]> code.delx.au - refind/blob - NEWS.txt
Properly initialise variable to fix detection of non-Arch kernel versions
[refind] / NEWS.txt
1 0.10.6 (??/??/2017):
2 ------------------
3
4 - Two more improvements to initrd detection for Linux kernels:
5 - Do not choose an initrd that has no matching version characters with
6 the kernel version string.
7 - In order to support Arch Linux kernel naming the strings "linux"
8 and "linux-lts". So "vmlinuz-linux-lts" has version "linux-lts",
9 which matches "initramfs-linux-lts.img".
10
11 0.10.5 (3/4/2017):
12 ------------------
13
14 - Two improvements to initrd detection for Linux kernels:
15 - If multiple initrd files match the kernel's version number, the file
16 with more matching characters after the version number is used, rather
17 than the first initrd file found.
18 - The "%v" string, if present in the refind_linux.conf file's second
19 field, will be replaced by the kernel version number. Thus, you can
20 specify options like:
21 "Boot with standard initrd" "ro root=/dev/sda2 initrd=initrd-%v-std"
22 "Boot with debug initrd" "ro root=/dev/sda2 initrd=initrd-%v-debug"
23 This enables using multiple initrd files per kernel, to be used for
24 different purposes.
25
26 - Minor code optimization.
27
28 - Add new key mappings: Backspace (Delete on Mac keyboards) works the same
29 as Esc, and Tab works the same as F2/Insert/+. This is done for the
30 benefit of new Apple laptops that lack physical Esc and function keys.
31
32 - Fix to refind-install to work better with disks other than /dev/sd? and
33 /dev/hd? devices.
34
35 - Fixes to touch/tablet support to improve reliability.
36
37 0.10.4 (10/9/2016):
38 -------------------
39
40 - Fixed compile problem for drivers with recent versions of GNU-EFI
41 (3.0.4, maybe 3.0.3).
42
43 - Fixed bug that could cause program crash on startup. (In practice, it
44 manifested with GNU-EFI starting with version 3.0.3 or 3.0.4.)
45
46 - An anonymous contributor has provided support for touch screens. This
47 support requires that the "enable_touch" token be used in refind.conf.
48 Note, however, that not all tablet computers have EFIs that provide the
49 necessary support in the firmware.
50
51 - Martin Whitaker contributed 64-bit support to the ext4fs driver, which
52 makes it compatible with ext4fs as written by some recent Linux
53 distributions.
54
55 - Tweaked refind-install to do a better job of detecting disks other
56 than /dev/sd? and /dev/hd? devices.
57
58 0.10.3 (4/24/2016):
59 -------------------
60
61 - Altered RPM & Debian installation scripts so as to NOT call sbsign if
62 Secure Boot is disabled. This is a response to Ubuntu bug #1574372
63 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sbsigntool/+bug/1574372): In
64 Ubuntu 16.04, the sbsign program is segfaulting randomly, which prevents
65 proper installation of the program. This change at least permits proper
66 installation IF Secure Boot is disabled.
67
68 - Changed description of BIOS/CSM/legacy OS loaders on Macs to include the
69 string "(Legacy)", so as to more easily identify BIOS/CSM/legacy-mode OSes
70 in the rEFInd main menu.
71
72 - Added recognition of the fwupx64.efi file as a firmware update tool.
73 This filename is excluded from the first-row launchers, and is instead
74 presented on the second row, controlled by the "fwupdate" item on the
75 "showtools" option line. It's enabled by default. Note that it's still a
76 bit unclear to me how this tool is supposed to be used. rEFInd launches it
77 with no options, but if it should take options, this will have to be
78 changed in the future.
79
80 - Tightened exclusion of shell binary filenames from boot loader scan.
81 Previously, any filename containing the substring "shell" was excluded
82 from scans. Now it's tighter; only files matching one of the filenames in
83 the constant SHELL_NAMES in main.c are excluded. This change will enable
84 programs with names that include "shell", but that aren't in rEFInd's
85 SHELL_NAMES list, such as "shelly.efi", to be shown in the rEFInd main
86 menu.
87
88 - Fixed bug in NTFS driver that caused it to hang (and thus hang the
89 computer) in some situations, particularly when a file on an NTFS volume
90 had many fragments and when the computer's CSM was activated. (Fix
91 courtesy of "S L.")
