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