]> code.delx.au - refind/blob - NEWS.txt
Reverted rEFIt commit r472, since it's caused some existing BMP
[refind] / NEWS.txt
1 0.8.6 (?/??/2016):
2 ------------------
3
4 - Reverted rEFIt commit r472, introduced in rEFInd 0.8.5 to support more
5 BMP images because I've received bug reports that it's causing existing
6 selection images to fail to load.
7
8 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused misidentification of installation
9 directory under OS X if an already-mounted ESP has spaces in its path.
10
11 - Fixed install.sh bug that could cause misidentification of the ESP on
12 disks with partition numbers of 10 or above.
13
14
15 0.8.5 (2/1/2015):
16 -----------------
17
18 - Added NTFS EFI filesystem driver.
19
20 - Minor improvements to filesystem driver framework code.
21
22 - Changes to
23
24 - Fixed bug in Btrfs driver's address reference.
25
26 - Improved install.sh to make it smarter about figuring out where to
27 install on Macs. Specifically, this version now upgrades existing
28 installations, if found (as it always has under Linux), rather than
29 blindly install to EFI/BOOT; it installs to EFI/refind if not existing
30 installation is found; it installs using the --shortform option to bless,
31 which seems to eliminate the 30-second delay problem; and it can handle
32 an HFS+ ESP, which it treats as a separate HFS+ volume (as if the user
33 had used --ownhfs). These changes do not affect behavior under Linux.
34
35 - Added missing check of architecture type for several tools.
36
37 - Applied rEFIt commit r472, which adds support for BMP images with negative
38 height fields, indicating that the image is NOT vertically flipped. This
39 commit and r467 were not incorporated in the original rEFInd because I
40 forked it from a Debian rEFIt package that had been patched to build
41 under GNU-EFI, and was apparently based on a slightly earlier version.
42
43 - Applied rEFIt commit r467, which improves Mac handling of legacy boots
44 from other than the first hard disk.
45
46
47 0.8.4 (12/8/2014):
48 ------------------
49
50 - Tweaked default for dont_scan_volumes: Removed "Recovery HD". This change
51 better suits the needs of OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") installations, but may
52 result in some stray Recovery HD entries on some Macs.
53
54 - Updated icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu.
55
56 - Added new configuration option, "enable_and_lock_vmx", which sets an
57 Intel CPU feature that's required for some types of virtualization to
58 work. Most EFIs enable setting this feature in their own setup utilities,
59 but some (such as most Macs) don't.
60
61 - If rEFInd can't locate an icons directory (either the default or one
62 specified by the icons_dir token), the program switches to text-only
63 mode.
64
65 - If a loader contains the string "grub" and no other clue to the loader's
66 OS association exists, search for os_grub.{png|icns} (which is not
67 provided with rEFInd) or os_linux.{png|icns}. (Previous versions provided
68 a generic loader icon for GRUB.)
69
70 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_files to not work with special-case
71 boot loaders (for OS X and Windows) when specifying the complete path to
72 the loader (e.g., EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi).
73
74 - Added support for the iPXE network boot tool (see BUILDING.txt for
75 building and basic use instructions).
76
77 0.8.3 (7/6/2014):
78 -----------------
79
80 - Added new feature: Setting "timeout = -1" in refind.conf causes rEFInd to
81 immediately boot the default option UNLESS a keypress is in the buffer
82 when rEFInd launches. In that case, if the keypress corresponds to a
83 shortcut key, the associated boot loader is launched; or if not, the menu
84 is displayed.
85
86 - Added new icons for Clover boot loader and for Mythbuntu Linux
87 distribution.
88
89 - rEFInd now displays the partition's label, when one is available, when
90 offering a BIOS-mode boot option for a partition with no filesystem
91 driver. This works only on Macs doing BIOS-mode booting.
92
93 - Removed GPLv2 code from the FSW core files. This was done because the
94 Btrfs driver is derived from the GRUB Btrfs driver, which is licensed
95 under the GPLv3. Ironically, the GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible
96 licenses, so ensuring that the Btrfs driver doesn't rely on GPLv2 code
97 was legally necessary. In most cases, I reverted to the original rEFIt
98 code, although I kept my own cache code; since I wrote it, I can
99 change its license to a BSD license.