92
93 - Modified SIP/CSR rotation code: If the csr-active-config EFI variable is
94 missing AND the firmware is Apple (as identified by the string "Apple"
95 being present in the ST->FirmwareVendor string), rEFInd treats the
96 computer as one on which SIP is available and set to the "enabled" state
97 (0x10). The upshot is that the SIP/CSR tool will appear if the showtools
98 and csr_values options are set appropriately in refind.conf, even if the
99 csr-active-config variable is missing from the NVRAM. The point of this
100 change is that I've received reports of some Macs that run OS X 10.11 but
101 that lack this variable. OS X acts as if SIP were enabled, but rEFInd is
102 then unable to disable SIP. This change gives rEFInd the ability to
103 disable SIP on such systems. The drawback is that the variable might be
104 set on some systems that don't run OS X 10.11. This should be harmless
105 from a technical point of view, but the presence of SIP indicators in
106 rEFInd could be confusing.
107
108 - Added refind-mkdefault script to simplify resetting rEFInd as the default
109 boot program in Linux. The intent is to run this after GRUB, Windows, OS
110 X, or some other tool takes over as the primary boot manager. It can be
111 called from a startup script to handle this task automatically.
112
113 0.10.2 (1/26/2016):
114 -------------------
115
116 - Fixed bug in refind-install that caused mountesp to be installed as a FILE
117 called /usr/local/bin on OS X if the /usr/local/bin directory did not
118 already exist.
119
120 - Fixed bug in mvrefind that caused it to fail to move bootmgfw.efi in
121 some situations, and another that caused it to give the resulting NVRAM
122 entry the default rEFInd name of "rEFInd Boot Manager," rather than the
123 intended "Windows Boot Manager" (to work around bugs in some EFIs).
124
125 - Worked around bug/quirk in some EFIs (in HP ProBook 6470b laptop, at
126 least) that prevented EFI filesystem drivers from working. (Drivers would
127 load but not provide access to filesystems.)
128
129 - Fixed refind-install bug that caused --usedefault option to not work in OS
130 X. (This bug did not affect Linux.)
131
132 - Improved Secure Boot detection in refind-install in Linux.
133
134 - Fixed bug that caused custom volume badges (vol_*.png) to be read only
135 from default location ("icons" subdirectory), effectively eliminating the
136 ability to adjust them.
137
138 - Added centos.crt and centos.cer public key files.
139
140 0.10.1 (12/12/2015):
141 --------------------
142
143 - Change to PPA version: Installing the PPA now queries the user about
144 whether to install to the ESP. Upgrades will remember the initial
145 selection.
146
147 - Modified time-based sorting of loaders in a single directory to push
148 anything starting with "vmlinuz-0-rescue" to the end of the list. Fedora
149 gives its rescue kernels filenames that begin with that string, and if
150 such a kernel happens to be the most recent, treating it normally will
151 cause it to become the default when kernel folding is in use. This is
152 almost certainly undesirable, so this change keeps the rescue kernel at
153 the end of the list instead, which is saner.
154
155 - Significantly reworked the project's Makefiles. This should have no
156 impact on ordinary users, and even most developers should barely notice
157 it; but it should make future extensions to additional platforms or
158 building in different environments easier.
159
160 - Added workaround to gptsync for issue with some Macs' EFIs that caused
161 the program to skip through all prompts, thus accepting the default
162 option. This would normally cause gptsync to do nothing.
163
164 - Added type code 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC (Apple Core Storage,
165 gdisk type AF05) to list of partition types recognized by gptsync.
166
167 - Removed Luxi Sans Mono font, since I discovered it was not open source;
168 and changed the default font from Nimbus Mono to Liberation Mono.
169
170 - Added support for compiling rEFInd for ARM64 (aka AARCH64 or aa64). This
171 works with both GNU-EFI and Tianocore UDK2014.SP1.P1. This support is
172 currently poorly tested. In particular, I used QEMU on an x86-64 computer
173 to create a virtualized ARM64 environment; I've not yet tested on a real
174 computer. I couldn't get QEMU to create a video card, so I used a serial
175 terminal, which means that the graphics features are untested -- I ran
176 rEFInd with "textonly" uncommented in refind.conf. I've tested the ext4fs
177 driver but no other drivers, although they all compile. (So does gptsync,
178 although it's unlikely to be useful on ARM64.) Some rEFInd features are
179 meaningless on ARM64, such as BIOS-mode boot support, anything geared
180 toward Macs (csr_values/csr_rotate, spoof_osx_version, etc.), and
181 enable_and_lock_vmx.
