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Fixed OS X install.sh bugs relating to pre-mounted ESP with space in
[refind] / NEWS.txt
1 0.8.6 (?/??/2016):
2 ------------------
3
4 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused misidentification of installation
5 directory under OS X if an already-mounted ESP has spaces in its path.
6
7 - Fixed install.sh bug that could cause misidentification of the ESP on
8 disks with partition numbers of 10 or above.
9
10
11 0.8.5 (2/1/2015):
12 -----------------
13
14 - Added NTFS EFI filesystem driver.
15
16 - Minor improvements to filesystem driver framework code.
17
18 - Changes to
19
20 - Fixed bug in Btrfs driver's address reference.
21
22 - Improved install.sh to make it smarter about figuring out where to
23 install on Macs. Specifically, this version now upgrades existing
24 installations, if found (as it always has under Linux), rather than
25 blindly install to EFI/BOOT; it installs to EFI/refind if not existing
26 installation is found; it installs using the --shortform option to bless,
27 which seems to eliminate the 30-second delay problem; and it can handle
28 an HFS+ ESP, which it treats as a separate HFS+ volume (as if the user
29 had used --ownhfs). These changes do not affect behavior under Linux.
30
31 - Added missing check of architecture type for several tools.
32
33 - Applied rEFIt commit r472, which adds support for BMP images with negative
34 height fields, indicating that the image is NOT vertically flipped. This
35 commit and r467 were not incorporated in the original rEFInd because I
36 forked it from a Debian rEFIt package that had been patched to build
37 under GNU-EFI, and was apparently based on a slightly earlier version.
38
39 - Applied rEFIt commit r467, which improves Mac handling of legacy boots
40 from other than the first hard disk.
41
42
43 0.8.4 (12/8/2014):
44 ------------------
45
46 - Tweaked default for dont_scan_volumes: Removed "Recovery HD". This change
47 better suits the needs of OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") installations, but may
48 result in some stray Recovery HD entries on some Macs.
49
50 - Updated icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu.
51
52 - Added new configuration option, "enable_and_lock_vmx", which sets an
53 Intel CPU feature that's required for some types of virtualization to
54 work. Most EFIs enable setting this feature in their own setup utilities,
55 but some (such as most Macs) don't.
56
57 - If rEFInd can't locate an icons directory (either the default or one
58 specified by the icons_dir token), the program switches to text-only
59 mode.
60
61 - If a loader contains the string "grub" and no other clue to the loader's
62 OS association exists, search for os_grub.{png|icns} (which is not
63 provided with rEFInd) or os_linux.{png|icns}. (Previous versions provided
64 a generic loader icon for GRUB.)
65
66 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_files to not work with special-case
67 boot loaders (for OS X and Windows) when specifying the complete path to
68 the loader (e.g., EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi).
69
70 - Added support for the iPXE network boot tool (see BUILDING.txt for
71 building and basic use instructions).
72
73 0.8.3 (7/6/2014):
74 -----------------
75
76 - Added new feature: Setting "timeout = -1" in refind.conf causes rEFInd to
77 immediately boot the default option UNLESS a keypress is in the buffer
78 when rEFInd launches. In that case, if the keypress corresponds to a
79 shortcut key, the associated boot loader is launched; or if not, the menu
80 is displayed.
81
82 - Added new icons for Clover boot loader and for Mythbuntu Linux
83 distribution.
84
85 - rEFInd now displays the partition's label, when one is available, when
86 offering a BIOS-mode boot option for a partition with no filesystem
87 driver. This works only on Macs doing BIOS-mode booting.
88
89 - Removed GPLv2 code from the FSW core files. This was done because the
90 Btrfs driver is derived from the GRUB Btrfs driver, which is licensed
91 under the GPLv3. Ironically, the GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible
92 licenses, so ensuring that the Btrfs driver doesn't rely on GPLv2 code
93 was legally necessary. In most cases, I reverted to the original rEFIt
94 code, although I kept my own cache code; since I wrote it, I can
95 change its license to a BSD license.
96
97 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers immediately after loading
98 them. This didn't affect rEFInd's own drivers because they didn't include
99 the unload hooks, but it did affect some other drivers.
