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