182
183 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan EFI boot loaders on
184 removable media when rEFInd itself was launched from the fallback
185 filename.
186
187 - Moved detailed descriptions of refind-install from installing.html to
188 a refind-install man page. To keep this information Web-accessible, I've
189 also created HTML versions of the three man pages and linked them into
190 the HTML documentation.
191
192 - Updated LodePNG to latest version (20151024).
193
194 - Fixed bugs in mkrlconf and in refind-install that could cause some kernel
195 options to be excluded from refind_linux.conf. There were two trouble
196 conditions:
197 - Previously, these scripts assumed that the first option in
198 /proc/cmdline was the kernel's filename, but this isn't always the
199 case. (In particular, when gummiboot launches the kernel, this is not
200 true. It might be an incorrect assumption in some other cases, too.)
201 The fix involves checking for likely signs of a kernel filename before
202 discarding this first option.
203 - These scripts cut the "initrd=*" option from /proc/cmdline, but the
204 call to "sed" was overzealous and cut until the end of input. This
205 usually worked, since the initrd= option was usually last on the line;
206 but if it wasn't, any options following initrd= would be lost.
207
208 - Added "kernel*" as a matching pattern for Linux kernels, since this is
209 what Gentoo uses by default.
210
211 - The refind-install script can now be run as a symbolic link in Linux.
212 This enables creating a /usr/sbin/refind-install link in Linux packages,
213 with the binaries stashed wherever the package system likes them. This
214 feature does NOT work in OS X, but there's relatively little need for it
215 there.
216
217 0.10.0 (11/8/2015):
218 -------------------
219
220 - Fixed bug that caused refind-install to not unmount the ESP when it
221 should under OS X.
222
223 - Modified refind-install and mkrlconf scripts to use /proc/cmdline as
224 source for default boot options EXCEPT when refind-install receives the
225 --root option. In that case, refind-install continues to use
226 /etc/default/grub as the source of default options. The idea behind this
227 change is that it's more reliable to get boot options from /proc/cmdline
228 when the targeted system is the one that's booted; but --root would be
229 used from emergency disks or live CDs, in which case the current boot
230 options would be completely wrong, so extracting boot options from GRUB
231 files is the best bet for getting close to the right options.
232
233 - Added "@/boot" to default also_scan_dirs setting. This makes kernels
234 show up on Btrfs volumes under Ubuntu (and perhaps others), at least when
235 the Btrfs driver is loaded.
236
237 - Added new System Integrity Protection (SIP) rotation feature for Macs
238 running OS X 10.11 or later. This feature is disabled by default, except
239 on CD-R and USB flash drive images, on which it's enabled. To enable it,
240 you must make TWO changes to refind.conf: Uncomment the new "csr_values"
241 item and add "csr_rotate" to the "showtools" line (uncommenting it, too,
242 if it's commented out). If desired, you can set more values on
243 "csr_values"; these are comma-delimited one-byte hexadecimal values that
244 define various SIP states. When SIP/CSR rotation is activated, a new
245 shield icon appears among the tools. Selecting it causes the next defined
246 value to be set and a confirmation message to appear for three seconds.
247
248 - Added display of current System Integrity Protection (SIP) mode to
249 "About" display.
250
251 - Added mountesp script for OS X to (you guessed it!) mount the ESP.
252
253 - Renamed support scripts: install.sh to refind-install, mvrefind.sh to
254 mvrefind, and mkrlconf.sh to mkrlconf.
255
256 - New icons! The old ones were getting to be a jumbled mess of styles,
257 particularly for OS tags. I used the AwOken icon set
258 (http://alecive.deviantart.com/art/AwOken-163570862) for the core icons,
259 then expanded from there by creating my own icons and modifying icons for
260 Debian and Elementary OS. I'm also trying to keep better track of
261 copyrights and licenses on icons. Between that and some icons being for
262 OSes that probably see very little use (FreeDOS and eComstation, for
263 instance), a few OS icons have been lost. If you prefer the old icons,
264 you can continue to use them by upgrading rEFInd, renaming icons-backup
265 to something else (say, icons-classic), and then adding an "icons" line
266 in refind.conf to point to the old icons directory.
267
268 - Changed from .zip to .tar.gz as source code archive format. I did this
269 because Linux is the only officially-supported build platform, and
270 tarballs are a more natural fit to a Linux environment. I'm leaving .zip,
271 .deb, and .rpm files as the formats for binary packages.
