]> code.delx.au - refind/blob - NEWS.txt
Version 0.7.1 official release.
[refind] / NEWS.txt
1 0.7.1 (7/8/2013):
2 -----------------
3
4 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
5
6 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
7 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
8 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
9
10 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
11 volume specification, if present.
12
13 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
14
15 0.7.0 (6/27/2013):
16 ------------------
17
18 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
19 type for volumes that lack labels.
20
21 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
22 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
23 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
24 though.
25
26 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
27 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
28 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
29 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
30 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
31 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
32 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
33 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
34
35 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
36 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
37 non-EFI loaders, etc.
38
39 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
40 code.
41
42 0.6.12 (6/18/2013):
43 -------------------
44
45 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
46 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
47
48 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
49 script.
50
51 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
52 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
53 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
54 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
55
56 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
57 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
58 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
59 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
60
61 0.6.11 (5/13/2013):
62 -------------------
63
64 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
65 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
66 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
67 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
68
69 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
70
71 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
72 directory names that contain spaces.
73
74 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
75 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
76 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
77 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
78 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
79
80 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
81 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
82
83 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
84 Utility" in menu.
85
86 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
87 partitions to fill the MBR.
88
89 0.6.10 (5/5/2013):
90 ------------------
91
92 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
93 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
94 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
95 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
96
97 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
98 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
99 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
100 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
101 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
102
103 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
104 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
105 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
106 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
107 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
108 is quietly ignored.
109
110 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
111 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
112
113 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
114 encountered when saving a screen shot.
115
116 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
117 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
118 sequence number, starting with "001".
119
120 0.6.9 (4/25/2013):
121 ------------------
122
123 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
124 Kemperman.
125
126 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
127 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
128
129 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
130 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
131 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
132
133 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
134 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
135 accidentally trash their systems.
136
137 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
138 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
139 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
140
141 0.6.8 (3/18/2013):
142 ------------------
143
144 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
145 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
146
147 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
148 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
149
150 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
151 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
152
153 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
154
155 0.6.7 (2/3/2013):
156 -----------------
157
158 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
159 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
160
161 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
162 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
163 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
164 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
165
166 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
167 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
168
169 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
170 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
171
172 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
173 also_scan_dirs list.
174
175 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
176
177 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
178 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
179 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
180
181 0.6.6 (1/26/2013):
182 ------------------
183
184 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
185 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
186 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
187 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
188 loader under the fallback name.
189
190 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
191 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
192 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
193 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
194 of 96 glyphs.
195
196 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
197 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
198
199 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
200 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
201
202 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
203 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
204 commented out or empty.
205
206 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
207 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
208
209 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
210 manual boot stanzas.
211
212 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
213 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
214
215 0.6.5 (1/16/2013):
216 ------------------
217
218 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
219 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
220
221 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
222
223 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
224
225 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
226 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
227
228 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
229
230 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
231 sized to cover these areas.
232
233 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
234 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
235 resolution!
236
237 0.6.4 (1/8/2013):
238 -----------------
239
240 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
241 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
242 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
243 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
244
245 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
246 startup on some systems.
247
248 0.6.3 (1/6/2013):
249 -----------------
250
251 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
252 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
253
254 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
255 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
256
257 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
258 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
259 burned to USB flash disks.
260
261 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
262 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
263 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
264
265 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
266 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
267 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
268 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
269 from that installation.
270
271 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
272 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
273 than in EFI/refind.
274
275 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
276 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
277
278 0.6.2 (12/30/2012):
279 -------------------
280
281 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
282 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
283 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
284
285 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
286 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
287 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
288 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
289 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
290
291 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
292 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
293 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
294 Linux with the "make" command.
295
296 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
297 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
298
299 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
300 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
301 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
302 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
303 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
304 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
305 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
306 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
307
308 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
309 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
310 default.)
311
312 0.6.1 (12/21/2012):
313 -------------------
314
315 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
316 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
317 use on emergency discs.
