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