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[refind] / NEWS.txt
1 0.10.5 (??/??/201?):
2 --------------------
3
4 - Fix to refind-install to work better with disks other than /dev/sd? and
5 /dev/hd? devices.
6
7 - Fixes to touch/tablet support to improve reliability.
8
9 0.10.4 (10/9/2016):
10 -------------------
11
12 - Fixed compile problem for drivers with recent versions of GNU-EFI
13 (3.0.4, maybe 3.0.3).
14
15 - Fixed bug that could cause program crash on startup. (In practice, it
16 manifested with GNU-EFI starting with version 3.0.3 or 3.0.4.)
17
18 - An anonymous contributor has provided support for touch screens. This
19 support requires that the "enable_touch" token be used in refind.conf.
20 Note, however, that not all tablet computers have EFIs that provide the
21 necessary support in the firmware.
22
23 - Martin Whitaker contributed 64-bit support to the ext4fs driver, which
24 makes it compatible with ext4fs as written by some recent Linux
25 distributions.
26
27 - Tweaked refind-install to do a better job of detecting disks other
28 than /dev/sd? and /dev/hd? devices.
29
30 0.10.3 (4/24/2016):
31 -------------------
32
33 - Altered RPM & Debian installation scripts so as to NOT call sbsign if
34 Secure Boot is disabled. This is a response to Ubuntu bug #1574372
35 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sbsigntool/+bug/1574372): In
36 Ubuntu 16.04, the sbsign program is segfaulting randomly, which prevents
37 proper installation of the program. This change at least permits proper
38 installation IF Secure Boot is disabled.
39
40 - Changed description of BIOS/CSM/legacy OS loaders on Macs to include the
41 string "(Legacy)", so as to more easily identify BIOS/CSM/legacy-mode OSes
42 in the rEFInd main menu.
43
44 - Added recognition of the fwupx64.efi file as a firmware update tool.
45 This filename is excluded from the first-row launchers, and is instead
46 presented on the second row, controlled by the "fwupdate" item on the
47 "showtools" option line. It's enabled by default. Note that it's still a
48 bit unclear to me how this tool is supposed to be used. rEFInd launches it
49 with no options, but if it should take options, this will have to be
50 changed in the future.
51
52 - Tightened exclusion of shell binary filenames from boot loader scan.
53 Previously, any filename containing the substring "shell" was excluded
54 from scans. Now it's tighter; only files matching one of the filenames in
55 the constant SHELL_NAMES in main.c are excluded. This change will enable
56 programs with names that include "shell", but that aren't in rEFInd's
57 SHELL_NAMES list, such as "shelly.efi", to be shown in the rEFInd main
58 menu.
59
60 - Fixed bug in NTFS driver that caused it to hang (and thus hang the
61 computer) in some situations, particularly when a file on an NTFS volume
62 had many fragments and when the computer's CSM was activated. (Fix
63 courtesy of "S L.")
64
65 - Modified SIP/CSR rotation code: If the csr-active-config EFI variable is
66 missing AND the firmware is Apple (as identified by the string "Apple"
67 being present in the ST->FirmwareVendor string), rEFInd treats the
68 computer as one on which SIP is available and set to the "enabled" state
69 (0x10). The upshot is that the SIP/CSR tool will appear if the showtools
70 and csr_values options are set appropriately in refind.conf, even if the
71 csr-active-config variable is missing from the NVRAM. The point of this
72 change is that I've received reports of some Macs that run OS X 10.11 but
73 that lack this variable. OS X acts as if SIP were enabled, but rEFInd is
74 then unable to disable SIP. This change gives rEFInd the ability to
75 disable SIP on such systems. The drawback is that the variable might be
76 set on some systems that don't run OS X 10.11. This should be harmless
77 from a technical point of view, but the presence of SIP indicators in
78 rEFInd could be confusing.
79
80 - Added refind-mkdefault script to simplify resetting rEFInd as the default
81 boot program in Linux. The intent is to run this after GRUB, Windows, OS
82 X, or some other tool takes over as the primary boot manager. It can be
83 called from a startup script to handle this task automatically.
84
85 0.10.2 (1/26/2016):
86 -------------------
87
88 - Fixed bug in refind-install that caused mountesp to be installed as a FILE
89 called /usr/local/bin on OS X if the /usr/local/bin directory did not
90 already exist.
91
92 - Fixed bug in mvrefind that caused it to fail to move bootmgfw.efi in
93 some situations, and another that caused it to give the resulting NVRAM
94 entry the default rEFInd name of "rEFInd Boot Manager," rather than the
95 intended "Windows Boot Manager" (to work around bugs in some EFIs).
96
97 - Worked around bug/quirk in some EFIs (in HP ProBook 6470b laptop, at
98 least) that prevented EFI filesystem drivers from working. (Drivers would
99 load but not provide access to filesystems.)
100
101 - Fixed refind-install bug that caused --usedefault option to not work in OS
102 X. (This bug did not affect Linux.)
103
104 - Improved Secure Boot detection in refind-install in Linux.
105
106 - Fixed bug that caused custom volume badges (vol_*.png) to be read only
107 from default location ("icons" subdirectory), effectively eliminating the
108 ability to adjust them.
109
110 - Added centos.crt and centos.cer public key files.
111
112 0.10.1 (12/12/2015):
113 --------------------
114
115 - Change to PPA version: Installing the PPA now queries the user about
116 whether to install to the ESP. Upgrades will remember the initial
117 selection.
118
119 - Modified time-based sorting of loaders in a single directory to push
120 anything starting with "vmlinuz-0-rescue" to the end of the list. Fedora
121 gives its rescue kernels filenames that begin with that string, and if
122 such a kernel happens to be the most recent, treating it normally will
123 cause it to become the default when kernel folding is in use. This is
124 almost certainly undesirable, so this change keeps the rescue kernel at
125 the end of the list instead, which is saner.
126
127 - Significantly reworked the project's Makefiles. This should have no
128 impact on ordinary users, and even most developers should barely notice
129 it; but it should make future extensions to additional platforms or
130 building in different environments easier.
131
132 - Added workaround to gptsync for issue with some Macs' EFIs that caused
133 the program to skip through all prompts, thus accepting the default
134 option. This would normally cause gptsync to do nothing.
