spec (DPS)
339 (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
340 If no refind_linux.conf file or /etc/fstab file is found, and if a
341 partition with the correct DPS type code for the system architecture is
342 found, rEFInd adds "ro root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/{GUID}" to the kernel
343 options. This will not help on LVM setups, and will get it right for only
344 one installation on systems with multiple Linux installations, but it may
345 help some users, if/when the DPS type codes become more common.
346
347 - Fixed bug that caused a rEFInd crash if an empty refind_linux.conf
348 file was encountered.
349
350 - The mkrlconf.sh script now checks the OS on which it's running, which
351 should help avoid confusion or problems by users who mistakenly run it
352 under OS X.
353
354 - rEFInd now skips checking for various BIOS-mode boot sector signatures
355 when running on a UEFI-based PC; these checks are run only on Macs. This
356 may reduce startup time on systems with many partitions.
357
358 - Fixed Debian debinstall script to work correctly on IA32 systems. It had
359 a bug that caused filesystem drivers and gptsync to not be packaged for
360 IA32.
361
362 - Modified Debian postinst file to call install.sh with --localkeys option
363 if sbsign and openssl are available, even when NOT in Secure Boot mode or
364 if shim is not detected. This helps with my Ubuntu PPA when using custom
365 Secure Boot keys, since the PPA is delivered unsigned. (Users will have
366 to have added their own local keys to their firmware's db.) For
367 consistency, I've made the same change to the RPM .spec file.
368
369 0.8.7 (3/1/2015):
370 -----------------
371
372 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused inappropriate installation under the
373 name bootx64.efi (or bootia32.efi) under Linux, with a failure to update
374 the boot entries in NVRAM, has been fixed.
375
376 - Added identification of XFS as filesystem type in volume descriptions.
377
378 - More fixes to filesystem type detection code. Previous version sometimes
379 identified FAT or NTFS (or anything with a boot loader) as a whole-disk
380 device rather than the correct filesystem type.
381
382 - Added protections to the code to reduce the risk of crashes that might
383 occur when dereferencing NULL pointers in various situations.
384
385 - I'm deprecating the use of filesystem numbers (as in "fs0:") because
386 they're unreliable -- filesystem numbers can change between boots and
387 might not be the same as those used in an EFI shell or other program.
388 Sooner or later I'll remove code supporting this feature. In the
389 meantime, if it doesn't work for you, please switch to using filesystem
390 labels, partition labels, or partition GUIDs.
391
392 - Added detection of FreeBSD's BIOS-mode GPT boot loader. Previously,
393 rEFInd could detect FreeBSD's BIOS-mode MBR boot loader, which gave
394 FreeBSD an appropriate icon on Macs; but the BIOS-mode GPT boot loader
395 code is different, so some recent FreeBSD installations showed up with
396 generic grey diamond icons. This change creates FreeBSD icons instead.
397
398 - Added "Secure Boot [active|inactive]" notice to "about" menu for x86
399 (32-bit) systems, since there are now a few 32-bit UEFI systems that
400 support Secure Boot. (AFAIK, these are mostly tablets and convertibles
401 such as the ASUS T100.)
402
403 - Added KeyTool.efi and KeyTool-signed.efi to list of MOK managers. KeyTool
404 is the "super-deluxe" Secure Boot key and hash manager provided as part
405 of the efitools package.
406
407 - Fixed more instances of "invalid parameter" errors on some EFIs.
408
409 - Improved Secure Boot detection in install.sh.
410
411 - install.sh should no longer complain when copying Shim or MokManager over
412 itself.
413
414 0.8.6 (2/8/2015):
415 -----------------
416
417 - Removed special case of ignoring an HFS+ name of "HFS+ volume", since the
418 old rEFInd HFS+ driver that produced this name for all HFS+ volumes has
419 long since been updated to deliver a real name.