272
273 - Added detection of System Integrity Protection (SIP; aka "rootless") mode
274 to OS X portion of install.sh script. When detected, and if no existing
275 rEFInd installation is found, the script now prints a warning and brief
276 instructions of how to enter the Recovery mode to install rEFInd and
277 suggests aborting the installation. (The user can override and attempt
278 installation anyhow.) If SIP is detected along with an existing rEFInd
279 installation, the script moderates the warning and explains that an
280 update of a working rEFInd will probably succeed, but that re-installing
281 to fix a broken rEFInd will probably fail.
282
283 - Added new "spoof_osx_version" token, which takes an OS X version number
284 (such as "10.9") as an option. This feature, when enabled, causes rEFInd
285 to tell a Mac's firmware that the specified version of OS X is being
286 launched. This option is usually unnecessary, but it can help properly
287 initialize some hardware -- particularly secondary video devices. OTOH,
288 on some Macs it can cause hardware (notably keyboards and mice) to become
289 unresponsive, so you should not use this option unnecessarily.
290
291 - Worked around an EFI bug that affected my 32-bit Mac Mini: That system
292 seems to have a broken EFI, or possibly a buggy CPU, that causes some
293 (but not all) conversions from floating-point to integer numbers to hang
294 the computer. Such operations were performed only in rEFInd's
295 graphics-resizing code, and so would manifest only when icons or
296 background images were resized. My fix eliminates the use of
297 floating-point operations in the affected function, which eliminates the
298 crashes. There may be some degradation in the quality of resized images,
299 though, particularly on 32-bit systems. (64-bit systems use larger
300 integers, which enable greater precision in my floating-point
301 workaround.)
302
303 - Under OS X, install.sh can now be run from the recovery system. This may
304 help work around OS X 10.11's problems with System Integrity Protection,
305 since it should be possible to reboot into the recovery system to install
306 rEFInd without disabling SIP for the main installation, even for just one
307 boot.
308
309 0.9.2 (9/19/2015):
310 ------------------
311
312 - Added "--keepname" option to install.sh. This option causes install.sh
313 to keep refind_x64.efi named as such rather than rename it as grubx64.efi
314 when using Shim. This option is meaningful only if the --shim option is
315 also used. This option passes the refind_x64.efi filename as an option to
316 Shim, which overrides the default filename of grubx64.efi. A big caveat:
317 Only Shim 0.7 and later supports this feature. (Shim 0.4 also works if a
318 refind_x64.efi is referred to as "\refind_x64.efi" on the command line,
319 but the need for a leading backslash to refer to a file in the same
320 directory as Shim is so confusing and wrong that I cannot in good
321 conscience support it.) I've not seen signed Shim binaries between 0.4
322 and 0.7, so I don't know if any of them might work.
323
324 - Implemented a workaround for a bug in Shim 0.8 that prevented
325 authentication of more than one binary. If any filesystem drivers were
326 installed, the first one would be verified, leaving rEFInd unable to
327 launch anything else unless it was signed by a key in the computer's main
328 Secure Boot db list.
329
330 0.9.1 (9/13/2015):
331 ------------------
332
333 - When rEFInd identifies the root (/) partition via the Freedesktop.org
334 Discoverable Partitions Specification, it now checks two of the
335 partition's attributes, as per the DPS (see
336 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
337 - The partition's read-only attribute determines whether to pass a "rw"
338 or "ro" option to the kernel.
339 - If the partition's do-not-automount flag is set, rEFInd will not pass
340 it as a "root=" option to the kernel. This flag can be used to remove
341 all but one partition from consideration as a root (/) partition if a
342 system has more than one with the correct type code.
343
344 - Improved Freedesktop.org Discoverable Partitions Specification support:
345 Previously, if no refind_linux.conf file was present but an /etc/fstab
346 file was found, rEFInd ignored the Discoverable Partitions Specification
347 filesystem-type codes. This was fine if /etc/fstab contained a valid "/"
348 filesystem specification, but if that was absent, the result was no
349 "root=" specification being present. Under these circumstances
350 (refind_linux.conf absent, /etc/fstab present but lacking a "/" entry),
351 rEFInd now tries to identify a device to specify as "root=" via the
352 Discoverable Partitions Specification.
353
354 - Fixed bug that caused "Found match!" and a prompt to press a key to
355 continue to be printed if any partition used the Freedesktop.org
356 Discoverable Partitions Specification root-partition GUID. (This
357 was leftover debugging/testing code that I somehow missed deleting.)
