]> code.delx.au - refind/blob - NEWS.txt
Version 0.6.3 release.
[refind] / NEWS.txt
1 0.6.3 (1/6/2013):
2 -----------------
3
4 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
5 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
6
7 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
8 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
9
10 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
11 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
12 burned to USB flash disks.
13
14 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
15 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
16 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
17
18 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
19 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
20 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
21 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
22 from that installation.
23
24 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
25 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
26 than in EFI/refind.
27
28 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
29 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
30
31 0.6.2 (12/30/2012):
32 -------------------
33
34 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
35 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
36 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
37
38 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
39 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
40 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
41 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
42 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
43
44 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
45 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
46 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
47 Linux with the "make" command.
48
49 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
50 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
51
52 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
53 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
54 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
55 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
56 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
57 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
58 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
59 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
60
61 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
62 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
63 default.)
64
65 0.6.1 (12/21/2012):
66 -------------------
67
68 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
69 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
70 use on emergency discs.
71
72 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
73 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
74 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
75 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
76 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
77 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
78 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
79 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
80 handle.
81
82 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
83
84 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
85 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
86 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
87 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
88 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
89 os_GENTOO.icns.
90
91 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
92 mode.
93
94 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
95 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
96 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
97 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
98
99 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
100 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
101 a boot loader launch failed.
102
103 0.6.0 (12/16/2012):
104 -------------------
105
106 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
107 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
108 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
109 options.
110
111 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
112 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
113 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
114 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
115
116 - Added ext4fs driver!
117
118 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
119
120 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
121
122 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
123 from a program that set the resolution itself.
124
125 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
126 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
127 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
128 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
129 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
130 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
131 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
132 mode.
133
134 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
135 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
136 display even in graphics mode.
137
138 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
139 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
140
141 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
142 disables the boot options editor.
143
144 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
145 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
146
147 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
148 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
149 from the /etc/default/grub file.
150
151 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
152 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
153
154 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
155 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
156 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
157 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
158 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
159 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
160
161 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
162 on Linux systems.
163
164 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
165 ---------------------
166
167 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
168
169 0.5.1 (12/11/2012):
170 -------------------
171
172 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
173 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
174 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
175 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
176
177 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
178 configuration file from a primary one.
179
180 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
181 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
182 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
183 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
184 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
185 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
186 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
187 LVM.)
188
189 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
190 on systems with Secure Boot active.
191
192 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
193 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
194 refind.conf.
195
196 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
197 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
198
199 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
200 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
201 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
202
203 0.5.0 (12/6/2012):
204 ------------------
205
206 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
207 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
208 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
209 This example results in the following string being passed as an
210 option:
211 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
212
213 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
214 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
215 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
216 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
217 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
218 for them makes sense.
219
220 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
221 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
222 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
223 EFI shells are also so limited.)
224
225 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
226 were not actually edited.
227
228 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
229 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
230 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
231 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
232 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
233
234 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
235 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
236 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
237 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
238 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
239 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
240 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
241 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
242
243 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
244 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
245 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
246
247 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
248 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
249 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
250
251 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
252 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
253 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
254 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
255
256 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
257 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
258 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
259
260 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
261 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
262
263 0.4.7 (11/6/2012):
264 ------------------
265
266 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
267
268 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
269 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
270 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
271
272 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
273 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
274 told isn't working as planned).
275
276 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
277 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
278 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
279 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
280
281 0.4.6 (10/6/2012):
282 ------------------
283
284 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
285
286 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
287 for disks.
288
289 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
290 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
291 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
292 done this for two reasons:
293 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
294 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
295 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
296 default for them should help them.
297 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
298 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
299 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
300 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
301 default configurations.
302
303 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
304
305 0.4.5 (8/12/2012):
306 ------------------
307
308 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
309
310 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
311
312 0.4.4 (6/23/2012):
313 ------------------
314
315 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
316 32-bit systems.
317
318 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
319 on 32-bit systems.
320
321 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
322 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
323 loaders/OSes.
324
325 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
326
327 0.4.3 (6/21/2012):
328 ------------------
329
330 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
331 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
332
333 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
334 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
335 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
336 graphics or text mode itself.)
337
338 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
339 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
340 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
341 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
342 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
343 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
344 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
345
346 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
347
348 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
349 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
350 "linux.conf" themselves.
351
352 0.4.2 (6/3/2012):
353 -----------------
354
355 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
356 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
357 via rEFInd.