420
421 - Addition of new Windows 8 OS icon. On Macs and for BIOS/legacy boots, the
422 new icon is now used for Windows Vista, 7, and 8, while the old one is
423 used for earlier versions of Windows. For EFI-mode boots, the new icon is
424 used universally.
425
426 - If the NTFS driver is loaded, rEFInd now scans NTFS volumes on Macs for
427 the presence of Windows boot files, and removes any NTFS volume that
428 lacks such files from the BIOS/legacy boot list. This should help
429 unclutter the display on Macs that contain NTFS data partitions.
430
431 - Fixed bug that caused misidentification of both whole disks and NTFS
432 volumes as being FAT. (This bug affected the identification of devices
433 and locations in the rEFInd menu, not actual access to devices.)
434
435 - Code refactoring to clear out legacy-boot functions from the
436 ever-expanding refind/main.c file.
437
438 - Added new "badges" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf. This
439 option hides the device-type badges associated with the OS boot options.
440
441 - Reverted rEFIt commit r472, introduced in rEFInd 0.8.5 to support more
442 BMP images because I've received bug reports that it's causing existing
443 selection images to fail to load.
444
445 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused misidentification of installation
446 directory under OS X if an already-mounted ESP has spaces in its path.
447
448 - Fixed Mac-specific install.sh bug that could cause misidentification of
449 the ESP on disks with partition numbers of 10 or above.
450
451
452 0.8.5 (2/1/2015):
453 -----------------
454
455 - Added NTFS EFI filesystem driver.
456
457 - Minor improvements to filesystem driver framework code.
458
459 - Changes to
460
461 - Fixed bug in Btrfs driver's address reference.
462
463 - Improved install.sh to make it smarter about figuring out where to
464 install on Macs. Specifically, this version now upgrades existing
465 installations, if found (as it always has under Linux), rather than
466 blindly install to EFI/BOOT; it installs to EFI/refind if not existing
467 installation is found; it installs using the --shortform option to bless,
468 which seems to eliminate the 30-second delay problem; and it can handle
469 an HFS+ ESP, which it treats as a separate HFS+ volume (as if the user
470 had used --ownhfs). These changes do not affect behavior under Linux.
471
472 - Added missing check of architecture type for several tools.
473
474 - Applied rEFIt commit r472, which adds support for BMP images with negative
475 height fields, indicating that the image is NOT vertically flipped. This
476 commit and r467 were not incorporated in the original rEFInd because I
477 forked it from a Debian rEFIt package that had been patched to build
478 under GNU-EFI, and was apparently based on a slightly earlier version.
479
480 - Applied rEFIt commit r467, which improves Mac handling of legacy boots
481 from other than the first hard disk.
482
483
484 0.8.4 (12/8/2014):
485 ------------------
486
487 - Tweaked default for dont_scan_volumes: Removed "Recovery HD". This change
488 better suits the needs of OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") installations, but may
489 result in some stray Recovery HD entries on some Macs.
490
491 - Updated icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu.
492
493 - Added new configuration option, "enable_and_lock_vmx", which sets an
494 Intel CPU feature that's required for some types of virtualization to
495 work. Most EFIs enable setting this feature in their own setup utilities,
496 but some (such as most Macs) don't.
497
498 - If rEFInd can't locate an icons directory (either the default or one
499 specified by the icons_dir token), the program switches to text-only
500 mode.
501
502 - If a loader contains the string "grub" and no other clue to the loader's
503 OS association exists, search for os_grub.{png|icns} (which is not
504 provided with rEFInd) or os_linux.{png|icns}. (Previous versions provided
505 a generic loader icon for GRUB.)
506
507 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_files to not work with special-case
508 boot loaders (for OS X and Windows) when specifying the complete path to
509 the loader (e.g., EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi).
510
511 - Added support for the iPXE network boot tool (see BUILDING.txt for
512 building and basic use instructions).
513
514 0.8.3 (7/6/2014):
515 -----------------
516
517 - Added new feature: Setting "timeout = -1" in refind.conf causes rEFInd to
518 immediately boot the default option UNLESS a keypress is in the buffer
519 when rEFInd launches. In that case, if the keypress corresponds to a
520 shortcut key, the associated boot loader is launched; or if not, the menu
521 is displayed.