135
136 - Added type code 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC (Apple Core Storage,
137 gdisk type AF05) to list of partition types recognized by gptsync.
138
139 - Removed Luxi Sans Mono font, since I discovered it was not open source;
140 and changed the default font from Nimbus Mono to Liberation Mono.
141
142 - Added support for compiling rEFInd for ARM64 (aka AARCH64 or aa64). This
143 works with both GNU-EFI and Tianocore UDK2014.SP1.P1. This support is
144 currently poorly tested. In particular, I used QEMU on an x86-64 computer
145 to create a virtualized ARM64 environment; I've not yet tested on a real
146 computer. I couldn't get QEMU to create a video card, so I used a serial
147 terminal, which means that the graphics features are untested -- I ran
148 rEFInd with "textonly" uncommented in refind.conf. I've tested the ext4fs
149 driver but no other drivers, although they all compile. (So does gptsync,
150 although it's unlikely to be useful on ARM64.) Some rEFInd features are
151 meaningless on ARM64, such as BIOS-mode boot support, anything geared
152 toward Macs (csr_values/csr_rotate, spoof_osx_version, etc.), and
153 enable_and_lock_vmx.
154
155 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan EFI boot loaders on
156 removable media when rEFInd itself was launched from the fallback
157 filename.
158
159 - Moved detailed descriptions of refind-install from installing.html to
160 a refind-install man page. To keep this information Web-accessible, I've
161 also created HTML versions of the three man pages and linked them into
162 the HTML documentation.
163
164 - Updated LodePNG to latest version (20151024).
165
166 - Fixed bugs in mkrlconf and in refind-install that could cause some kernel
167 options to be excluded from refind_linux.conf. There were two trouble
168 conditions:
169 - Previously, these scripts assumed that the first option in
170 /proc/cmdline was the kernel's filename, but this isn't always the
171 case. (In particular, when gummiboot launches the kernel, this is not
172 true. It might be an incorrect assumption in some other cases, too.)
173 The fix involves checking for likely signs of a kernel filename before
174 discarding this first option.
175 - These scripts cut the "initrd=*" option from /proc/cmdline, but the
176 call to "sed" was overzealous and cut until the end of input. This
177 usually worked, since the initrd= option was usually last on the line;
178 but if it wasn't, any options following initrd= would be lost.
179
180 - Added "kernel*" as a matching pattern for Linux kernels, since this is
181 what Gentoo uses by default.
182
183 - The refind-install script can now be run as a symbolic link in Linux.
184 This enables creating a /usr/sbin/refind-install link in Linux packages,
185 with the binaries stashed wherever the package system likes them. This
186 feature does NOT work in OS X, but there's relatively little need for it
187 there.
188
189 0.10.0 (11/8/2015):
190 -------------------
191
192 - Fixed bug that caused refind-install to not unmount the ESP when it
193 should under OS X.
194
195 - Modified refind-install and mkrlconf scripts to use /proc/cmdline as
196 source for default boot options EXCEPT when refind-install receives the
197 --root option. In that case, refind-install continues to use
198 /etc/default/grub as the source of default options. The idea behind this
199 change is that it's more reliable to get boot options from /proc/cmdline
200 when the targeted system is the one that's booted; but --root would be
201 used from emergency disks or live CDs, in which case the current boot
202 options would be completely wrong, so extracting boot options from GRUB
203 files is the best bet for getting close to the right options.
204
205 - Added "@/boot" to default also_scan_dirs setting. This makes kernels
206 show up on Btrfs volumes under Ubuntu (and perhaps others), at least when
207 the Btrfs driver is loaded.
208
209 - Added new System Integrity Protection (SIP) rotation feature for Macs
210 running OS X 10.11 or later. This feature is disabled by default, except
211 on CD-R and USB flash drive images, on which it's enabled. To enable it,
212 you must make TWO changes to refind.conf: Uncomment the new "csr_values"
213 item and add "csr_rotate" to the "showtools" line (uncommenting it, too,
214 if it's commented out). If desired, you can set more values on
215 "csr_values"; these are comma-delimited one-byte hexadecimal values that
216 define various SIP states. When SIP/CSR rotation is activated, a new
217 shield icon appears among the tools. Selecting it causes the next defined
218 value to be set and a confirmation message to appear for three seconds.
219
220 - Added display of current System Integrity Protection (SIP) mode to
221 "About" display.
222
223 - Added mountesp script for OS X to (you guessed it!) mount the ESP.
224
225 - Renamed support scripts: install.sh to refind-install, mvrefind.sh to
226 mvrefind, and mkrlconf.sh to mkrlconf.
227
228 - New icons! The old ones were getting to be a jumbled mess of styles,
229 particularly for OS tags. I used the AwOken icon set
230 (http://alecive.deviantart.com/art/AwOken-163570862) for the core icons,
231 then expanded from there by creating my own icons and modifying icons for
232 Debian and Elementary OS. I'm also trying to keep better track of
233 copyrights and licenses on icons. Between that and some icons being for
234 OSes that probably see very little use (FreeDOS and eComstation, for
235 instance), a few OS icons have been lost. If you prefer the old icons,
236 you can continue to use them by upgrading rEFInd, renaming icons-backup
237 to something else (say, icons-classic), and then adding an "icons" line
238 in refind.conf to point to the old icons directory.
239
240 - Changed from .zip to .tar.gz as source code archive format. I did this
241 because Linux is the only officially-supported build platform, and
242 tarballs are a more natural fit to a Linux environment. I'm leaving .zip,
243 .deb, and .rpm files as the formats for binary packages.
244
245 - Added detection of System Integrity Protection (SIP; aka "rootless") mode
246 to OS X portion of install.sh script. When detected, and if no existing
247 rEFInd installation is found, the script now prints a warning and brief
248 instructions of how to enter the Recovery mode to install rEFInd and
249 suggests aborting the installation. (The user can override and attempt
250 installation anyhow.) If SIP is detected along with an existing rEFInd
251 installation, the script moderates the warning and explains that an
252 update of a working rEFInd will probably succeed, but that re-installing
253 to fix a broken rEFInd will probably fail.
