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