100
101 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers immediately after loading
102 them. This didn't affect rEFInd's own drivers because they didn't include
103 the unload hooks, but it did affect some other drivers.
104
105 - Changed default scan_all_linux_kernels setting from "false" to "true",
106 and commented the option out in refind.conf-sample. This should not
107 affect most people, since refind.conf-sample had this option commented
108 out, and most rEFInd users either use it that way or don't have Linux
109 kernels installed at all. I've made this change because I want rEFInd to
110 "do the right thing" by default in as many cases as possible. For a while
111 now, rEFInd has been excluding non-bootable files from its menu, and most
112 kernels "in the wild" now include the EFI stub. Thus, enabling this
113 support by default seems worthwhile. If you prefer to not scan Linux
114 kernels by default, simply uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" line
115 and ensure it's set to "false".
116
117 0.8.2.1 (6/8/2014):
118 -------------------
119
120 - Removed stray bit of debugging code that caused a prompt to press a
121 key to appear at rEFInd startup.
122
123 0.8.2 (6/8/2014):
124 -----------------
125
126 - Changed behavior when default_selection is not set: It now boots the
127 previously-booted loader, assuming it's still available; if not, rEFInd
128 boots the first loader (as it does now). Behavior is unchanged if
129 default_selection is set. Note that this behavior depends on the ability
130 of rEFInd to store an EFI variable in NVRAM. It therefore fails on
131 systems with flaky NVRAM storage. You can view the previously-booted
132 loader in the
133 /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740
134 variable under Linux.
135
136 - Added icon for Mageia Linux (os_mageia.png).
137
138 - Fixed bug that could misidentify a not-quite-GUID as a GUID in a
139 manual boot stanza's "volume" line.
140
141 - I've updated my personal build system, and therefore the rEFInd Makefiles
142 and related files, to use TianoCore UDK2014 rather than UDK2010.
143
144 - Added "deep_uefi_legacy_scan" token. When not set (the default), rEFInd
145 does not modify EFI NVRAM settings when scanning for BIOS-mode boot
146 loaders on UEFI-based (non-Mac) computers. Some computers require
147 uncommenting this setting for rEFInd to reliably detect some BIOS-mode
148 boot devices. Passing "0", "off", or "false" as an option resets it to
149 the default value (useful in a loaded secondary configuration file to
150 override a setting in the main file).
151
152 0.8.1 (5/15/2014):
153 ------------------
154
155 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders stored
156 on the root directory of a partition.
157
158 - Added two new bitmap fonts to those distributed with rEFInd: Ubuntu Mono
159 and Nimbus Mono. Both come in 12-, 14-, 16-, and 24-point sizes.
160
161 - Messages about pauses for scanning and re-scanning of boot loaders are
162 now suppressed when doing an initial delayed scan when scan_delay is 1
163 second.
164
165 - Improved centering of legacy boot option descriptions on some systems'
166 screens.
167
168 - Fixed bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot to boot from an inappropriate
169 device if that device had an innately high boot priority (as set by the
170 firmware).
171
172 - Changed icons from ICNS to PNG form. There are several reasons to do
173 this, all of them minor; but together they're enough to warrant a change.
174 PNG is more common, and therefore more accessible to most users --
175 particularly those who don't use OS X. The PNG files are smaller than
176 their ICNS equivalents. PNG supports a wider range of sizes (although I'm
177 not now using anything that ICNS doesn't support, I might in the future).
178 The icon-scaling support added a few versions ago makes ICNS's support
179 for multiple icon sizes relatively unimportant.
180
181 - Reversed order of search for icons by extension: rEFInd now searches
182 for PNG files before ICNS files, rather than the other way around. This
183 makes it possible to override a volume icon for rEFInd by giving it the
184 name .VolumeIcon.png, even when a .VolumeIcon.icns file exists on the
185 volume and is used by OS X.
186
187 - Fixed bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take higher-than-intended
188 precedence in icon setting for OS X.
189
190 - Chainloading to BIOS-mode boot loaders now works on UEFI-based PCs when
191 rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI, not just when built with Tianocore.
192
193 0.8.0 (5/4/2014):
194 -----------------
195
196 - The "dont_scan_volumes" parameter now also works with legacy-boot
197 volumes. Unlike with EFI volumes, where the option you pass must exactly
198 match an entire volume name, when applied to legacy-boot volumes, it
199 matches any part of the description that appears beneath the item when
200 you select it in the rEFInd main menu.