100
101 - Changed default scan_all_linux_kernels setting from "false" to "true",
102 and commented the option out in refind.conf-sample. This should not
103 affect most people, since refind.conf-sample had this option commented
104 out, and most rEFInd users either use it that way or don't have Linux
105 kernels installed at all. I've made this change because I want rEFInd to
106 "do the right thing" by default in as many cases as possible. For a while
107 now, rEFInd has been excluding non-bootable files from its menu, and most
108 kernels "in the wild" now include the EFI stub. Thus, enabling this
109 support by default seems worthwhile. If you prefer to not scan Linux
110 kernels by default, simply uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" line
111 and ensure it's set to "false".
112
113 0.8.2.1 (6/8/2014):
114 -------------------
115
116 - Removed stray bit of debugging code that caused a prompt to press a
117 key to appear at rEFInd startup.
118
119 0.8.2 (6/8/2014):
120 -----------------
121
122 - Changed behavior when default_selection is not set: It now boots the
123 previously-booted loader, assuming it's still available; if not, rEFInd
124 boots the first loader (as it does now). Behavior is unchanged if
125 default_selection is set. Note that this behavior depends on the ability
126 of rEFInd to store an EFI variable in NVRAM. It therefore fails on
127 systems with flaky NVRAM storage. You can view the previously-booted
128 loader in the
129 /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740
130 variable under Linux.
131
132 - Added icon for Mageia Linux (os_mageia.png).
133
134 - Fixed bug that could misidentify a not-quite-GUID as a GUID in a
135 manual boot stanza's "volume" line.
136
137 - I've updated my personal build system, and therefore the rEFInd Makefiles
138 and related files, to use TianoCore UDK2014 rather than UDK2010.
139
140 - Added "deep_uefi_legacy_scan" token. When not set (the default), rEFInd
141 does not modify EFI NVRAM settings when scanning for BIOS-mode boot
142 loaders on UEFI-based (non-Mac) computers. Some computers require
143 uncommenting this setting for rEFInd to reliably detect some BIOS-mode
144 boot devices. Passing "0", "off", or "false" as an option resets it to
145 the default value (useful in a loaded secondary configuration file to
146 override a setting in the main file).
147
148 0.8.1 (5/15/2014):
149 ------------------
150
151 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders stored
152 on the root directory of a partition.
153
154 - Added two new bitmap fonts to those distributed with rEFInd: Ubuntu Mono
155 and Nimbus Mono. Both come in 12-, 14-, 16-, and 24-point sizes.
156
157 - Messages about pauses for scanning and re-scanning of boot loaders are
158 now suppressed when doing an initial delayed scan when scan_delay is 1
159 second.
160
161 - Improved centering of legacy boot option descriptions on some systems'
162 screens.
163
164 - Fixed bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot to boot from an inappropriate
165 device if that device had an innately high boot priority (as set by the
166 firmware).
167
168 - Changed icons from ICNS to PNG form. There are several reasons to do
169 this, all of them minor; but together they're enough to warrant a change.
170 PNG is more common, and therefore more accessible to most users --
171 particularly those who don't use OS X. The PNG files are smaller than
172 their ICNS equivalents. PNG supports a wider range of sizes (although I'm
173 not now using anything that ICNS doesn't support, I might in the future).
174 The icon-scaling support added a few versions ago makes ICNS's support
175 for multiple icon sizes relatively unimportant.
176
177 - Reversed order of search for icons by extension: rEFInd now searches
178 for PNG files before ICNS files, rather than the other way around. This
179 makes it possible to override a volume icon for rEFInd by giving it the
180 name .VolumeIcon.png, even when a .VolumeIcon.icns file exists on the
181 volume and is used by OS X.
182
183 - Fixed bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take higher-than-intended
184 precedence in icon setting for OS X.
185
186 - Chainloading to BIOS-mode boot loaders now works on UEFI-based PCs when
187 rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI, not just when built with Tianocore.
188
189 0.8.0 (5/4/2014):
190 -----------------
191
192 - The "dont_scan_volumes" parameter now also works with legacy-boot
193 volumes. Unlike with EFI volumes, where the option you pass must exactly
194 match an entire volume name, when applied to legacy-boot volumes, it
195 matches any part of the description that appears beneath the item when
196 you select it in the rEFInd main menu.
197
198 - Can now boot in legacy mode from second (and probably later) hard disks!