522
523 - Added new icons for Clover boot loader and for Mythbuntu Linux
524 distribution.
525
526 - rEFInd now displays the partition's label, when one is available, when
527 offering a BIOS-mode boot option for a partition with no filesystem
528 driver. This works only on Macs doing BIOS-mode booting.
529
530 - Removed GPLv2 code from the FSW core files. This was done because the
531 Btrfs driver is derived from the GRUB Btrfs driver, which is licensed
532 under the GPLv3. Ironically, the GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible
533 licenses, so ensuring that the Btrfs driver doesn't rely on GPLv2 code
534 was legally necessary. In most cases, I reverted to the original rEFIt
535 code, although I kept my own cache code; since I wrote it, I can
536 change its license to a BSD license.
537
538 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers immediately after loading
539 them. This didn't affect rEFInd's own drivers because they didn't include
540 the unload hooks, but it did affect some other drivers.
541
542 - Changed default scan_all_linux_kernels setting from "false" to "true",
543 and commented the option out in refind.conf-sample. This should not
544 affect most people, since refind.conf-sample had this option commented
545 out, and most rEFInd users either use it that way or don't have Linux
546 kernels installed at all. I've made this change because I want rEFInd to
547 "do the right thing" by default in as many cases as possible. For a while
548 now, rEFInd has been excluding non-bootable files from its menu, and most
549 kernels "in the wild" now include the EFI stub. Thus, enabling this
550 support by default seems worthwhile. If you prefer to not scan Linux
551 kernels by default, simply uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" line
552 and ensure it's set to "false".
553
554 0.8.2.1 (6/8/2014):
555 -------------------
556
557 - Removed stray bit of debugging code that caused a prompt to press a
558 key to appear at rEFInd startup.
559
560 0.8.2 (6/8/2014):
561 -----------------
562
563 - Changed behavior when default_selection is not set: It now boots the
564 previously-booted loader, assuming it's still available; if not, rEFInd
565 boots the first loader (as it does now). Behavior is unchanged if
566 default_selection is set. Note that this behavior depends on the ability
567 of rEFInd to store an EFI variable in NVRAM. It therefore fails on
568 systems with flaky NVRAM storage. You can view the previously-booted
569 loader in the
570 /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740
571 variable under Linux.
572
573 - Added icon for Mageia Linux (os_mageia.png).
574
575 - Fixed bug that could misidentify a not-quite-GUID as a GUID in a
576 manual boot stanza's "volume" line.
577
578 - I've updated my personal build system, and therefore the rEFInd Makefiles
579 and related files, to use TianoCore UDK2014 rather than UDK2010.
580
581 - Added "deep_uefi_legacy_scan" token. When not set (the default), rEFInd
582 does not modify EFI NVRAM settings when scanning for BIOS-mode boot
583 loaders on UEFI-based (non-Mac) computers. Some computers require
584 uncommenting this setting for rEFInd to reliably detect some BIOS-mode
585 boot devices. Passing "0", "off", or "false" as an option resets it to
586 the default value (useful in a loaded secondary configuration file to
587 override a setting in the main file).
588
589 0.8.1 (5/15/2014):
590 ------------------
591
592 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders stored
593 on the root directory of a partition.
594
595 - Added two new bitmap fonts to those distributed with rEFInd: Ubuntu Mono
596 and Nimbus Mono. Both come in 12-, 14-, 16-, and 24-point sizes.
597
598 - Messages about pauses for scanning and re-scanning of boot loaders are
599 now suppressed when doing an initial delayed scan when scan_delay is 1
600 second.
601
602 - Improved centering of legacy boot option descriptions on some systems'
603 screens.
604
605 - Fixed bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot to boot from an inappropriate
606 device if that device had an innately high boot priority (as set by the
607 firmware).