318
319 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
320 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
321 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
322 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
323 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
324 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
325 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
326 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
327 handle.
328
329 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
330
331 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
332 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
333 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
334 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
335 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
336 os_GENTOO.icns.
337
338 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
339 mode.
340
341 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
342 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
343 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
344 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
345
346 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
347 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
348 a boot loader launch failed.
349
350 0.6.0 (12/16/2012):
351 -------------------
352
353 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
354 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
355 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
356 options.
357
358 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
359 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
360 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
361 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
362
363 - Added ext4fs driver!
364
365 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
366
367 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
368
369 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
370 from a program that set the resolution itself.
371
372 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
373 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
374 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
375 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
376 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
377 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
378 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
379 mode.
380
381 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
382 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
383 display even in graphics mode.
384
385 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
386 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
387
388 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
389 disables the boot options editor.
390
391 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
392 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
393
394 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
395 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
396 from the /etc/default/grub file.
397
398 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
399 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
400
401 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
402 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
403 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
404 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
405 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
406 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
407
408 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
409 on Linux systems.
410
411 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
412 ---------------------
413
414 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
415
416 0.5.1 (12/11/2012):
417 -------------------
418
419 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
420 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
421 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
422 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
423
424 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
425 configuration file from a primary one.
426
427 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
428 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
429 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
430 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
431 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
432 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
433 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
434 LVM.)
435
436 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
437 on systems with Secure Boot active.
438
439 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
440 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
441 refind.conf.
442
443 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
444 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
445
446 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
447 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
448 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
449
450 0.5.0 (12/6/2012):
451 ------------------
452
453 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
454 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
455 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
456 This example results in the following string being passed as an
457 option:
458 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
459
460 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
461 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
462 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
463 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
464 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
465 for them makes sense.
466
467 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
468 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
469 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
470 EFI shells are also so limited.)
471
472 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
473 were not actually edited.
474
475 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
476 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
477 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
478 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
479 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
480
481 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
482 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
483 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
484 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
485 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
486 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
487 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
488 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
489
490 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
491 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
492 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
493
494 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
495 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
496 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
497
498 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
499 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
500 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
501 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
502
503 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
504 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
505 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
506
507 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
508 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
509
510 0.4.7 (11/6/2012):
511 ------------------
512
513 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
514
515 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
516 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
517 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
518
519 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
520 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
521 told isn't working as planned).
522
523 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
524 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
525 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
526 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
527
528 0.4.6 (10/6/2012):
529 ------------------
530
531 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
532
533 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
534 for disks.
535
536 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
537 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
538 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
539 done this for two reasons:
540 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
541 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
542 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
543 default for them should help them.
544 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
545 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
546 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
547 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
548 default configurations.
549
550 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
551
552 0.4.5 (8/12/2012):
553 ------------------
554
555 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
556
557 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
558
559 0.4.4 (6/23/2012):
560 ------------------
561
562 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
563 32-bit systems.
564
565 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
566 on 32-bit systems.
567
568 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
569 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
570 loaders/OSes.
571
572 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
573
574 0.4.3 (6/21/2012):
575 ------------------
576
577 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
578 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
579
580 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
581 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
582 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
583 graphics or text mode itself.)
584
585 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
586 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
587 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
588 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
589 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
590 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
591 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
592
593 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
594
595 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
596 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
597 "linux.conf" themselves.
598
599 0.4.2 (6/3/2012):
600 -----------------
601
602 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
603 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
604 via rEFInd.
605
606 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
607 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
608 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
609 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
610 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
611 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
612 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
613 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
614 the boot order).
615
616 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
617 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
618
619 0.4.1 (5/25/2012):
620 ------------------
621
622 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
623 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
624 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
625 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
626 system hasn't hung.
627
628 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
629 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
630
631 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
632
633 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
634 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
635 label.)