199
200 - rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware name string shown in the
201 system information screen to 65 characters. This is done because at least
202 one EFI presents a longer string by default, and this causes the entire
203 information display to come up empty on 800x600 displays.
204
205 - rEFInd now uses the partition's name (as stored in the GPT data
206 structures) as a fallback for the filesystem's name if the latter can't
207 be found. Exceptions are if the partition name is one of three generic
208 names used by GPT fdisk: "Microsoft basic data", "Linux filesystem", or
209 "Apple HFS/HFS+". These are ignored in favor of the descriptive fallback
210 (e.g., "20 GiB Btrfs volume")
211
212 - It's now possible to specify a volume by partition GUID number in a
213 manual boot stanza. This should be more reliable (albeit also more
214 awkward) than using a filesystem number (such as fs0: or fs1:).
215
216 - Fixed memory-allocation bug that could cause error message displays,
217 and possibly hangs, when re-scanning boot loaders.
218
219 0.7.9 (4/20/2014):
220 ------------------
221
222 - Attempt to fix rEFInd perpetually re-scanning after ejecting a disc on
223 some Macs.
224
225 - Added check to remove redundant (or non-functional if Secure Boot is
226 active) kernel entries for Ubuntu, which is now including two versions of
227 kernels, one signed and the other unsigned.
228
229 - Fixed bug in install.sh that could cause it to display error messages
230 if the dmraid utility was not installed.
231
232 - The HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name.
233
234 - Fixed some EFI filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups under
235 some circumstances. These bugs could affect any of the filesystem
236 drivers.
237
238 - Added "gdisk" option to the "showtools" configuration file token. When
239 active, this adds gdisk.efi or gdisk_{arch}.efi, if present in the
240 EFI\tools directory, to the tools row.
241
242 - Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility
243 utility."
244
245
246 0.7.8 (3/9/2014):
247 -----------------
248
249 - Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian
250 packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run
251 any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the
252 hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run
253 install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64
254 references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of
255 concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else.
256
257 - Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of
258 the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively.
259 The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type
260 badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and
261 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If
262 the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified,
263 rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn
264 to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf.
265
266 - rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes.
267 This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it
268 can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a
269 graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so
270 scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128
271 OS icon) is not likely to look good.
272
273 - Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners:
274 Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll
275 be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the
276 behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the
277 banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display.
278
279 - Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate
280 RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for
281 existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi
282 rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages
283 were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note,
284 however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd
285 The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine;
286 it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that
287 problems might arise.
288
289 0.7.7 (1/3/2014):
290 -----------------
291
292 - Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in
293 dont_scan_files.
294
295 - Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
296
297 - Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a
298 Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to
299 "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery
300 utility on the second row of icons.
301
302 - The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files,
303 and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first
304 option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default
305 value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for
306 scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.)
307
308 - Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch,
309 via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the
310 foo.conf file as the main configuration file.
311
312 - Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with
313 duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so
314 would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given
315 UUID.
316
317 - Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP
318 in Linux, if it's currently unmounted.
319
320 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
321 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
322 under some circumstances.
323
324 0.7.6 (12/15/2013):
325 -------------------
326
327 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
328 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
329 default_selection "fred,ginger"
330 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
331 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
332
333 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
334 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
335 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
336 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
337 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
338 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
339 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
340 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
341 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
342 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
343 depending on your computer.
344
345 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
346 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
347 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
348 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
349 screensaver will be disabled.
350
351 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
352 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
353 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
354 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
355 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
356
357 0.7.5 (11/10/2013):
358 -------------------
359
360 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
361 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
362
363 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
364 versions of OS X to fail.
365
366 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
367 drivers were present.
368
369 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
370 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
371 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
372 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
373 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
374 black a second or so later.
375
376 0.7.4.1 (8/25/2013):
377 --------------------
378
379 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
380 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
381 problem.
382
383 0.7.4 (8/25/2013):
384 ------------------
385
386 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
387 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
388 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
389
390 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
391 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
392 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
393 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
394 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
395 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
396 default.
397
398 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
399 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
400 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
401 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
402
403 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
404 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
405 known case, but there may be others.)
406
407 0.7.3 (8/7/2013):
408 -----------------
409
410 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
411 loaders on Macs.