608
609 - Changed icons from ICNS to PNG form. There are several reasons to do
610 this, all of them minor; but together they're enough to warrant a change.
611 PNG is more common, and therefore more accessible to most users --
612 particularly those who don't use OS X. The PNG files are smaller than
613 their ICNS equivalents. PNG supports a wider range of sizes (although I'm
614 not now using anything that ICNS doesn't support, I might in the future).
615 The icon-scaling support added a few versions ago makes ICNS's support
616 for multiple icon sizes relatively unimportant.
617
618 - Reversed order of search for icons by extension: rEFInd now searches
619 for PNG files before ICNS files, rather than the other way around. This
620 makes it possible to override a volume icon for rEFInd by giving it the
621 name .VolumeIcon.png, even when a .VolumeIcon.icns file exists on the
622 volume and is used by OS X.
623
624 - Fixed bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take higher-than-intended
625 precedence in icon setting for OS X.
626
627 - Chainloading to BIOS-mode boot loaders now works on UEFI-based PCs when
628 rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI, not just when built with Tianocore.
629
630 0.8.0 (5/4/2014):
631 -----------------
632
633 - The "dont_scan_volumes" parameter now also works with legacy-boot
634 volumes. Unlike with EFI volumes, where the option you pass must exactly
635 match an entire volume name, when applied to legacy-boot volumes, it
636 matches any part of the description that appears beneath the item when
637 you select it in the rEFInd main menu.
638
639 - Can now boot in legacy mode from second (and probably later) hard disks!
640
641 - rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware name string shown in the
642 system information screen to 65 characters. This is done because at least
643 one EFI presents a longer string by default, and this causes the entire
644 information display to come up empty on 800x600 displays.
645
646 - rEFInd now uses the partition's name (as stored in the GPT data
647 structures) as a fallback for the filesystem's name if the latter can't
648 be found. Exceptions are if the partition name is one of three generic
649 names used by GPT fdisk: "Microsoft basic data", "Linux filesystem", or
650 "Apple HFS/HFS+". These are ignored in favor of the descriptive fallback
651 (e.g., "20 GiB Btrfs volume")
652
653 - It's now possible to specify a volume by partition GUID number in a
654 manual boot stanza. This should be more reliable (albeit also more
655 awkward) than using a filesystem number (such as fs0: or fs1:).
656
657 - Fixed memory-allocation bug that could cause error message displays,
658 and possibly hangs, when re-scanning boot loaders.
659
660 0.7.9 (4/20/2014):
661 ------------------
662
663 - Attempt to fix rEFInd perpetually re-scanning after ejecting a disc on
664 some Macs.
665
666 - Added check to remove redundant (or non-functional if Secure Boot is
667 active) kernel entries for Ubuntu, which is now including two versions of
668 kernels, one signed and the other unsigned.
669
670 - Fixed bug in install.sh that could cause it to display error messages
671 if the dmraid utility was not installed.
672
673 - The HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name.
674
675 - Fixed some EFI filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups under
676 some circumstances. These bugs could affect any of the filesystem
677 drivers.
678
679 - Added "gdisk" option to the "showtools" configuration file token. When
680 active, this adds gdisk.efi or gdisk_{arch}.efi, if present in the
681 EFI\tools directory, to the tools row.
682
683 - Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility
684 utility."
685
686
687 0.7.8 (3/9/2014):
688 -----------------
689
690 - Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian
691 packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run
692 any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the
693 hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run
694 install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64
695 references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of
696 concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else.
697
698 - Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of
699 the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively.
700 The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type
701 badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and
702 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If
703 the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified,
704 rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn
705 to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf.
706
707 - rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes.
708 This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it
709 can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a
710 graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so
711 scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128
712 OS icon) is not likely to look good.
713
714 - Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners:
715 Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll
716 be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the
717 behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the
718 banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display.