201
202 - Can now boot in legacy mode from second (and probably later) hard disks!
203
204 - rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware name string shown in the
205 system information screen to 65 characters. This is done because at least
206 one EFI presents a longer string by default, and this causes the entire
207 information display to come up empty on 800x600 displays.
208
209 - rEFInd now uses the partition's name (as stored in the GPT data
210 structures) as a fallback for the filesystem's name if the latter can't
211 be found. Exceptions are if the partition name is one of three generic
212 names used by GPT fdisk: "Microsoft basic data", "Linux filesystem", or
213 "Apple HFS/HFS+". These are ignored in favor of the descriptive fallback
214 (e.g., "20 GiB Btrfs volume")
215
216 - It's now possible to specify a volume by partition GUID number in a
217 manual boot stanza. This should be more reliable (albeit also more
218 awkward) than using a filesystem number (such as fs0: or fs1:).
219
220 - Fixed memory-allocation bug that could cause error message displays,
221 and possibly hangs, when re-scanning boot loaders.
222
223 0.7.9 (4/20/2014):
224 ------------------
225
226 - Attempt to fix rEFInd perpetually re-scanning after ejecting a disc on
227 some Macs.
228
229 - Added check to remove redundant (or non-functional if Secure Boot is
230 active) kernel entries for Ubuntu, which is now including two versions of
231 kernels, one signed and the other unsigned.
232
233 - Fixed bug in install.sh that could cause it to display error messages
234 if the dmraid utility was not installed.
235
236 - The HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name.
237
238 - Fixed some EFI filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups under
239 some circumstances. These bugs could affect any of the filesystem
240 drivers.
241
242 - Added "gdisk" option to the "showtools" configuration file token. When
243 active, this adds gdisk.efi or gdisk_{arch}.efi, if present in the
244 EFI\tools directory, to the tools row.
245
246 - Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility
247 utility."
248
249
250 0.7.8 (3/9/2014):
251 -----------------
252
253 - Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian
254 packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run
255 any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the
256 hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run
257 install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64
258 references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of
259 concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else.
260
261 - Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of
262 the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively.
263 The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type
264 badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and
265 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If
266 the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified,
267 rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn
268 to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf.
269
270 - rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes.
271 This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it
272 can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a
273 graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so
274 scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128
275 OS icon) is not likely to look good.
276
277 - Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners:
278 Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll
279 be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the
280 behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the
281 banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display.
282
283 - Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate
284 RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for
285 existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi
286 rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages
287 were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note,
288 however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd
289 The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine;
290 it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that
291 problems might arise.
292
293 0.7.7 (1/3/2014):
294 -----------------
295
296 - Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in
297 dont_scan_files.
298
299 - Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
300
301 - Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a
302 Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to
303 "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery
304 utility on the second row of icons.
305
306 - The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files,
307 and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first
308 option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default
309 value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for
310 scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.)
311
312 - Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch,
313 via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the
314 foo.conf file as the main configuration file.
315
316 - Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with
317 duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so
318 would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given
319 UUID.
320
321 - Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP
322 in Linux, if it's currently unmounted.
323
324 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
325 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
326 under some circumstances.
327
328 0.7.6 (12/15/2013):
329 -------------------
330
331 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
332 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
333 default_selection "fred,ginger"
334 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
335 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
336
337 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
338 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
339 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
340 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
341 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
342 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
343 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
344 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
345 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
346 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
347 depending on your computer.
348
349 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
350 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
351 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
352 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
353 screensaver will be disabled.
354
355 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
356 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
357 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
358 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
359 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
360
361 0.7.5 (11/10/2013):
362 -------------------
363
364 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
365 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
366
367 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
368 versions of OS X to fail.
369
370 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
371 drivers were present.
372
373 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
374 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
375 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
376 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
377 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
378 black a second or so later.
379
380 0.7.4.1 (8/25/2013):
381 --------------------
382
383 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
384 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
385 problem.
386
387 0.7.4 (8/25/2013):
388 ------------------
389
390 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
391 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
392 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
393
394 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
395 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
396 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
397 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
398 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
399 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
400 default.
401
402 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
403 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
404 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
405 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
406
407 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
408 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
409 known case, but there may be others.)