412
413 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
414
415 0.7.2 (8/6/2013):
416 -----------------
417
418 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
419 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
420
421 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
422 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
423
424 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
425 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
426
427 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
428 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
429 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
430 HashTool-signed.efi".
431
432 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
433
434 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
435 was broken.
436
437 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
438 was broken.
439
440 0.7.1 (7/8/2013):
441 -----------------
442
443 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
444
445 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
446 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
447 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
448
449 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
450 volume specification, if present.
451
452 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
453
454 0.7.0 (6/27/2013):
455 ------------------
456
457 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
458 type for volumes that lack labels.
459
460 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
461 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
462 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
463 though.
464
465 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
466 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
467 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
468 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
469 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
470 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
471 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
472 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
473
474 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
475 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
476 non-EFI loaders, etc.
477
478 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
479 code.
480
481 0.6.12 (6/18/2013):
482 -------------------
483
484 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
485 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
486
487 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
488 script.
489
490 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
491 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
492 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
493 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
494
495 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
496 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
497 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
498 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
499
500 0.6.11 (5/13/2013):
501 -------------------
502
503 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
504 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
505 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
506 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
507
508 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
509
510 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
511 directory names that contain spaces.
512
513 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
514 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
515 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
516 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
517 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
518
519 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
520 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
521
522 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
523 Utility" in menu.
524
525 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
526 partitions to fill the MBR.
527
528 0.6.10 (5/5/2013):
529 ------------------
530
531 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
532 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
533 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
534 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
535
536 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
537 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
538 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
539 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
540 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
541
542 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
543 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
544 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
545 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
546 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
547 is quietly ignored.
548
549 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
550 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
551
552 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
553 encountered when saving a screen shot.
554
555 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
556 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
557 sequence number, starting with "001".
558
559 0.6.9 (4/25/2013):
560 ------------------
561
562 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
563 Kemperman.
564
565 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
566 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
567
568 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
569 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
570 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
571
572 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
573 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
574 accidentally trash their systems.
575
576 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
577 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
578 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
579
580 0.6.8 (3/18/2013):
581 ------------------
582
583 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
584 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
585
586 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
587 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
588
589 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
590 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
591
592 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
593
594 0.6.7 (2/3/2013):
595 -----------------
596
597 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
598 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
599
600 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
601 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
602 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
603 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
604
605 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
606 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
607
608 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
609 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
610
611 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
612 also_scan_dirs list.
613
614 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
615
616 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
617 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
618 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
619
620 0.6.6 (1/26/2013):
621 ------------------
622
623 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
624 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
625 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
626 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
627 loader under the fallback name.
628
629 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
630 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
631 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
632 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
633 of 96 glyphs.
634
635 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
636 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
637
638 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
639 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
640
641 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
642 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
643 commented out or empty.
644
645 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
646 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
647
648 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
649 manual boot stanzas.
650
651 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
652 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
653
654 0.6.5 (1/16/2013):
655 ------------------
656
657 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
658 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
659
660 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
661
662 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
663
664 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
665 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
666
667 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
668
669 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
670 sized to cover these areas.
671
672 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
673 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
674 resolution!
675
676 0.6.4 (1/8/2013):
677 -----------------
678
679 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
680 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
681 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
682 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
683
684 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
685 startup on some systems.
686
687 0.6.3 (1/6/2013):
688 -----------------
689
690 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
691 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
692
693 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
694 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
695
696 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
697 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
698 burned to USB flash disks.
699
700 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
701 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
702 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
703
704 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
705 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
706 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
707 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
708 from that installation.
709
710 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
711 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
712 than in EFI/refind.
713
714 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
715 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
716
717 0.6.2 (12/30/2012):
718 -------------------
719
720 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
721 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
722 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
723
724 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
725 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
726 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
727 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
728 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
729
730 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
731 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
732 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
733 Linux with the "make" command.
734
735 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
736 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
737
738 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
739 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
740 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
741 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
742 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
743 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
744 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
745 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
746
747 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
748 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
749 default.)
750
751 0.6.1 (12/21/2012):
752 -------------------
753
754 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
755 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
756 use on emergency discs.
757
758 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
759 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
760 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
761 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
762 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
763 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
764 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
765 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
766 handle.
767
768 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
769
770 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
771 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
772 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
773 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
774 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
775 os_GENTOO.icns.