719
720 - Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate
721 RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for
722 existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi
723 rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages
724 were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note,
725 however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd
726 The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine;
727 it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that
728 problems might arise.
729
730 0.7.7 (1/3/2014):
731 -----------------
732
733 - Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in
734 dont_scan_files.
735
736 - Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
737
738 - Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a
739 Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to
740 "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery
741 utility on the second row of icons.
742
743 - The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files,
744 and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first
745 option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default
746 value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for
747 scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.)
748
749 - Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch,
750 via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the
751 foo.conf file as the main configuration file.
752
753 - Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with
754 duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so
755 would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given
756 UUID.
757
758 - Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP
759 in Linux, if it's currently unmounted.
760
761 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
762 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
763 under some circumstances.
764
765 0.7.6 (12/15/2013):
766 -------------------
767
768 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
769 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
770 default_selection "fred,ginger"
771 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
772 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
773
774 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
775 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
776 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
777 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
778 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
779 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
780 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
781 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
782 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
783 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
784 depending on your computer.
785
786 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
787 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
788 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
789 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
790 screensaver will be disabled.
791
792 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
793 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
794 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
795 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
796 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
797
798 0.7.5 (11/10/2013):
799 -------------------
800
801 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
802 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
803
804 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
805 versions of OS X to fail.
806
807 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
808 drivers were present.
809
810 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
811 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
812 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
813 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
814 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
815 black a second or so later.
816
817 0.7.4.1 (8/25/2013):
818 --------------------
819
820 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
821 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
822 problem.
823
824 0.7.4 (8/25/2013):
825 ------------------
826
827 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
828 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
829 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
830
831 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
832 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
833 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
834 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
835 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
836 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
837 default.
838
839 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
840 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
841 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
842 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
843
844 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
845 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
846 known case, but there may be others.)
847
848 0.7.3 (8/7/2013):
849 -----------------
850
851 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
852 loaders on Macs.
853
854 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
855
856 0.7.2 (8/6/2013):
857 -----------------
858
859 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
860 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
861
862 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
863 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
864
865 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
866 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
867
868 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
869 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
870 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
871 HashTool-signed.efi".
872
873 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
874
875 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
876 was broken.
877
878 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
879 was broken.
880
881 0.7.1 (7/8/2013):
882 -----------------
883
884 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
885
886 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
887 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
888 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
889
890 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
891 volume specification, if present.
892
893 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
894
895 0.7.0 (6/27/2013):
896 ------------------
897
898 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
899 type for volumes that lack labels.
900
901 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
902 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
903 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
904 though.
905
906 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
907 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
908 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
909 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
910 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
911 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
912 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
913 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
914
915 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
916 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
917 non-EFI loaders, etc.
918
919 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
920 code.
921
922 0.6.12 (6/18/2013):
923 -------------------
924
925 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
926 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
927
928 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
929 script.
930
931 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
932 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
933 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
934 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
935
936 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
937 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
938 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
939 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
940
941 0.6.11 (5/13/2013):
942 -------------------
943
944 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
945 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
946 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
947 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
948
949 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
950
951 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
952 directory names that contain spaces.
953
954 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
955 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
956 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
957 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
958 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
959
960 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
961 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
962
963 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
964 Utility" in menu.
965
966 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
967 partitions to fill the MBR.
968
969 0.6.10 (5/5/2013):
970 ------------------
971
972 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
973 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
974 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
975 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
976
977 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
978 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
979 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
980 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
981 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
982
983 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
984 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
985 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
986 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
987 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
988 is quietly ignored.
989
990 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
991 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
992
993 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
994 encountered when saving a screen shot.
995
996 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
997 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
998 sequence number, starting with "001".
999
1000 0.6.9 (4/25/2013):
1001 ------------------
1002
1003 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
1004 Kemperman.
1005
1006 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
1007 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
1008
1009 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
1010 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
1011 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
1012
1013 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
1014 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
1015 accidentally trash their systems.