254
255 - Added new "spoof_osx_version" token, which takes an OS X version number
256 (such as "10.9") as an option. This feature, when enabled, causes rEFInd
257 to tell a Mac's firmware that the specified version of OS X is being
258 launched. This option is usually unnecessary, but it can help properly
259 initialize some hardware -- particularly secondary video devices. OTOH,
260 on some Macs it can cause hardware (notably keyboards and mice) to become
261 unresponsive, so you should not use this option unnecessarily.
262
263 - Worked around an EFI bug that affected my 32-bit Mac Mini: That system
264 seems to have a broken EFI, or possibly a buggy CPU, that causes some
265 (but not all) conversions from floating-point to integer numbers to hang
266 the computer. Such operations were performed only in rEFInd's
267 graphics-resizing code, and so would manifest only when icons or
268 background images were resized. My fix eliminates the use of
269 floating-point operations in the affected function, which eliminates the
270 crashes. There may be some degradation in the quality of resized images,
271 though, particularly on 32-bit systems. (64-bit systems use larger
272 integers, which enable greater precision in my floating-point
273 workaround.)
274
275 - Under OS X, install.sh can now be run from the recovery system. This may
276 help work around OS X 10.11's problems with System Integrity Protection,
277 since it should be possible to reboot into the recovery system to install
278 rEFInd without disabling SIP for the main installation, even for just one
279 boot.
280
281 0.9.2 (9/19/2015):
282 ------------------
283
284 - Added "--keepname" option to install.sh. This option causes install.sh
285 to keep refind_x64.efi named as such rather than rename it as grubx64.efi
286 when using Shim. This option is meaningful only if the --shim option is
287 also used. This option passes the refind_x64.efi filename as an option to
288 Shim, which overrides the default filename of grubx64.efi. A big caveat:
289 Only Shim 0.7 and later supports this feature. (Shim 0.4 also works if a
290 refind_x64.efi is referred to as "\refind_x64.efi" on the command line,
291 but the need for a leading backslash to refer to a file in the same
292 directory as Shim is so confusing and wrong that I cannot in good
293 conscience support it.) I've not seen signed Shim binaries between 0.4
294 and 0.7, so I don't know if any of them might work.
295
296 - Implemented a workaround for a bug in Shim 0.8 that prevented
297 authentication of more than one binary. If any filesystem drivers were
298 installed, the first one would be verified, leaving rEFInd unable to
299 launch anything else unless it was signed by a key in the computer's main
300 Secure Boot db list.
301
302 0.9.1 (9/13/2015):
303 ------------------
304
305 - When rEFInd identifies the root (/) partition via the Freedesktop.org
306 Discoverable Partitions Specification, it now checks two of the
307 partition's attributes, as per the DPS (see
308 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
309 - The partition's read-only attribute determines whether to pass a "rw"
310 or "ro" option to the kernel.
311 - If the partition's do-not-automount flag is set, rEFInd will not pass
312 it as a "root=" option to the kernel. This flag can be used to remove
313 all but one partition from consideration as a root (/) partition if a
314 system has more than one with the correct type code.
315
316 - Improved Freedesktop.org Discoverable Partitions Specification support:
317 Previously, if no refind_linux.conf file was present but an /etc/fstab
318 file was found, rEFInd ignored the Discoverable Partitions Specification
319 filesystem-type codes. This was fine if /etc/fstab contained a valid "/"
320 filesystem specification, but if that was absent, the result was no
321 "root=" specification being present. Under these circumstances
322 (refind_linux.conf absent, /etc/fstab present but lacking a "/" entry),
323 rEFInd now tries to identify a device to specify as "root=" via the
324 Discoverable Partitions Specification.
325
326 - Fixed bug that caused "Found match!" and a prompt to press a key to
327 continue to be printed if any partition used the Freedesktop.org
328 Discoverable Partitions Specification root-partition GUID. (This
329 was leftover debugging/testing code that I somehow missed deleting.)
330
331 - Added icon for Elementary OS.
332
333 - Added /etc/lsb-release to files scanned for clues about the Linux
334 distribution. This file differentiates Mint and Elementary OS from Ubuntu
335 better than does /etc/os-release, and may also help with other
336 closely-related distributions.
337
338 - Improvements to handling of case-insensitive string comparisons. These
339 are buggy on some EFIs, and such bugs affect things like dont_scan_*
340 blacklists, removal of rEFInd's own directory from scanning, matching of
341 keyword names in refind.conf, and even loading of icons. I've replaced
342 many calls to problematic functions with safer calls, which should help a
343 lot. There may still be problems on some systems with some computers,
344 though; as far as I can tell, the bugs are buried deep in some EFI
345 firmware, so I can only replace some of the most direct calls to
346 potentially buggy system calls.
347
348 0.9.0 (7/26/2015):
349 ------------------
350
351 - New icon for Kali Linux, submitted by Francesco D'Eugenio.
352
353 - Minor code changes to ensure that rEFInd compiles with GCC 5.1. (Tested
354 with GNU-EFI on a Fedora 22 system; not yet tested with the TianoCore
355 EDK2.)
356
357 - Added new "fold_linux_kernels" token to refind.conf. This option, when
358 active (the default) "folds" all Linux kernels in a directory into a
359 single entry on the rEFInd menu. The kernel with the most recent time
360 stamp is launched by default. To launch another kernel, you must press F2
361 or Insert; additional kernels appear as options on the first kernel's
362 submenu. To see the pre-0.9.0 behavior, you must set "fold_linux_kernels
363 false" (or one of its synonyms, "off" or "0"). The point of this option
364 is to help de-clutter the rEFInd main menu.
365
366 - Added new Linux root (/) partition auto-discovery feature, based on
367 Freedesktop.org's Discoverable Partitions Spec (DPS)
368 (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
369 If no refind_linux.conf file or /etc/fstab file is found, and if a
370 partition with the correct DPS type code for the system architecture is
371 found, rEFInd adds "ro root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/{GUID}" to the kernel
372 options. This will not help on LVM setups, and will get it right for only
373 one installation on systems with multiple Linux installations, but it may
374 help some users, if/when the DPS type codes become more common.
375
376 - Fixed bug that caused a rEFInd crash if an empty refind_linux.conf
377 file was encountered.