636
637 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
638 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
639
640 0.4.0 (5/20/2012):
641 ------------------
642
643 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
644 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
645 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
646 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
647 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
648 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
649 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
650
651 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
652 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
653 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
654
655 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
656 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
657 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
658 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
659
660 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
661 file when launched from rEFInd.
662
663 0.3.5 (5/15/2012):
664 ------------------
665
666 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
667 received reports that it's not working as intended.
668
669 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
670 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
671 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
672 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
673 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
674 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
675
676 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
677 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
678
679 0.3.4 (5/9/2012):
680 -----------------
681
682 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
683 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
684 sample configuration file for a full description.
685
686 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
687 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
688 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
689 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
690 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
691
692 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
693 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
694 target).
695
696 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
697 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
698
699 0.3.3 (5/6/2012):
700 -----------------
701
702 - Improved menu navigation:
703 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
704 down arrows move between rows.
705 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
706 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
707 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
708 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
709
710 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
711 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
712 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
713
714 0.3.2 (5/4/2012):
715 -----------------
716
717 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
718 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
719 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
720 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
721 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
722 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
723 will fail to work.
724
725 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
726 mode.
727
728 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
729
730 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
731 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
732 options.
733
734
735 0.3.1 (4/27/2012):
736 ------------------
737
738 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
739 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
740
741 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
742 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
743 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
744 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
745 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
746 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
747 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
748 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
749 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
750 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
751 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
752
753 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
754 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
755 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
756 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
757 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
758
759 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
760 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
761
762 0.3.0 (4/22/2012):
763 ------------------
764
765 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
766 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
767 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
768 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
769 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
770 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
771
772 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
773 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
774 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
775 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
776 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
777 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
778 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
779 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
780 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
781 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
782 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
783 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
784 that resets the video mode.
785
786 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
787 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
788 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
789 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
790 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
791 details.
792
793 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
794 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
795 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
796 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
797 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
798 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
799
800 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
801 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
802 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
803
804 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
805 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
806 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
807 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
808
809 0.2.7 (4/19/2012):
810 ------------------
811
812 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
813 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
814 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
815 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
816 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
817 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
818 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
819 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
820 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
821 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
822 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
823 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
824 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
825 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
826 installation.
827
828 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
829
830 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
831 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
832 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
833 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
834 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
835 directories you like.
836
837 0.2.6 (4/14/2012):
838 ------------------
839
840 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
841 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
842 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
843 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
844 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
845 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
846 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
847 should work when a volume is unnamed.
848
849 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
850 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
851 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
852
853 0.2.5 (4/9/2012):
854 -----------------
855
856 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
857 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
858
859 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
860 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
861 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
862 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
863 documented the name....
864
865 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
866 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
867 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
868
869 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
870 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
871 directory) on certain systems.
872
873 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
874 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
875
876 0.2.4 (4/5/2012):
877 -----------------
878
879 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
880 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
881 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
882 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
883 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
884 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
885 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
886 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
887 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
888 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
889 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
890 to me.
891
892 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
893 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
894 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
895 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
896 simultaneously.)
897
898 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
899 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
900
901 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
902 image.
903
904 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
905 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
906 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
907 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
908 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
909
910 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
911 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
912 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
913 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
914 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
915 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
916
917 0.2.3 (3/26/2012):
918 ------------------
919
920 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
921 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
922 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
923 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
924 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
925 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
926 small sample of computers.
927
928 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
929 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
930 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
931 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
932 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
933
934 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
935
936 0.2.2 (3/23/2012):
937 ------------------
938
939 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
940 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
941 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
942 versionless initrd file.
943
944 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
945 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
946 continues.
947
948 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
949 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
950 than this, but such systems are very rare.
951
952 0.2.1 (3/19/2012):
953 ------------------
954
955 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
956 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
957 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
958 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
959
960 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
961 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
962 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
963 directory as the kernel.
964
965 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
966 entries in refind.conf file.
967
968 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
969 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
970
971
972 0.2.0 (3/14/2012):
973 ------------------
974
975 - Initial public release