410
411 0.7.3 (8/7/2013):
412 -----------------
413
414 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
415 loaders on Macs.
416
417 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
418
419 0.7.2 (8/6/2013):
420 -----------------
421
422 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
423 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
424
425 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
426 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
427
428 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
429 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
430
431 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
432 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
433 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
434 HashTool-signed.efi".
435
436 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
437
438 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
439 was broken.
440
441 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
442 was broken.
443
444 0.7.1 (7/8/2013):
445 -----------------
446
447 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
448
449 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
450 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
451 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
452
453 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
454 volume specification, if present.
455
456 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
457
458 0.7.0 (6/27/2013):
459 ------------------
460
461 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
462 type for volumes that lack labels.
463
464 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
465 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
466 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
467 though.
468
469 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
470 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
471 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
472 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
473 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
474 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
475 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
476 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
477
478 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
479 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
480 non-EFI loaders, etc.
481
482 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
483 code.
484
485 0.6.12 (6/18/2013):
486 -------------------
487
488 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
489 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
490
491 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
492 script.
493
494 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
495 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
496 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
497 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
498
499 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
500 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
501 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
502 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
503
504 0.6.11 (5/13/2013):
505 -------------------
506
507 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
508 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
509 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
510 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
511
512 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
513
514 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
515 directory names that contain spaces.
516
517 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
518 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
519 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
520 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
521 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
522
523 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
524 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
525
526 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
527 Utility" in menu.
528
529 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
530 partitions to fill the MBR.
531
532 0.6.10 (5/5/2013):
533 ------------------
534
535 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
536 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
537 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
538 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
539
540 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
541 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
542 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
543 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
544 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
545
546 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
547 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
548 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
549 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
550 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
551 is quietly ignored.
552
553 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
554 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
555
556 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
557 encountered when saving a screen shot.
558
559 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
560 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
561 sequence number, starting with "001".
562
563 0.6.9 (4/25/2013):
564 ------------------
565
566 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
567 Kemperman.
568
569 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
570 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
571
572 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
573 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
574 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
575
576 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
577 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
578 accidentally trash their systems.
579
580 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
581 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
582 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
583
584 0.6.8 (3/18/2013):
585 ------------------
586
587 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
588 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
589
590 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
591 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
592
593 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
594 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
595
596 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
597
598 0.6.7 (2/3/2013):
599 -----------------
600
601 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
602 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
603
604 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
605 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
606 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
607 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
608
609 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
610 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
611
612 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
613 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
614
615 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
616 also_scan_dirs list.
617
618 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
619
620 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
621 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
622 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
623
624 0.6.6 (1/26/2013):
625 ------------------
626
627 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
628 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
629 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
630 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
631 loader under the fallback name.
632
633 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
634 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
635 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
636 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
637 of 96 glyphs.
638
639 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
640 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
641
642 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
643 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
644
645 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
646 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
647 commented out or empty.
648
649 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
650 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
651
652 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
653 manual boot stanzas.
654
655 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
656 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
657
658 0.6.5 (1/16/2013):
659 ------------------
660
661 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
662 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
663
664 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
665
666 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
667
668 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
669 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
670
671 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
672
673 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
674 sized to cover these areas.
675
676 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
677 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
678 resolution!
679
680 0.6.4 (1/8/2013):
681 -----------------
682
683 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
684 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
685 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
686 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
687
688 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
689 startup on some systems.
690
691 0.6.3 (1/6/2013):
692 -----------------
693
694 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
695 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
696
697 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
698 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
699
700 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
701 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
702 burned to USB flash disks.
703
704 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
705 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
706 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
707
708 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
709 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
710 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
711 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
712 from that installation.
713
714 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
715 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
716 than in EFI/refind.
717
718 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
719 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
720
721 0.6.2 (12/30/2012):
722 -------------------
723
724 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
725 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
726 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
727
728 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
729 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
730 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
731 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
732 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
733
734 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
735 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
736 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
737 Linux with the "make" command.
738
739 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
740 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
741
742 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
743 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
744 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
745 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
746 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
747 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
748 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
749 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
750
751 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
752 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
753 default.)
754
755 0.6.1 (12/21/2012):
756 -------------------
757
758 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
759 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
760 use on emergency discs.
761
762 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
763 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
764 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
765 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
766 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
767 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
768 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
769 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
770 handle.