1016
1017 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
1018 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
1019 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
1020
1021 0.6.8 (3/18/2013):
1022 ------------------
1023
1024 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
1025 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
1026
1027 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
1028 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
1029
1030 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
1031 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
1032
1033 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
1034
1035 0.6.7 (2/3/2013):
1036 -----------------
1037
1038 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
1039 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
1040
1041 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
1042 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
1043 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
1044 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
1045
1046 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
1047 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
1048
1049 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
1050 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
1051
1052 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
1053 also_scan_dirs list.
1054
1055 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
1056
1057 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
1058 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
1059 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
1060
1061 0.6.6 (1/26/2013):
1062 ------------------
1063
1064 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
1065 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
1066 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
1067 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
1068 loader under the fallback name.
1069
1070 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
1071 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
1072 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
1073 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
1074 of 96 glyphs.
1075
1076 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
1077 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
1078
1079 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
1080 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
1081
1082 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
1083 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
1084 commented out or empty.
1085
1086 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
1087 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
1088
1089 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
1090 manual boot stanzas.
1091
1092 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
1093 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
1094
1095 0.6.5 (1/16/2013):
1096 ------------------
1097
1098 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
1099 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
1100
1101 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
1102
1103 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
1104
1105 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
1106 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
1107
1108 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
1109
1110 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
1111 sized to cover these areas.
1112
1113 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
1114 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
1115 resolution!
1116
1117 0.6.4 (1/8/2013):
1118 -----------------
1119
1120 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
1121 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
1122 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
1123 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
1124
1125 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
1126 startup on some systems.
1127
1128 0.6.3 (1/6/2013):
1129 -----------------
1130
1131 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
1132 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
1133
1134 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
1135 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
1136
1137 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
1138 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
1139 burned to USB flash disks.
1140
1141 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
1142 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
1143 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
1144
1145 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
1146 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
1147 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
1148 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
1149 from that installation.
1150
1151 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
1152 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
1153 than in EFI/refind.
1154
1155 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
1156 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
1157
1158 0.6.2 (12/30/2012):
1159 -------------------
1160
1161 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
1162 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
1163 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
1164
1165 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
1166 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
1167 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
1168 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
1169 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
1170
1171 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
1172 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
1173 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
1174 Linux with the "make" command.
1175
1176 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
1177 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
1178
1179 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
1180 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
1181 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
1182 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
1183 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
1184 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
1185 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
1186 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
1187
1188 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
1189 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
1190 default.)
1191
1192 0.6.1 (12/21/2012):
1193 -------------------
1194
1195 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
1196 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
1197 use on emergency discs.
1198
1199 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
1200 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
1201 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
1202 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
1203 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
1204 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
1205 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
1206 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
1207 handle.
1208
1209 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
1210
1211 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
1212 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
1213 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
1214 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
1215 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
1216 os_GENTOO.icns.
1217
1218 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
1219 mode.
1220
1221 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
1222 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
1223 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
1224 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
1225
1226 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
1227 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
1228 a boot loader launch failed.
1229
1230 0.6.0 (12/16/2012):
1231 -------------------
1232
1233 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
1234 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
1235 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
1236 options.
1237
1238 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
1239 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
1240 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
1241 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
1242
1243 - Added ext4fs driver!
1244
1245 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
1246
1247 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
1248
1249 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
1250 from a program that set the resolution itself.
1251
1252 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
1253 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
1254 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
1255 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
1256 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
1257 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
1258 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
1259 mode.
1260
1261 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
1262 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
1263 display even in graphics mode.
1264
1265 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
1266 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
1267
1268 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
1269 disables the boot options editor.
1270
1271 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
1272 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
1273
1274 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
1275 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
1276 from the /etc/default/grub file.
1277
1278 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
1279 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
1280
1281 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
1282 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
1283 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
1284 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
1285 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
1286 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
1287
1288 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
1289 on Linux systems.
1290
1291 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
1292 ---------------------
1293
1294 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
1295
1296 0.5.1 (12/11/2012):
1297 -------------------
1298
1299 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
1300 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
1301 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
1302 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
1303
1304 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
1305 configuration file from a primary one.