776
777 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
778 mode.
779
780 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
781 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
782 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
783 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
784
785 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
786 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
787 a boot loader launch failed.
788
789 0.6.0 (12/16/2012):
790 -------------------
791
792 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
793 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
794 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
795 options.
796
797 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
798 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
799 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
800 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
801
802 - Added ext4fs driver!
803
804 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
805
806 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
807
808 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
809 from a program that set the resolution itself.
810
811 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
812 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
813 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
814 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
815 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
816 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
817 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
818 mode.
819
820 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
821 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
822 display even in graphics mode.
823
824 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
825 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
826
827 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
828 disables the boot options editor.
829
830 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
831 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
832
833 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
834 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
835 from the /etc/default/grub file.
836
837 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
838 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
839
840 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
841 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
842 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
843 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
844 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
845 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
846
847 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
848 on Linux systems.
849
850 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
851 ---------------------
852
853 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
854
855 0.5.1 (12/11/2012):
856 -------------------
857
858 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
859 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
860 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
861 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
862
863 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
864 configuration file from a primary one.
865
866 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
867 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
868 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
869 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
870 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
871 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
872 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
873 LVM.)
874
875 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
876 on systems with Secure Boot active.
877
878 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
879 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
880 refind.conf.
881
882 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
883 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
884
885 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
886 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
887 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
888
889 0.5.0 (12/6/2012):
890 ------------------
891
892 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
893 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
894 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
895 This example results in the following string being passed as an
896 option:
897 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
898
899 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
900 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
901 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
902 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
903 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
904 for them makes sense.
905
906 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
907 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
908 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
909 EFI shells are also so limited.)
910
911 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
912 were not actually edited.
913
914 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
915 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
916 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
917 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
918 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
919
920 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
921 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
922 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
923 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
924 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
925 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
926 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
927 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
928
929 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
930 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
931 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
932
933 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
934 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
935 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
936
937 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
938 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
939 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
940 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
941
942 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
943 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
944 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
945
946 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
947 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
948
949 0.4.7 (11/6/2012):
950 ------------------
951
952 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
953
954 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
955 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
956 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
957
958 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
959 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
960 told isn't working as planned).
961
962 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
963 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
964 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
965 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
966
967 0.4.6 (10/6/2012):
968 ------------------
969
970 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
971
972 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
973 for disks.
974
975 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
976 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
977 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
978 done this for two reasons:
979 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
980 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
981 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
982 default for them should help them.
983 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
984 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
985 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
986 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
987 default configurations.
988
989 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
990
991 0.4.5 (8/12/2012):
992 ------------------
993
994 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
995
996 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
997
998 0.4.4 (6/23/2012):
999 ------------------
1000
1001 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
1002 32-bit systems.
1003
1004 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
1005 on 32-bit systems.
1006
1007 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
1008 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
1009 loaders/OSes.
1010
1011 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
1012
1013 0.4.3 (6/21/2012):
1014 ------------------
1015
1016 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
1017 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
1018
1019 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
1020 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
1021 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
1022 graphics or text mode itself.)
1023
1024 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
1025 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
1026 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
1027 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
1028 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
1029 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
1030 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
1031
1032 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
1033
1034 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
1035 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
1036 "linux.conf" themselves.
1037
1038 0.4.2 (6/3/2012):
1039 -----------------
1040
1041 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
1042 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
1043 via rEFInd.
1044
1045 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
1046 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
1047 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
1048 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
1049 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
1050 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
1051 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
1052 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
1053 the boot order).
1054
1055 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
1056 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
1057
1058 0.4.1 (5/25/2012):
1059 ------------------
1060
1061 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
1062 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
1063 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
1064 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
1065 system hasn't hung.
1066
1067 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
1068 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
1069
1070 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
1071
1072 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
1073 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
1074 label.)
1075
1076 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
1077 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
1078
1079 0.4.0 (5/20/2012):
1080 ------------------
1081
1082 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
1083 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
1084 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
1085 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
1086 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
1087 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
1088 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
1089
1090 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
1091 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
1092 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
1093
1094 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
1095 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
1096 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
1097 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
1098
1099 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
1100 file when launched from rEFInd.
1101
1102 0.3.5 (5/15/2012):
1103 ------------------
1104
1105 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
1106 received reports that it's not working as intended.
