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