1306
1307 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
1308 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
1309 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
1310 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
1311 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
1312 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
1313 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
1314 LVM.)
1315
1316 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
1317 on systems with Secure Boot active.
1318
1319 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
1320 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
1321 refind.conf.
1322
1323 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
1324 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
1325
1326 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
1327 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
1328 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
1329
1330 0.5.0 (12/6/2012):
1331 ------------------
1332
1333 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
1334 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
1335 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
1336 This example results in the following string being passed as an
1337 option:
1338 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
1339
1340 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
1341 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
1342 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
1343 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
1344 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
1345 for them makes sense.
1346
1347 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
1348 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
1349 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
1350 EFI shells are also so limited.)
1351
1352 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
1353 were not actually edited.
1354
1355 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
1356 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
1357 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
1358 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
1359 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
1360
1361 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
1362 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
1363 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
1364 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
1365 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
1366 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
1367 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
1368 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
1369
1370 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
1371 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
1372 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
1373
1374 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
1375 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
1376 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
1377
1378 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
1379 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
1380 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
1381 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
1382
1383 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
1384 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
1385 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
1386
1387 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
1388 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
1389
1390 0.4.7 (11/6/2012):
1391 ------------------
1392
1393 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
1394
1395 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
1396 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
1397 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
1398
1399 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
1400 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
1401 told isn't working as planned).
1402
1403 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
1404 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
1405 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
1406 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
1407
1408 0.4.6 (10/6/2012):
1409 ------------------
1410
1411 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
1412
1413 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
1414 for disks.
1415
1416 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
1417 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
1418 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
1419 done this for two reasons:
1420 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
1421 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
1422 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
1423 default for them should help them.
1424 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
1425 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
1426 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
1427 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
1428 default configurations.
1429
1430 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
1431
1432 0.4.5 (8/12/2012):
1433 ------------------
1434
1435 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
1436
1437 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
1438
1439 0.4.4 (6/23/2012):
1440 ------------------
1441
1442 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
1443 32-bit systems.
1444
1445 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
1446 on 32-bit systems.
1447
1448 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
1449 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
1450 loaders/OSes.
1451
1452 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
1453
1454 0.4.3 (6/21/2012):
1455 ------------------
1456
1457 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
1458 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
1459
1460 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
1461 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
1462 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
1463 graphics or text mode itself.)
1464
1465 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
1466 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
1467 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
1468 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
1469 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
1470 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
1471 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
1472
1473 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
1474
1475 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
1476 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
1477 "linux.conf" themselves.
1478
1479 0.4.2 (6/3/2012):
1480 -----------------
1481
1482 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
1483 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
1484 via rEFInd.
1485
1486 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
1487 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
1488 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
1489 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
1490 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
1491 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
1492 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
1493 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
1494 the boot order).
1495
1496 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
1497 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
1498
1499 0.4.1 (5/25/2012):
1500 ------------------
1501
1502 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
1503 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
1504 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
1505 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
1506 system hasn't hung.
1507
1508 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
1509 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
1510
1511 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
1512
1513 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
1514 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
1515 label.)
1516
1517 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
1518 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
1519
1520 0.4.0 (5/20/2012):
1521 ------------------
1522
1523 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
1524 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
1525 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
1526 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
1527 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
1528 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
1529 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
1530
1531 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
1532 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
1533 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
1534
1535 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
1536 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
1537 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
1538 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
1539
1540 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
1541 file when launched from rEFInd.
1542
1543 0.3.5 (5/15/2012):
1544 ------------------
1545
1546 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
1547 received reports that it's not working as intended.
1548
1549 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
1550 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
1551 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
1552 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
1553 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
1554 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
1555
1556 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
1557 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
1558
1559 0.3.4 (5/9/2012):
1560 -----------------
1561
1562 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
1563 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
1564 sample configuration file for a full description.