378
379 - The mkrlconf.sh script now checks the OS on which it's running, which
380 should help avoid confusion or problems by users who mistakenly run it
381 under OS X.
382
383 - rEFInd now skips checking for various BIOS-mode boot sector signatures
384 when running on a UEFI-based PC; these checks are run only on Macs. This
385 may reduce startup time on systems with many partitions.
386
387 - Fixed Debian debinstall script to work correctly on IA32 systems. It had
388 a bug that caused filesystem drivers and gptsync to not be packaged for
389 IA32.
390
391 - Modified Debian postinst file to call install.sh with --localkeys option
392 if sbsign and openssl are available, even when NOT in Secure Boot mode or
393 if shim is not detected. This helps with my Ubuntu PPA when using custom
394 Secure Boot keys, since the PPA is delivered unsigned. (Users will have
395 to have added their own local keys to their firmware's db.) For
396 consistency, I've made the same change to the RPM .spec file.
397
398 0.8.7 (3/1/2015):
399 -----------------
400
401 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused inappropriate installation under the
402 name bootx64.efi (or bootia32.efi) under Linux, with a failure to update
403 the boot entries in NVRAM, has been fixed.
404
405 - Added identification of XFS as filesystem type in volume descriptions.
406
407 - More fixes to filesystem type detection code. Previous version sometimes
408 identified FAT or NTFS (or anything with a boot loader) as a whole-disk
409 device rather than the correct filesystem type.
410
411 - Added protections to the code to reduce the risk of crashes that might
412 occur when dereferencing NULL pointers in various situations.
413
414 - I'm deprecating the use of filesystem numbers (as in "fs0:") because
415 they're unreliable -- filesystem numbers can change between boots and
416 might not be the same as those used in an EFI shell or other program.
417 Sooner or later I'll remove code supporting this feature. In the
418 meantime, if it doesn't work for you, please switch to using filesystem
419 labels, partition labels, or partition GUIDs.
420
421 - Added detection of FreeBSD's BIOS-mode GPT boot loader. Previously,
422 rEFInd could detect FreeBSD's BIOS-mode MBR boot loader, which gave
423 FreeBSD an appropriate icon on Macs; but the BIOS-mode GPT boot loader
424 code is different, so some recent FreeBSD installations showed up with
425 generic grey diamond icons. This change creates FreeBSD icons instead.
426
427 - Added "Secure Boot [active|inactive]" notice to "about" menu for x86
428 (32-bit) systems, since there are now a few 32-bit UEFI systems that
429 support Secure Boot. (AFAIK, these are mostly tablets and convertibles
430 such as the ASUS T100.)
431
432 - Added KeyTool.efi and KeyTool-signed.efi to list of MOK managers. KeyTool
433 is the "super-deluxe" Secure Boot key and hash manager provided as part
434 of the efitools package.
435
436 - Fixed more instances of "invalid parameter" errors on some EFIs.
437
438 - Improved Secure Boot detection in install.sh.
439
440 - install.sh should no longer complain when copying Shim or MokManager over
441 itself.
442
443 0.8.6 (2/8/2015):
444 -----------------
445
446 - Removed special case of ignoring an HFS+ name of "HFS+ volume", since the
447 old rEFInd HFS+ driver that produced this name for all HFS+ volumes has
448 long since been updated to deliver a real name.
449
450 - Addition of new Windows 8 OS icon. On Macs and for BIOS/legacy boots, the
451 new icon is now used for Windows Vista, 7, and 8, while the old one is
452 used for earlier versions of Windows. For EFI-mode boots, the new icon is
453 used universally.
454
455 - If the NTFS driver is loaded, rEFInd now scans NTFS volumes on Macs for
456 the presence of Windows boot files, and removes any NTFS volume that
457 lacks such files from the BIOS/legacy boot list. This should help
458 unclutter the display on Macs that contain NTFS data partitions.
459
460 - Fixed bug that caused misidentification of both whole disks and NTFS
461 volumes as being FAT. (This bug affected the identification of devices
462 and locations in the rEFInd menu, not actual access to devices.)
463
464 - Code refactoring to clear out legacy-boot functions from the
465 ever-expanding refind/main.c file.
466
467 - Added new "badges" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf. This
468 option hides the device-type badges associated with the OS boot options.
469
470 - Reverted rEFIt commit r472, introduced in rEFInd 0.8.5 to support more
471 BMP images because I've received bug reports that it's causing existing
472 selection images to fail to load.
473
474 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused misidentification of installation
475 directory under OS X if an already-mounted ESP has spaces in its path.
476
477 - Fixed Mac-specific install.sh bug that could cause misidentification of
478 the ESP on disks with partition numbers of 10 or above.
479
480
481 0.8.5 (2/1/2015):
482 -----------------
483
484 - Added NTFS EFI filesystem driver.
485
486 - Minor improvements to filesystem driver framework code.
487
488 - Changes to
489
490 - Fixed bug in Btrfs driver's address reference.
491
492 - Improved install.sh to make it smarter about figuring out where to
493 install on Macs. Specifically, this version now upgrades existing
494 installations, if found (as it always has under Linux), rather than
495 blindly install to EFI/BOOT; it installs to EFI/refind if not existing
496 installation is found; it installs using the --shortform option to bless,
497 which seems to eliminate the 30-second delay problem; and it can handle
498 an HFS+ ESP, which it treats as a separate HFS+ volume (as if the user
499 had used --ownhfs). These changes do not affect behavior under Linux.
500
501 - Added missing check of architecture type for several tools.
502
503 - Applied rEFIt commit r472, which adds support for BMP images with negative
504 height fields, indicating that the image is NOT vertically flipped. This
505 commit and r467 were not incorporated in the original rEFInd because I
506 forked it from a Debian rEFIt package that had been patched to build
507 under GNU-EFI, and was apparently based on a slightly earlier version.
508
509 - Applied rEFIt commit r467, which improves Mac handling of legacy boots
510 from other than the first hard disk.
511
512
513 0.8.4 (12/8/2014):
514 ------------------
515
516 - Tweaked default for dont_scan_volumes: Removed "Recovery HD". This change
517 better suits the needs of OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") installations, but may
518 result in some stray Recovery HD entries on some Macs.
