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1 0.6.5 (1/??/2013):
2 ------------------
3
4 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
5
6 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
7 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
8
9 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
10
11 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
12 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
13 resolution!
14
15 0.6.4 (1/8/2013):
16 -----------------
17
18 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
19 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
20 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
21 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
22
23 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
24 startup on some systems.
25
26 0.6.3 (1/6/2013):
27 -----------------
28
29 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
30 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
31
32 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
33 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
34
35 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
36 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
37 burned to USB flash disks.
38
39 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
40 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
41 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
42
43 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
44 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
45 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
46 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
47 from that installation.
48
49 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
50 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
51 than in EFI/refind.
52
53 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
54 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
55
56 0.6.2 (12/30/2012):
57 -------------------
58
59 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
60 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
61 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
62
63 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
64 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
65 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
66 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
67 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
68
69 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
70 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
71 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
72 Linux with the "make" command.
73
74 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
75 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
76
77 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
78 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
79 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
80 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
81 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
82 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
83 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
84 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
85
86 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
87 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
88 default.)
89
90 0.6.1 (12/21/2012):
91 -------------------
92
93 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
94 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
95 use on emergency discs.
96
97 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
98 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
99 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
100 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
101 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
102 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
103 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
104 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
105 handle.
106
107 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
108
109 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
110 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
111 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
112 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
113 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
114 os_GENTOO.icns.
115
116 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
117 mode.
118
119 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
120 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
121 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
122 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
123
124 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
125 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
126 a boot loader launch failed.
127
128 0.6.0 (12/16/2012):
129 -------------------
130
131 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
132 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
133 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
134 options.
135
136 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
137 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
138 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
139 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
140
141 - Added ext4fs driver!
142
143 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
144
145 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
146
147 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
148 from a program that set the resolution itself.
149
150 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
151 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
152 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
153 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
154 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
155 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
156 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
157 mode.
158
159 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
160 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
161 display even in graphics mode.
162
163 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
164 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
165
166 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
167 disables the boot options editor.
168
169 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
170 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
171
172 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
173 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
174 from the /etc/default/grub file.
175
176 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
177 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
178
179 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
180 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
181 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
182 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
183 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
184 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
185
186 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
187 on Linux systems.
188
189 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
190 ---------------------
191
192 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
193
194 0.5.1 (12/11/2012):
195 -------------------
196
197 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
198 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
199 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
200 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
201
202 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
203 configuration file from a primary one.
204
205 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
206 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
207 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
208 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
209 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
210 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
211 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
212 LVM.)
213
214 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
215 on systems with Secure Boot active.
216
217 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
218 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
219 refind.conf.
220
221 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
222 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
223
224 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
225 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
226 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
227
228 0.5.0 (12/6/2012):
229 ------------------
230
231 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
232 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
233 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
234 This example results in the following string being passed as an
235 option:
236 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
237
238 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
239 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
240 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
241 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
242 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
243 for them makes sense.
244
245 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
246 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
247 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
248 EFI shells are also so limited.)
249
250 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
251 were not actually edited.
252
253 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
254 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
255 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
256 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
257 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
258
259 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
260 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
261 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
262 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
263 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
264 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
265 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
266 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
267
268 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
269 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
270 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
271
272 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
273 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
274 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
275
276 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
277 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
278 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
279 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
280
281 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
282 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
283 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
284
285 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
286 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
287
288 0.4.7 (11/6/2012):
289 ------------------
290
291 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
292
293 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
294 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
295 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
296
297 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
298 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
299 told isn't working as planned).
300
301 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
302 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
303 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
304 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
305
306 0.4.6 (10/6/2012):
307 ------------------
308
309 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
310
311 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
312 for disks.
313
314 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
315 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
316 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
317 done this for two reasons:
318 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
319 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
320 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
321 default for them should help them.
322 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
323 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
324 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
325 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
326 default configurations.
327
328 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
329
330 0.4.5 (8/12/2012):
331 ------------------
332
333 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
334
335 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
336
337 0.4.4 (6/23/2012):
338 ------------------
339
340 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
341 32-bit systems.
342
343 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
344 on 32-bit systems.
345
346 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
347 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
348 loaders/OSes.
349
350 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
351
352 0.4.3 (6/21/2012):
353 ------------------
354
355 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
356 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
357
358 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
359 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
360 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
361 graphics or text mode itself.)
362
363 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
364 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
365 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
366 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
367 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
368 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
369 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
370
371 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
372
373 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
374 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
375 "linux.conf" themselves.