771
772 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
773
774 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
775 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
776 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
777 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
778 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
779 os_GENTOO.icns.
780
781 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
782 mode.
783
784 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
785 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
786 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
787 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
788
789 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
790 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
791 a boot loader launch failed.
792
793 0.6.0 (12/16/2012):
794 -------------------
795
796 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
797 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
798 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
799 options.
800
801 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
802 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
803 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
804 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
805
806 - Added ext4fs driver!
807
808 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
809
810 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
811
812 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
813 from a program that set the resolution itself.
814
815 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
816 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
817 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
818 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
819 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
820 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
821 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
822 mode.
823
824 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
825 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
826 display even in graphics mode.
827
828 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
829 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
830
831 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
832 disables the boot options editor.
833
834 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
835 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
836
837 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
838 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
839 from the /etc/default/grub file.
840
841 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
842 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
843
844 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
845 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
846 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
847 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
848 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
849 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
850
851 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
852 on Linux systems.
853
854 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
855 ---------------------
856
857 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
858
859 0.5.1 (12/11/2012):
860 -------------------
861
862 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
863 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
864 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
865 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
866
867 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
868 configuration file from a primary one.
869
870 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
871 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
872 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
873 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
874 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
875 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
876 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
877 LVM.)
878
879 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
880 on systems with Secure Boot active.
881
882 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
883 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
884 refind.conf.
885
886 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
887 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
888
889 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
890 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
891 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
892
893 0.5.0 (12/6/2012):
894 ------------------
895
896 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
897 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
898 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
899 This example results in the following string being passed as an
900 option:
901 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
902
903 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
904 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
905 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
906 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
907 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
908 for them makes sense.
909
910 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
911 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
912 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
913 EFI shells are also so limited.)
914
915 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
916 were not actually edited.
917
918 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
919 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
920 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
921 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
922 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
923
924 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
925 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
926 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
927 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
928 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
929 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
930 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
931 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
932
933 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
934 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
935 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
936
937 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
938 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
939 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
940
941 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
942 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
943 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
944 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
945
946 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
947 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
948 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
949
950 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
951 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
952
953 0.4.7 (11/6/2012):
954 ------------------
955
956 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
957
958 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
959 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
960 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
961
962 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
963 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
964 told isn't working as planned).
965
966 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
967 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
968 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
969 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
970
971 0.4.6 (10/6/2012):
972 ------------------
973
974 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
975
976 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
977 for disks.
978
979 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
980 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
981 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
982 done this for two reasons:
983 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
984 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
985 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
986 default for them should help them.
987 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
988 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
989 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
990 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
991 default configurations.
992
993 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
994
995 0.4.5 (8/12/2012):
996 ------------------
997
998 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
999
1000 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
1001
1002 0.4.4 (6/23/2012):
1003 ------------------
1004
1005 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
1006 32-bit systems.
1007
1008 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
1009 on 32-bit systems.
1010
1011 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
1012 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
1013 loaders/OSes.
1014
1015 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
1016
1017 0.4.3 (6/21/2012):
1018 ------------------
1019
1020 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
1021 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
1022
1023 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
1024 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
1025 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
1026 graphics or text mode itself.)
1027
1028 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
1029 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
1030 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
1031 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
1032 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
1033 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
1034 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
1035
1036 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
1037
1038 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
1039 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
1040 "linux.conf" themselves.
1041
1042 0.4.2 (6/3/2012):
1043 -----------------
1044
1045 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
1046 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
1047 via rEFInd.
1048
1049 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
1050 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
1051 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
1052 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
1053 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
1054 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
1055 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
1056 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
1057 the boot order).
1058
1059 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
1060 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
1061
1062 0.4.1 (5/25/2012):
1063 ------------------
1064
1065 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
1066 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
1067 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
1068 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
1069 system hasn't hung.
1070
1071 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
1072 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
1073
1074 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
1075
1076 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
1077 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
1078 label.)
1079
1080 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
1081 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
1082
1083 0.4.0 (5/20/2012):
1084 ------------------
1085
1086 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
1087 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
1088 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
1089 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
1090 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
1091 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
1092 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
1093
1094 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
1095 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
1096 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
1097
1098 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
1099 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
1100 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
1101 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
1102
1103 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
1104 file when launched from rEFInd.