519
520 - Updated icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu.
521
522 - Added new configuration option, "enable_and_lock_vmx", which sets an
523 Intel CPU feature that's required for some types of virtualization to
524 work. Most EFIs enable setting this feature in their own setup utilities,
525 but some (such as most Macs) don't.
526
527 - If rEFInd can't locate an icons directory (either the default or one
528 specified by the icons_dir token), the program switches to text-only
529 mode.
530
531 - If a loader contains the string "grub" and no other clue to the loader's
532 OS association exists, search for os_grub.{png|icns} (which is not
533 provided with rEFInd) or os_linux.{png|icns}. (Previous versions provided
534 a generic loader icon for GRUB.)
535
536 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_files to not work with special-case
537 boot loaders (for OS X and Windows) when specifying the complete path to
538 the loader (e.g., EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi).
539
540 - Added support for the iPXE network boot tool (see BUILDING.txt for
541 building and basic use instructions).
542
543 0.8.3 (7/6/2014):
544 -----------------
545
546 - Added new feature: Setting "timeout = -1" in refind.conf causes rEFInd to
547 immediately boot the default option UNLESS a keypress is in the buffer
548 when rEFInd launches. In that case, if the keypress corresponds to a
549 shortcut key, the associated boot loader is launched; or if not, the menu
550 is displayed.
551
552 - Added new icons for Clover boot loader and for Mythbuntu Linux
553 distribution.
554
555 - rEFInd now displays the partition's label, when one is available, when
556 offering a BIOS-mode boot option for a partition with no filesystem
557 driver. This works only on Macs doing BIOS-mode booting.
558
559 - Removed GPLv2 code from the FSW core files. This was done because the
560 Btrfs driver is derived from the GRUB Btrfs driver, which is licensed
561 under the GPLv3. Ironically, the GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible
562 licenses, so ensuring that the Btrfs driver doesn't rely on GPLv2 code
563 was legally necessary. In most cases, I reverted to the original rEFIt
564 code, although I kept my own cache code; since I wrote it, I can
565 change its license to a BSD license.
566
567 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers immediately after loading
568 them. This didn't affect rEFInd's own drivers because they didn't include
569 the unload hooks, but it did affect some other drivers.
570
571 - Changed default scan_all_linux_kernels setting from "false" to "true",
572 and commented the option out in refind.conf-sample. This should not
573 affect most people, since refind.conf-sample had this option commented
574 out, and most rEFInd users either use it that way or don't have Linux
575 kernels installed at all. I've made this change because I want rEFInd to
576 "do the right thing" by default in as many cases as possible. For a while
577 now, rEFInd has been excluding non-bootable files from its menu, and most
578 kernels "in the wild" now include the EFI stub. Thus, enabling this
579 support by default seems worthwhile. If you prefer to not scan Linux
580 kernels by default, simply uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" line
581 and ensure it's set to "false".
582
583 0.8.2.1 (6/8/2014):
584 -------------------
585
586 - Removed stray bit of debugging code that caused a prompt to press a
587 key to appear at rEFInd startup.
588
589 0.8.2 (6/8/2014):
590 -----------------
591
592 - Changed behavior when default_selection is not set: It now boots the
593 previously-booted loader, assuming it's still available; if not, rEFInd
594 boots the first loader (as it does now). Behavior is unchanged if
595 default_selection is set. Note that this behavior depends on the ability
596 of rEFInd to store an EFI variable in NVRAM. It therefore fails on
597 systems with flaky NVRAM storage. You can view the previously-booted
598 loader in the
599 /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740
600 variable under Linux.
601
602 - Added icon for Mageia Linux (os_mageia.png).
603
604 - Fixed bug that could misidentify a not-quite-GUID as a GUID in a
605 manual boot stanza's "volume" line.
606
607 - I've updated my personal build system, and therefore the rEFInd Makefiles
608 and related files, to use TianoCore UDK2014 rather than UDK2010.
609
610 - Added "deep_uefi_legacy_scan" token. When not set (the default), rEFInd
611 does not modify EFI NVRAM settings when scanning for BIOS-mode boot
612 loaders on UEFI-based (non-Mac) computers. Some computers require
613 uncommenting this setting for rEFInd to reliably detect some BIOS-mode
614 boot devices. Passing "0", "off", or "false" as an option resets it to
615 the default value (useful in a loaded secondary configuration file to
616 override a setting in the main file).
617
618 0.8.1 (5/15/2014):
619 ------------------
620
621 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders stored
622 on the root directory of a partition.
623
624 - Added two new bitmap fonts to those distributed with rEFInd: Ubuntu Mono
625 and Nimbus Mono. Both come in 12-, 14-, 16-, and 24-point sizes.
626
627 - Messages about pauses for scanning and re-scanning of boot loaders are
628 now suppressed when doing an initial delayed scan when scan_delay is 1
629 second.
630
631 - Improved centering of legacy boot option descriptions on some systems'
632 screens.
633
634 - Fixed bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot to boot from an inappropriate
635 device if that device had an innately high boot priority (as set by the
636 firmware).
637
638 - Changed icons from ICNS to PNG form. There are several reasons to do
639 this, all of them minor; but together they're enough to warrant a change.
640 PNG is more common, and therefore more accessible to most users --
641 particularly those who don't use OS X. The PNG files are smaller than
642 their ICNS equivalents. PNG supports a wider range of sizes (although I'm
643 not now using anything that ICNS doesn't support, I might in the future).
644 The icon-scaling support added a few versions ago makes ICNS's support
645 for multiple icon sizes relatively unimportant.
646
647 - Reversed order of search for icons by extension: rEFInd now searches
648 for PNG files before ICNS files, rather than the other way around. This
649 makes it possible to override a volume icon for rEFInd by giving it the
650 name .VolumeIcon.png, even when a .VolumeIcon.icns file exists on the
651 volume and is used by OS X.
652
653 - Fixed bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take higher-than-intended
654 precedence in icon setting for OS X.
655
656 - Chainloading to BIOS-mode boot loaders now works on UEFI-based PCs when
657 rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI, not just when built with Tianocore.