376
377 0.4.2 (6/3/2012):
378 -----------------
379
380 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
381 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
382 via rEFInd.
383
384 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
385 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
386 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
387 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
388 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
389 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
390 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
391 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
392 the boot order).
393
394 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
395 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
396
397 0.4.1 (5/25/2012):
398 ------------------
399
400 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
401 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
402 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
403 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
404 system hasn't hung.
405
406 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
407 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
408
409 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
410
411 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
412 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
413 label.)
414
415 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
416 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
417
418 0.4.0 (5/20/2012):
419 ------------------
420
421 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
422 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
423 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
424 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
425 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
426 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
427 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
428
429 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
430 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
431 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
432
433 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
434 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
435 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
436 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
437
438 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
439 file when launched from rEFInd.
440
441 0.3.5 (5/15/2012):
442 ------------------
443
444 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
445 received reports that it's not working as intended.
446
447 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
448 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
449 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
450 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
451 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
452 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
453
454 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
455 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
456
457 0.3.4 (5/9/2012):
458 -----------------
459
460 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
461 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
462 sample configuration file for a full description.
463
464 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
465 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
466 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
467 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
468 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
469
470 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
471 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
472 target).
473
474 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
475 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
476
477 0.3.3 (5/6/2012):
478 -----------------
479
480 - Improved menu navigation:
481 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
482 down arrows move between rows.
483 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
484 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
485 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
486 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
487
488 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
489 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
490 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
491
492 0.3.2 (5/4/2012):
493 -----------------
494
495 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
496 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
497 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
498 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
499 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
500 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
501 will fail to work.
502
503 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
504 mode.
505
506 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
507
508 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
509 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
510 options.
511
512
513 0.3.1 (4/27/2012):
514 ------------------
515
516 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
517 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
518
519 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
520 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
521 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
522 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
523 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
524 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
525 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
526 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
527 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
528 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
529 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
530
531 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
532 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
533 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
534 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
535 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
536
537 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
538 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
539
540 0.3.0 (4/22/2012):
541 ------------------
542
543 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
544 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
545 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
546 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
547 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
548 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
549
550 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
551 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
552 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
553 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
554 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
555 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
556 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
557 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
558 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
559 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
560 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
561 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
562 that resets the video mode.
563
564 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
565 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
566 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
567 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
568 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
569 details.
570
571 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
572 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
573 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
574 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
575 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
576 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
577
578 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
579 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
580 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
581
582 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
583 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
584 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
585 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
586
587 0.2.7 (4/19/2012):
588 ------------------
589
590 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
591 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
592 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
593 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
594 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
595 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
596 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
597 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
598 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
599 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
600 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
601 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
602 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
603 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
604 installation.
605
606 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
607
608 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
609 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
610 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
611 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
612 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
613 directories you like.
614
615 0.2.6 (4/14/2012):
616 ------------------
617
618 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
619 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
620 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
621 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
622 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
623 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
624 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
625 should work when a volume is unnamed.
626
627 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
628 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
629 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
630
631 0.2.5 (4/9/2012):
632 -----------------
633
634 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
635 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
636
637 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
638 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
639 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
640 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
641 documented the name....
642
643 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
644 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
645 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
646
647 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
648 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
649 directory) on certain systems.
650
651 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
652 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
653
654 0.2.4 (4/5/2012):
655 -----------------
656
657 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
658 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
659 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
660 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
661 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
662 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
663 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
664 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
665 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
666 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
667 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
668 to me.
669
670 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
671 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
672 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
673 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
674 simultaneously.)
675
676 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
677 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
678
679 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
680 image.
681
682 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
683 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
684 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
685 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
686 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
687
688 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
689 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
690 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
691 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
692 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
693 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
694
695 0.2.3 (3/26/2012):
696 ------------------
697
698 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
699 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
700 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
701 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
702 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
703 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
704 small sample of computers.
705
706 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
707 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
708 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
709 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
710 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
711
712 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
713
714 0.2.2 (3/23/2012):
715 ------------------
716
717 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
718 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
719 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
720 versionless initrd file.
721
722 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
723 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
724 continues.
725
726 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
727 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
728 than this, but such systems are very rare.
729
730 0.2.1 (3/19/2012):
731 ------------------
732
733 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
734 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
735 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
736 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
737
738 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
739 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
740 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
741 directory as the kernel.
742
743 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
744 entries in refind.conf file.
745
746 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
747 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
748
749
750 0.2.0 (3/14/2012):
751 ------------------
752
753 - Initial public release