1105
1106 0.3.5 (5/15/2012):
1107 ------------------
1108
1109 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
1110 received reports that it's not working as intended.
1111
1112 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
1113 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
1114 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
1115 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
1116 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
1117 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
1118
1119 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
1120 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
1121
1122 0.3.4 (5/9/2012):
1123 -----------------
1124
1125 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
1126 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
1127 sample configuration file for a full description.
1128
1129 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
1130 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
1131 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
1132 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
1133 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
1134
1135 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
1136 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
1137 target).
1138
1139 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
1140 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
1141
1142 0.3.3 (5/6/2012):
1143 -----------------
1144
1145 - Improved menu navigation:
1146 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
1147 down arrows move between rows.
1148 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
1149 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
1150 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
1151 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
1152
1153 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
1154 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
1155 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
1156
1157 0.3.2 (5/4/2012):
1158 -----------------
1159
1160 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
1161 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
1162 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
1163 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
1164 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
1165 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
1166 will fail to work.
1167
1168 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
1169 mode.
1170
1171 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
1172
1173 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
1174 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
1175 options.
1176
1177
1178 0.3.1 (4/27/2012):
1179 ------------------
1180
1181 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
1182 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
1183
1184 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
1185 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
1186 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
1187 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
1188 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
1189 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
1190 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
1191 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
1192 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
1193 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
1194 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
1195
1196 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
1197 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
1198 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
1199 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
1200 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
1201
1202 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
1203 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
1204
1205 0.3.0 (4/22/2012):
1206 ------------------
1207
1208 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
1209 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
1210 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
1211 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
1212 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
1213 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
1214
1215 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
1216 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
1217 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
1218 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
1219 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
1220 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
1221 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
1222 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
1223 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
1224 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
1225 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
1226 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
1227 that resets the video mode.
1228
1229 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
1230 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
1231 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
1232 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
1233 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
1234 details.
1235
1236 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
1237 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
1238 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
1239 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
1240 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
1241 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
1242
1243 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
1244 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
1245 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
1246
1247 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
1248 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
1249 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
1250 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
1251
1252 0.2.7 (4/19/2012):
1253 ------------------
1254
1255 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
1256 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
1257 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
1258 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
1259 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
1260 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
1261 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
1262 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
1263 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
1264 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
1265 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
1266 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
1267 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
1268 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
1269 installation.
1270
1271 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
1272
1273 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
1274 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
1275 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
1276 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
1277 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
1278 directories you like.
1279
1280 0.2.6 (4/14/2012):
1281 ------------------
1282
1283 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
1284 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
1285 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
1286 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
1287 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
1288 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
1289 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
1290 should work when a volume is unnamed.
1291
1292 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
1293 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
1294 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
1295
1296 0.2.5 (4/9/2012):
1297 -----------------
1298
1299 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
1300 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
1301
1302 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
1303 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
1304 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
1305 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
1306 documented the name....
1307
1308 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
1309 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
1310 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
1311
1312 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
1313 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
1314 directory) on certain systems.
1315
1316 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
1317 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1318
1319 0.2.4 (4/5/2012):
1320 -----------------
1321
1322 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1323 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1324 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1325 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1326 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1327 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1328 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1329 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1330 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1331 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1332 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1333 to me.
1334
1335 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1336 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1337 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1338 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1339 simultaneously.)
1340
1341 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1342 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1343
1344 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1345 image.
1346
1347 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1348 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1349 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1350 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1351 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1352
1353 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1354 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1355 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1356 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1357 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1358 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1359
1360 0.2.3 (3/26/2012):
1361 ------------------
1362
1363 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1364 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1365 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1366 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1367 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1368 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1369 small sample of computers.
1370
1371 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1372 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1373 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1374 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1375 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1376
1377 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1378
1379 0.2.2 (3/23/2012):
1380 ------------------
1381
1382 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1383 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1384 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1385 versionless initrd file.
1386
1387 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1388 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1389 continues.
1390
1391 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1392 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1393 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1394
1395 0.2.1 (3/19/2012):
1396 ------------------
1397
1398 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1399 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1400 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1401 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1402
1403 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1404 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1405 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1406 directory as the kernel.
1407
1408 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1409 entries in refind.conf file.
1410
1411 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1412 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1413
1414
1415 0.2.0 (3/14/2012):
1416 ------------------
1417
1418 - Initial public release