658
659 0.8.0 (5/4/2014):
660 -----------------
661
662 - The "dont_scan_volumes" parameter now also works with legacy-boot
663 volumes. Unlike with EFI volumes, where the option you pass must exactly
664 match an entire volume name, when applied to legacy-boot volumes, it
665 matches any part of the description that appears beneath the item when
666 you select it in the rEFInd main menu.
667
668 - Can now boot in legacy mode from second (and probably later) hard disks!
669
670 - rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware name string shown in the
671 system information screen to 65 characters. This is done because at least
672 one EFI presents a longer string by default, and this causes the entire
673 information display to come up empty on 800x600 displays.
674
675 - rEFInd now uses the partition's name (as stored in the GPT data
676 structures) as a fallback for the filesystem's name if the latter can't
677 be found. Exceptions are if the partition name is one of three generic
678 names used by GPT fdisk: "Microsoft basic data", "Linux filesystem", or
679 "Apple HFS/HFS+". These are ignored in favor of the descriptive fallback
680 (e.g., "20 GiB Btrfs volume")
681
682 - It's now possible to specify a volume by partition GUID number in a
683 manual boot stanza. This should be more reliable (albeit also more
684 awkward) than using a filesystem number (such as fs0: or fs1:).
685
686 - Fixed memory-allocation bug that could cause error message displays,
687 and possibly hangs, when re-scanning boot loaders.
688
689 0.7.9 (4/20/2014):
690 ------------------
691
692 - Attempt to fix rEFInd perpetually re-scanning after ejecting a disc on
693 some Macs.
694
695 - Added check to remove redundant (or non-functional if Secure Boot is
696 active) kernel entries for Ubuntu, which is now including two versions of
697 kernels, one signed and the other unsigned.
698
699 - Fixed bug in install.sh that could cause it to display error messages
700 if the dmraid utility was not installed.
701
702 - The HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name.
703
704 - Fixed some EFI filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups under
705 some circumstances. These bugs could affect any of the filesystem
706 drivers.
707
708 - Added "gdisk" option to the "showtools" configuration file token. When
709 active, this adds gdisk.efi or gdisk_{arch}.efi, if present in the
710 EFI\tools directory, to the tools row.
711
712 - Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility
713 utility."
714
715
716 0.7.8 (3/9/2014):
717 -----------------
718
719 - Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian
720 packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run
721 any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the
722 hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run
723 install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64
724 references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of
725 concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else.
726
727 - Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of
728 the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively.
729 The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type
730 badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and
731 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If
732 the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified,
733 rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn
734 to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf.
735
736 - rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes.
737 This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it
738 can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a
739 graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so
740 scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128
741 OS icon) is not likely to look good.
742
743 - Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners:
744 Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll
745 be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the
746 behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the
747 banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display.
748
749 - Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate
750 RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for
751 existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi
752 rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages
753 were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note,
754 however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd
755 The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine;
756 it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that
757 problems might arise.
758
759 0.7.7 (1/3/2014):
760 -----------------
761
762 - Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in
763 dont_scan_files.
764
765 - Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
766
767 - Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a
768 Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to
769 "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery
770 utility on the second row of icons.
771
772 - The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files,
773 and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first
774 option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default
775 value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for
776 scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.)
777
778 - Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch,
779 via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the
780 foo.conf file as the main configuration file.
781
782 - Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with
783 duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so
784 would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given
785 UUID.
786
787 - Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP
788 in Linux, if it's currently unmounted.
789
790 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
791 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
792 under some circumstances.
793
794 0.7.6 (12/15/2013):
795 -------------------
796
797 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
798 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
799 default_selection "fred,ginger"
800 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
801 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
802
803 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
804 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
805 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
806 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
807 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
808 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
809 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
810 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
811 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
812 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
813 depending on your computer.
814
815 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
816 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
817 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
818 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
819 screensaver will be disabled.
820
821 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
822 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
823 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
824 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
825 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
826
827 0.7.5 (11/10/2013):
828 -------------------
829
830 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
831 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
832
833 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
834 versions of OS X to fail.
835
836 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
837 drivers were present.
838
839 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
840 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
841 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
842 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
843 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
844 black a second or so later.
845
846 0.7.4.1 (8/25/2013):
847 --------------------
848
849 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
850 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
851 problem.
852
853 0.7.4 (8/25/2013):
854 ------------------
855
856 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
857 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
858 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
859
860 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
861 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
862 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
863 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
864 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
865 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
866 default.
867
868 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
869 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
870 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
871 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
872
873 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
874 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
875 known case, but there may be others.)
876
877 0.7.3 (8/7/2013):
878 -----------------
879
880 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
881 loaders on Macs.
882
883 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
884
885 0.7.2 (8/6/2013):
886 -----------------
887
888 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
889 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
890
891 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
892 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
893
894 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
895 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
896
897 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
898 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
899 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
900 HashTool-signed.efi".
901
902 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
903
904 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
905 was broken.
906
907 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
908 was broken.
909
910 0.7.1 (7/8/2013):
911 -----------------
912
913 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
914
915 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
916 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
917 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
918
919 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
920 volume specification, if present.
921
922 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
923
924 0.7.0 (6/27/2013):
925 ------------------
926
927 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
928 type for volumes that lack labels.
929
930 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
931 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
932 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
933 though.
934
935 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
936 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
937 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
938 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
939 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
940 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
941 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
942 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
943
944 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
945 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
946 non-EFI loaders, etc.
947
948 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
949 code.
950
951 0.6.12 (6/18/2013):
952 -------------------
953
954 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
955 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
956
957 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
958 script.
959
960 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
961 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
962 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
963 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
964
965 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
966 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
967 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
968 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
969
970 0.6.11 (5/13/2013):
971 -------------------
972
973 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
974 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
975 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
976 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
977
978 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
979
980 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
981 directory names that contain spaces.
982
983 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
984 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
985 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
986 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
987 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
988
989 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
990 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
991
992 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
993 Utility" in menu.
994
995 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
996 partitions to fill the MBR.
997
998 0.6.10 (5/5/2013):
999 ------------------
1000
1001 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
1002 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
1003 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
1004 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
1005
1006 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
1007 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
1008 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
1009 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
1010 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
1011
1012 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
1013 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
1014 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
1015 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
1016 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
1017 is quietly ignored.