1565
1566 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
1567 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
1568 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
1569 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
1570 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
1571
1572 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
1573 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
1574 target).
1575
1576 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
1577 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
1578
1579 0.3.3 (5/6/2012):
1580 -----------------
1581
1582 - Improved menu navigation:
1583 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
1584 down arrows move between rows.
1585 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
1586 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
1587 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
1588 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
1589
1590 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
1591 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
1592 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
1593
1594 0.3.2 (5/4/2012):
1595 -----------------
1596
1597 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
1598 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
1599 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
1600 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
1601 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
1602 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
1603 will fail to work.
1604
1605 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
1606 mode.
1607
1608 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
1609
1610 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
1611 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
1612 options.
1613
1614
1615 0.3.1 (4/27/2012):
1616 ------------------
1617
1618 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
1619 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
1620
1621 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
1622 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
1623 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
1624 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
1625 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
1626 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
1627 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
1628 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
1629 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
1630 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
1631 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
1632
1633 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
1634 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
1635 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
1636 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
1637 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
1638
1639 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
1640 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
1641
1642 0.3.0 (4/22/2012):
1643 ------------------
1644
1645 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
1646 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
1647 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
1648 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
1649 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
1650 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
1651
1652 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
1653 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
1654 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
1655 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
1656 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
1657 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
1658 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
1659 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
1660 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
1661 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
1662 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
1663 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
1664 that resets the video mode.
1665
1666 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
1667 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
1668 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
1669 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
1670 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
1671 details.
1672
1673 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
1674 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
1675 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
1676 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
1677 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
1678 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
1679
1680 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
1681 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
1682 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
1683
1684 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
1685 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
1686 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
1687 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
1688
1689 0.2.7 (4/19/2012):
1690 ------------------
1691
1692 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
1693 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
1694 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
1695 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
1696 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
1697 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
1698 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
1699 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
1700 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
1701 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
1702 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
1703 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
1704 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
1705 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
1706 installation.
1707
1708 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
1709
1710 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
1711 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
1712 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
1713 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
1714 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
1715 directories you like.
1716
1717 0.2.6 (4/14/2012):
1718 ------------------
1719
1720 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
1721 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
1722 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
1723 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
1724 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
1725 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
1726 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
1727 should work when a volume is unnamed.
1728
1729 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
1730 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
1731 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
1732
1733 0.2.5 (4/9/2012):
1734 -----------------
1735
1736 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
1737 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
1738
1739 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
1740 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
1741 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
1742 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
1743 documented the name....
1744
1745 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
1746 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
1747 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
1748
1749 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
1750 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
1751 directory) on certain systems.
1752
1753 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
1754 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1755
1756 0.2.4 (4/5/2012):
1757 -----------------
1758
1759 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1760 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1761 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1762 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1763 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1764 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1765 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1766 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1767 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1768 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1769 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1770 to me.
1771
1772 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1773 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1774 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1775 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1776 simultaneously.)
1777
1778 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1779 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1780
1781 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1782 image.
1783
1784 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1785 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1786 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1787 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1788 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1789
1790 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1791 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1792 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1793 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1794 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1795 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1796
1797 0.2.3 (3/26/2012):
1798 ------------------
1799
1800 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1801 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1802 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1803 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1804 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1805 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1806 small sample of computers.
1807
1808 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1809 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1810 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1811 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1812 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1813
1814 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1815
1816 0.2.2 (3/23/2012):
1817 ------------------
1818
1819 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1820 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1821 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1822 versionless initrd file.
1823
1824 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1825 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1826 continues.
1827
1828 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1829 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1830 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1831
1832 0.2.1 (3/19/2012):
1833 ------------------
1834
1835 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1836 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1837 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1838 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1839
1840 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1841 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1842 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1843 directory as the kernel.
1844
1845 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1846 entries in refind.conf file.
1847
1848 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1849 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1850
1851
1852 0.2.0 (3/14/2012):
1853 ------------------
1854
1855 - Initial public release