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Removed space_after_boot_options token in favor of adding a space
[refind] / NEWS.txt
1 0.4.7 (??/?/2012):
2 ------------------
3
4 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
5 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
6 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
7 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
8
9 0.4.6 (10/6/2012):
10 ------------------
11
12 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
13
14 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
15 for disks.
16
17 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
18 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
19 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
20 done this for two reasons:
21 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
22 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
23 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
24 default for them should help them.
25 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
26 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
27 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
28 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
29 default configurations.
30
31 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
32
33 0.4.5 (8/12/2012):
34 ------------------
35
36 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
37
38 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
39
40 0.4.4 (6/23/2012):
41 ------------------
42
43 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
44 32-bit systems.
45
46 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
47 on 32-bit systems.
48
49 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
50 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
51 loaders/OSes.
52
53 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
54
55 0.4.3 (6/21/2012):
56 ------------------
57
58 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
59 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
60
61 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
62 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
63 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
64 graphics or text mode itself.)
65
66 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
67 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
68 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
69 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
70 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
71 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
72 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
73
74 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
75
76 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
77 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
78 "linux.conf" themselves.
79
80 0.4.2 (6/3/2012):
81 -----------------
82
83 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
84 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
85 via rEFInd.
86
87 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
88 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
89 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
90 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
91 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
92 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
93 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
94 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
95 the boot order).
96
97 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
98 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
99
100 0.4.1 (5/25/2012):
101 ------------------
102
103 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
104 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
105 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
106 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
107 system hasn't hung.
108
109 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
110 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
111
112 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
113
114 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
115 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
116 label.)
117
118 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
119 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
120
121 0.4.0 (5/20/2012):
122 ------------------
123
124 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
125 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
126 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
127 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
128 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
129 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
130 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
131
132 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
133 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
134 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
135
136 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
137 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
138 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
139 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
140
141 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
142 file when launched from rEFInd.
143
144 0.3.5 (5/15/2012):
145 ------------------
146
147 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
148 received reports that it's not working as intended.
149
150 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
151 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
152 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
153 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
154 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
155 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
156
157 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
158 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
159
160 0.3.4 (5/9/2012):
161 -----------------
162
163 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
164 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
165 sample configuration file for a full description.
166
167 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
168 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
169 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
170 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
171 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
172
173 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
174 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
175 target).
176
177 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
178 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
179
180 0.3.3 (5/6/2012):
181 -----------------
182
183 - Improved menu navigation:
184 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
185 down arrows move between rows.
186 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
187 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
188 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
189 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
190
191 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
192 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
193 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
194
195 0.3.2 (5/4/2012):
196 -----------------
197
198 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
199 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
200 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
201 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
202 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
203 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
204 will fail to work.
205
206 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
207 mode.
208
209 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
210
211 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
212 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
213 options.
214
215
216 0.3.1 (4/27/2012):
217 ------------------
218
219 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
220 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
221
222 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
223 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
224 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
225 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
226 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
227 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
228 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
229 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
230 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
231 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
232 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
233
234 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
235 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
236 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
237 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
238 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
239
240 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
241 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
242
243 0.3.0 (4/22/2012):
244 ------------------
245
246 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
247 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
248 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
249 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
250 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
251 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
252
253 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
254 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
255 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
256 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
257 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
258 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
259 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
260 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
261 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
262 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
263 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
264 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
265 that resets the video mode.
266
267 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
268 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
269 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
270 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
271 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
272 details.
273
274 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
275 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
276 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
277 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
278 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
279 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
280
281 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
282 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
283 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
284
285 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
286 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
287 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
288 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
289
290 0.2.7 (4/19/2012):
291 ------------------
292
293 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
294 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
295 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
296 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
297 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
298 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
299 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
300 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
301 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
302 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
303 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
304 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
305 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
306 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
307 installation.
308
309 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
310
311 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
312 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
313 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
314 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
315 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
316 directories you like.
317
318 0.2.6 (4/14/2012):
319 ------------------
320
321 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
322 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
323 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
324 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
325 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
326 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
327 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
328 should work when a volume is unnamed.
329
330 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
331 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
332 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
333
334 0.2.5 (4/9/2012):
335 -----------------
336
337 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
338 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
339
340 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
341 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
342 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
343 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
344 documented the name....
345
346 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
347 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
348 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
349
350 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
351 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
352 directory) on certain systems.
353
354 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
355 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
356
357 0.2.4 (4/5/2012):
358 -----------------
359
360 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
361 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
362 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
363 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
364 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
365 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
366 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
367 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
368 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
369 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
370 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
371 to me.
372
373 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
374 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
375 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
376 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
377 simultaneously.)
378
379 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
380 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
381
382 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
383 image.
384
385 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
386 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
387 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
388 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
389 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
390
391 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
392 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
393 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
394 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
395 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
396 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
397
398 0.2.3 (3/26/2012):
399 ------------------
400
401 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
402 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
403 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
404 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
405 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
406 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
407 small sample of computers.
408
409 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
410 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
411 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
412 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
413 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
414
415 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
416
417 0.2.2 (3/23/2012):
418 ------------------
419
420 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
421 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
422 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
423 versionless initrd file.
424
425 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
426 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
427 continues.
428
429 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
430 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
431 than this, but such systems are very rare.
432
433 0.2.1 (3/19/2012):
434 ------------------
435
436 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
437 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
438 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
439 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
440
441 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
442 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
443 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
444 directory as the kernel.
445
446 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
447 entries in refind.conf file.
448
449 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
450 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
451
452
453 0.2.0 (3/14/2012):
454 ------------------
455
456 - Initial public release