1018
1019 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
1020 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
1021
1022 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
1023 encountered when saving a screen shot.
1024
1025 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
1026 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
1027 sequence number, starting with "001".
1028
1029 0.6.9 (4/25/2013):
1030 ------------------
1031
1032 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
1033 Kemperman.
1034
1035 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
1036 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
1037
1038 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
1039 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
1040 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
1041
1042 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
1043 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
1044 accidentally trash their systems.
1045
1046 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
1047 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
1048 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
1049
1050 0.6.8 (3/18/2013):
1051 ------------------
1052
1053 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
1054 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
1055
1056 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
1057 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
1058
1059 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
1060 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
1061
1062 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
1063
1064 0.6.7 (2/3/2013):
1065 -----------------
1066
1067 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
1068 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
1069
1070 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
1071 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
1072 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
1073 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
1074
1075 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
1076 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
1077
1078 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
1079 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
1080
1081 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
1082 also_scan_dirs list.
1083
1084 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
1085
1086 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
1087 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
1088 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
1089
1090 0.6.6 (1/26/2013):
1091 ------------------
1092
1093 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
1094 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
1095 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
1096 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
1097 loader under the fallback name.
1098
1099 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
1100 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
1101 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
1102 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
1103 of 96 glyphs.
1104
1105 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
1106 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
1107
1108 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
1109 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
1110
1111 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
1112 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
1113 commented out or empty.
1114
1115 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
1116 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
1117
1118 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
1119 manual boot stanzas.
1120
1121 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
1122 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
1123
1124 0.6.5 (1/16/2013):
1125 ------------------
1126
1127 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
1128 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
1129
1130 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
1131
1132 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
1133
1134 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
1135 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
1136
1137 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
1138
1139 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
1140 sized to cover these areas.
1141
1142 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
1143 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
1144 resolution!
1145
1146 0.6.4 (1/8/2013):
1147 -----------------
1148
1149 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
1150 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
1151 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
1152 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
1153
1154 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
1155 startup on some systems.
1156
1157 0.6.3 (1/6/2013):
1158 -----------------
1159
1160 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
1161 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
1162
1163 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
1164 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
1165
1166 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
1167 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
1168 burned to USB flash disks.
1169
1170 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
1171 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
1172 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
1173
1174 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
1175 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
1176 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
1177 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
1178 from that installation.
1179
1180 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
1181 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
1182 than in EFI/refind.
1183
1184 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
1185 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
1186
1187 0.6.2 (12/30/2012):
1188 -------------------
1189
1190 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
1191 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
1192 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
1193
1194 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
1195 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
1196 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
1197 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
1198 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
1199
1200 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
1201 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
1202 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
1203 Linux with the "make" command.
1204
1205 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
1206 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
1207
1208 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
1209 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
1210 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
1211 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
1212 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
1213 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
1214 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
1215 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
1216
1217 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
1218 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
1219 default.)
1220
1221 0.6.1 (12/21/2012):
1222 -------------------
1223
1224 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
1225 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
1226 use on emergency discs.
1227
1228 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
1229 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
1230 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
1231 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
1232 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
1233 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
1234 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
1235 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
1236 handle.
1237
1238 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
1239
1240 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
1241 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
1242 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
1243 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
1244 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
1245 os_GENTOO.icns.
1246
1247 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
1248 mode.
1249
1250 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
1251 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
1252 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
1253 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
1254
1255 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
1256 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
1257 a boot loader launch failed.
1258
1259 0.6.0 (12/16/2012):
1260 -------------------
1261
1262 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
1263 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
1264 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
1265 options.
1266
1267 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
1268 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
1269 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
1270 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
1271
1272 - Added ext4fs driver!
1273
1274 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
1275
1276 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
1277
1278 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
1279 from a program that set the resolution itself.
1280
1281 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
1282 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
1283 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
1284 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
1285 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
1286 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
1287 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
1288 mode.
1289
1290 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
1291 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
1292 display even in graphics mode.
1293
1294 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
1295 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
1296
1297 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
1298 disables the boot options editor.
1299
1300 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
1301 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
1302
1303 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
1304 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
1305 from the /etc/default/grub file.
1306
1307 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
1308 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
1309
1310 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
1311 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
1312 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
1313 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
1314 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
1315 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
1316
1317 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
1318 on Linux systems.
1319
1320 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
1321 ---------------------
1322
1323 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
1324
1325 0.5.1 (12/11/2012):
1326 -------------------
1327
1328 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
1329 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
1330 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
1331 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
1332
1333 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
1334 configuration file from a primary one.
1335
1336 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
1337 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
1338 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
1339 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
1340 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
1341 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
1342 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
1343 LVM.)
1344
1345 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
1346 on systems with Secure Boot active.
1347
1348 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
1349 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
1350 refind.conf.
1351
1352 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
1353 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
1354
1355 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
1356 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
1357 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
1358
1359 0.5.0 (12/6/2012):
1360 ------------------
1361
1362 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
1363 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
1364 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
1365 This example results in the following string being passed as an
1366 option:
1367 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
1368
1369 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
1370 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
1371 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
1372 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
1373 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
1374 for them makes sense.
1375
1376 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
1377 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
1378 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
1379 EFI shells are also so limited.)
1380
1381 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
1382 were not actually edited.
1383
1384 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
1385 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
1386 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
1387 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
1388 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
1389
1390 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
1391 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
1392 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
1393 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
1394 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
1395 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
1396 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
1397 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
1398
1399 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
1400 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
1401 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
1402
1403 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
1404 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
1405 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
1406
1407 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
1408 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
1409 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
1410 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
1411
1412 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
1413 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
1414 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
1415
1416 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
1417 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
1418
1419 0.4.7 (11/6/2012):
1420 ------------------
1421
1422 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
1423
1424 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
1425 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
1426 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
1427
1428 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
1429 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
1430 told isn't working as planned).
1431
1432 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
1433 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
1434 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
1435 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
1436
1437 0.4.6 (10/6/2012):
1438 ------------------
1439
1440 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
1441
1442 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
1443 for disks.
