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