358
359 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
360 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
361 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
362 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
363 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
364 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
365 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
366 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
367 the boot order).
368
369 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
370 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
371
372 0.4.1 (5/25/2012):
373 ------------------
374
375 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
376 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
377 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
378 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
379 system hasn't hung.
380
381 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
382 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
383
384 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
385
386 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
387 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
388 label.)
389
390 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
391 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
392
393 0.4.0 (5/20/2012):
394 ------------------
395
396 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
397 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
398 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
399 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
400 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
401 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
402 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
403
404 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
405 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
406 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
407
408 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
409 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
410 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
411 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
412
413 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
414 file when launched from rEFInd.
415
416 0.3.5 (5/15/2012):
417 ------------------
418
419 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
420 received reports that it's not working as intended.
421
422 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
423 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
424 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
425 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
426 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
427 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
428
429 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
430 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
431
432 0.3.4 (5/9/2012):
433 -----------------
434
435 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
436 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
437 sample configuration file for a full description.
438
439 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
440 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
441 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
442 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
443 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
444
445 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
446 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
447 target).
448
449 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
450 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
451
452 0.3.3 (5/6/2012):
453 -----------------
454
455 - Improved menu navigation:
456 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
457 down arrows move between rows.
458 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
459 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
460 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
461 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
462
463 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
464 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
465 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
466
467 0.3.2 (5/4/2012):
468 -----------------
469
470 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
471 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
472 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
473 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
474 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
475 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
476 will fail to work.
477
478 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
479 mode.
480
481 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
482
483 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
484 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
485 options.
486
487
488 0.3.1 (4/27/2012):
489 ------------------
490
491 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
492 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
493
494 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
495 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
496 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
497 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
498 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
499 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
500 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
501 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
502 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
503 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
504 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
505
506 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
507 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
508 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
509 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
510 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
511
512 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
513 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
514
515 0.3.0 (4/22/2012):
516 ------------------
517
518 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
519 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
520 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
521 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
522 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
523 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
524
525 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
526 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
527 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
528 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
529 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
530 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
531 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
532 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
533 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
534 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
535 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
536 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
537 that resets the video mode.
538
539 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
540 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
541 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
542 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
543 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
544 details.
545
546 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
547 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
548 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
549 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
550 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
551 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
552
553 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
554 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
555 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
556
557 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
558 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
559 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
560 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
561
562 0.2.7 (4/19/2012):
563 ------------------
564
565 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
566 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
567 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
568 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
569 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
570 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
571 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
572 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
573 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
574 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
575 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
576 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
577 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
578 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
579 installation.
580
581 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
582
583 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
584 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
585 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
586 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
587 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
588 directories you like.
589
590 0.2.6 (4/14/2012):
591 ------------------
592
593 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
594 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
595 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
596 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
597 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
598 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
599 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
600 should work when a volume is unnamed.
601
602 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
603 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
604 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
605
606 0.2.5 (4/9/2012):
607 -----------------
608
609 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
610 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
611
612 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
613 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
614 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
615 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
616 documented the name....
617
618 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
619 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
620 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
621
622 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
623 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
624 directory) on certain systems.
625
626 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
627 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
628
629 0.2.4 (4/5/2012):
630 -----------------
631
632 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
633 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
634 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
635 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
636 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
637 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
638 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
639 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
640 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
641 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
642 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
643 to me.
644
645 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
646 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
647 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
648 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
649 simultaneously.)
650
651 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
652 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
653
654 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
655 image.
656
657 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
658 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
659 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
660 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
661 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
662
663 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
664 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
665 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
666 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
667 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
668 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
669
670 0.2.3 (3/26/2012):
671 ------------------
672
673 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
674 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
675 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
676 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
677 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
678 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
679 small sample of computers.
680
681 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
682 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
683 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
684 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
685 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
686
687 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
688
689 0.2.2 (3/23/2012):
690 ------------------
691
692 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
693 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
694 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
695 versionless initrd file.
696
697 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
698 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
699 continues.
700
701 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
702 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
703 than this, but such systems are very rare.
704
705 0.2.1 (3/19/2012):
706 ------------------
707
708 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
709 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
710 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
711 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
712
713 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
714 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
715 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
716 directory as the kernel.
717
718 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
719 entries in refind.conf file.
720
721 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
722 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
723
724
725 0.2.0 (3/14/2012):
726 ------------------
727
728 - Initial public release