1444
1445 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
1446 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
1447 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
1448 done this for two reasons:
1449 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
1450 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
1451 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
1452 default for them should help them.
1453 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
1454 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
1455 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
1456 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
1457 default configurations.
1458
1459 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
1460
1461 0.4.5 (8/12/2012):
1462 ------------------
1463
1464 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
1465
1466 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
1467
1468 0.4.4 (6/23/2012):
1469 ------------------
1470
1471 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
1472 32-bit systems.
1473
1474 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
1475 on 32-bit systems.
1476
1477 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
1478 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
1479 loaders/OSes.
1480
1481 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
1482
1483 0.4.3 (6/21/2012):
1484 ------------------
1485
1486 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
1487 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
1488
1489 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
1490 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
1491 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
1492 graphics or text mode itself.)
1493
1494 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
1495 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
1496 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
1497 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
1498 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
1499 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
1500 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
1501
1502 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
1503
1504 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
1505 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
1506 "linux.conf" themselves.
1507
1508 0.4.2 (6/3/2012):
1509 -----------------
1510
1511 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
1512 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
1513 via rEFInd.
1514
1515 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
1516 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
1517 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
1518 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
1519 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
1520 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
1521 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
1522 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
1523 the boot order).
1524
1525 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
1526 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
1527
1528 0.4.1 (5/25/2012):
1529 ------------------
1530
1531 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
1532 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
1533 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
1534 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
1535 system hasn't hung.
1536
1537 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
1538 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
1539
1540 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
1541
1542 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
1543 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
1544 label.)
1545
1546 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
1547 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
1548
1549 0.4.0 (5/20/2012):
1550 ------------------
1551
1552 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
1553 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
1554 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
1555 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
1556 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
1557 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
1558 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
1559
1560 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
1561 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
1562 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
1563
1564 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
1565 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
1566 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
1567 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
1568
1569 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
1570 file when launched from rEFInd.
1571
1572 0.3.5 (5/15/2012):
1573 ------------------
1574
1575 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
1576 received reports that it's not working as intended.
1577
1578 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
1579 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
1580 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
1581 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
1582 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
1583 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
1584
1585 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
1586 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
1587
1588 0.3.4 (5/9/2012):
1589 -----------------
1590
1591 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
1592 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
1593 sample configuration file for a full description.
1594
1595 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
1596 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
1597 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
1598 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
1599 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
1600
1601 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
1602 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
1603 target).
1604
1605 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
1606 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
1607
1608 0.3.3 (5/6/2012):
1609 -----------------
1610
1611 - Improved menu navigation:
1612 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
1613 down arrows move between rows.
1614 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
1615 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
1616 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
1617 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
1618
1619 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
1620 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
1621 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
1622
1623 0.3.2 (5/4/2012):
1624 -----------------
1625
1626 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
1627 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
1628 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
1629 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
1630 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
1631 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
1632 will fail to work.
1633
1634 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
1635 mode.
1636
1637 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
1638
1639 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
1640 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
1641 options.
1642
1643
1644 0.3.1 (4/27/2012):
1645 ------------------
1646
1647 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
1648 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
1649
1650 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
1651 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
1652 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
1653 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
1654 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
1655 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
1656 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
1657 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
1658 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
1659 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
1660 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
1661
1662 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
1663 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
1664 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
1665 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
1666 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
1667
1668 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
1669 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
1670
1671 0.3.0 (4/22/2012):
1672 ------------------
1673
1674 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
1675 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
1676 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
1677 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
1678 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
1679 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
1680
1681 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
1682 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
1683 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
1684 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
1685 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
1686 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
1687 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
1688 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
1689 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
1690 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
1691 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
1692 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
1693 that resets the video mode.
1694
1695 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
1696 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
1697 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
1698 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
1699 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
1700 details.
1701
1702 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
1703 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
1704 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
1705 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
1706 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
1707 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
1708
1709 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
1710 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
1711 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
1712
1713 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
1714 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
1715 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
1716 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
1717
1718 0.2.7 (4/19/2012):
1719 ------------------
1720
1721 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
1722 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
1723 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
1724 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
1725 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
1726 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
1727 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
1728 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
1729 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
1730 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
1731 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
1732 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
1733 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
1734 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
1735 installation.
1736
1737 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
1738
1739 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
1740 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
1741 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
1742 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
1743 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
1744 directories you like.
1745
1746 0.2.6 (4/14/2012):
1747 ------------------
1748
1749 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
1750 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
1751 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
1752 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
1753 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
1754 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
1755 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
1756 should work when a volume is unnamed.
1757
1758 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
1759 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
1760 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
1761
1762 0.2.5 (4/9/2012):
1763 -----------------
1764
1765 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
1766 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
1767
1768 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
1769 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
1770 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
1771 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
1772 documented the name....
1773
1774 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
1775 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
1776 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
1777
1778 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
1779 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
1780 directory) on certain systems.
1781
1782 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
1783 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1784
1785 0.2.4 (4/5/2012):
1786 -----------------
1787
1788 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1789 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1790 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1791 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1792 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1793 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1794 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1795 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1796 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1797 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1798 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1799 to me.
1800
1801 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1802 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1803 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1804 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1805 simultaneously.)
1806
1807 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1808 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1809
1810 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1811 image.
1812
1813 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1814 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1815 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1816 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1817 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1818
1819 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1820 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1821 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1822 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1823 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1824 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1825
1826 0.2.3 (3/26/2012):
1827 ------------------
1828
1829 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1830 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1831 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1832 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1833 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1834 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1835 small sample of computers.
1836
1837 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1838 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1839 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1840 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1841 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1842
1843 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1844
1845 0.2.2 (3/23/2012):
1846 ------------------
1847
1848 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1849 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1850 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1851 versionless initrd file.
1852
1853 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1854 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1855 continues.
1856
1857 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1858 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1859 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1860
1861 0.2.1 (3/19/2012):
1862 ------------------
1863
1864 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1865 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1866 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1867 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1868
1869 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1870 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1871 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1872 directory as the kernel.
1873
1874 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1875 entries in refind.conf file.
1876
1877 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1878 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1879
1880
1881 0.2.0 (3/14/2012):
1882 ------------------
1883
1884 - Initial public release