1107
1108 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
1109 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
1110 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
1111 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
1112 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
1113 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
1114
1115 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
1116 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
1117
1118 0.3.4 (5/9/2012):
1119 -----------------
1120
1121 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
1122 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
1123 sample configuration file for a full description.
1124
1125 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
1126 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
1127 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
1128 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
1129 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
1130
1131 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
1132 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
1133 target).
1134
1135 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
1136 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
1137
1138 0.3.3 (5/6/2012):
1139 -----------------
1140
1141 - Improved menu navigation:
1142 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
1143 down arrows move between rows.
1144 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
1145 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
1146 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
1147 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
1148
1149 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
1150 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
1151 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
1152
1153 0.3.2 (5/4/2012):
1154 -----------------
1155
1156 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
1157 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
1158 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
1159 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
1160 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
1161 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
1162 will fail to work.
1163
1164 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
1165 mode.
1166
1167 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
1168
1169 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
1170 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
1171 options.
1172
1173
1174 0.3.1 (4/27/2012):
1175 ------------------
1176
1177 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
1178 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
1179
1180 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
1181 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
1182 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
1183 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
1184 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
1185 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
1186 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
1187 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
1188 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
1189 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
1190 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
1191
1192 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
1193 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
1194 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
1195 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
1196 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
1197
1198 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
1199 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
1200
1201 0.3.0 (4/22/2012):
1202 ------------------
1203
1204 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
1205 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
1206 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
1207 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
1208 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
1209 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
1210
1211 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
1212 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
1213 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
1214 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
1215 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
1216 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
1217 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
1218 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
1219 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
1220 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
1221 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
1222 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
1223 that resets the video mode.
1224
1225 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
1226 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
1227 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
1228 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
1229 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
1230 details.
1231
1232 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
1233 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
1234 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
1235 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
1236 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
1237 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
1238
1239 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
1240 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
1241 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
1242
1243 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
1244 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
1245 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
1246 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
1247
1248 0.2.7 (4/19/2012):
1249 ------------------
1250
1251 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
1252 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
1253 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
1254 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
1255 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
1256 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
1257 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
1258 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
1259 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
1260 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
1261 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
1262 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
1263 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
1264 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
1265 installation.
1266
1267 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
1268
1269 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
1270 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
1271 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
1272 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
1273 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
1274 directories you like.
1275
1276 0.2.6 (4/14/2012):
1277 ------------------
1278
1279 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
1280 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
1281 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
1282 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
1283 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
1284 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
1285 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
1286 should work when a volume is unnamed.
1287
1288 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
1289 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
1290 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
1291
1292 0.2.5 (4/9/2012):
1293 -----------------
1294
1295 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
1296 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
1297
1298 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
1299 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
1300 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
1301 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
1302 documented the name....
1303
1304 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
1305 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
1306 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
1307
1308 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
1309 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
1310 directory) on certain systems.
1311
1312 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
1313 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1314
1315 0.2.4 (4/5/2012):
1316 -----------------
1317
1318 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1319 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1320 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1321 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1322 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1323 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1324 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1325 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1326 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1327 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1328 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1329 to me.
1330
1331 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1332 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1333 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1334 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1335 simultaneously.)
1336
1337 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1338 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1339
1340 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1341 image.
1342
1343 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1344 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1345 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1346 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1347 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1348
1349 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1350 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1351 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1352 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1353 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1354 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1355
1356 0.2.3 (3/26/2012):
1357 ------------------
1358
1359 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1360 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1361 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1362 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1363 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1364 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1365 small sample of computers.
1366
1367 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1368 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1369 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1370 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1371 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1372
1373 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1374
1375 0.2.2 (3/23/2012):
1376 ------------------
1377
1378 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1379 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1380 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1381 versionless initrd file.
1382
1383 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1384 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1385 continues.
1386
1387 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1388 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1389 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1390
1391 0.2.1 (3/19/2012):
1392 ------------------
1393
1394 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1395 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1396 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1397 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1398
1399 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1400 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1401 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1402 directory as the kernel.
1403
1404 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1405 entries in refind.conf file.
1406
1407 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1408 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1409
1410
1411 0.2.0 (3/14/2012):
1412 ------------------
1413
1414 - Initial public release