358
359 - Added icon for Elementary OS.
360
361 - Added /etc/lsb-release to files scanned for clues about the Linux
362 distribution. This file differentiates Mint and Elementary OS from Ubuntu
363 better than does /etc/os-release, and may also help with other
364 closely-related distributions.
365
366 - Improvements to handling of case-insensitive string comparisons. These
367 are buggy on some EFIs, and such bugs affect things like dont_scan_*
368 blacklists, removal of rEFInd's own directory from scanning, matching of
369 keyword names in refind.conf, and even loading of icons. I've replaced
370 many calls to problematic functions with safer calls, which should help a
371 lot. There may still be problems on some systems with some computers,
372 though; as far as I can tell, the bugs are buried deep in some EFI
373 firmware, so I can only replace some of the most direct calls to
374 potentially buggy system calls.
375
376 0.9.0 (7/26/2015):
377 ------------------
378
379 - New icon for Kali Linux, submitted by Francesco D'Eugenio.
380
381 - Minor code changes to ensure that rEFInd compiles with GCC 5.1. (Tested
382 with GNU-EFI on a Fedora 22 system; not yet tested with the TianoCore
383 EDK2.)
384
385 - Added new "fold_linux_kernels" token to refind.conf. This option, when
386 active (the default) "folds" all Linux kernels in a directory into a
387 single entry on the rEFInd menu. The kernel with the most recent time
388 stamp is launched by default. To launch another kernel, you must press F2
389 or Insert; additional kernels appear as options on the first kernel's
390 submenu. To see the pre-0.9.0 behavior, you must set "fold_linux_kernels
391 false" (or one of its synonyms, "off" or "0"). The point of this option
392 is to help de-clutter the rEFInd main menu.
393
394 - Added new Linux root (/) partition auto-discovery feature, based on
395 Freedesktop.org's Discoverable Partitions Spec (DPS)
396 (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/):
397 If no refind_linux.conf file or /etc/fstab file is found, and if a
398 partition with the correct DPS type code for the system architecture is
399 found, rEFInd adds "ro root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/{GUID}" to the kernel
400 options. This will not help on LVM setups, and will get it right for only
401 one installation on systems with multiple Linux installations, but it may
402 help some users, if/when the DPS type codes become more common.
403
404 - Fixed bug that caused a rEFInd crash if an empty refind_linux.conf
405 file was encountered.
406
407 - The mkrlconf.sh script now checks the OS on which it's running, which
408 should help avoid confusion or problems by users who mistakenly run it
409 under OS X.
410
411 - rEFInd now skips checking for various BIOS-mode boot sector signatures
412 when running on a UEFI-based PC; these checks are run only on Macs. This
413 may reduce startup time on systems with many partitions.
414
415 - Fixed Debian debinstall script to work correctly on IA32 systems. It had
416 a bug that caused filesystem drivers and gptsync to not be packaged for
417 IA32.
418
419 - Modified Debian postinst file to call install.sh with --localkeys option
420 if sbsign and openssl are available, even when NOT in Secure Boot mode or
421 if shim is not detected. This helps with my Ubuntu PPA when using custom
422 Secure Boot keys, since the PPA is delivered unsigned. (Users will have
423 to have added their own local keys to their firmware's db.) For
424 consistency, I've made the same change to the RPM .spec file.
425
426 0.8.7 (3/1/2015):
427 -----------------
428
429 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused inappropriate installation under the
430 name bootx64.efi (or bootia32.efi) under Linux, with a failure to update
431 the boot entries in NVRAM, has been fixed.
432
433 - Added identification of XFS as filesystem type in volume descriptions.
434
435 - More fixes to filesystem type detection code. Previous version sometimes
436 identified FAT or NTFS (or anything with a boot loader) as a whole-disk
437 device rather than the correct filesystem type.
438
439 - Added protections to the code to reduce the risk of crashes that might
440 occur when dereferencing NULL pointers in various situations.
441
442 - I'm deprecating the use of filesystem numbers (as in "fs0:") because
443 they're unreliable -- filesystem numbers can change between boots and
444 might not be the same as those used in an EFI shell or other program.
445 Sooner or later I'll remove code supporting this feature. In the
446 meantime, if it doesn't work for you, please switch to using filesystem
447 labels, partition labels, or partition GUIDs.
448
449 - Added detection of FreeBSD's BIOS-mode GPT boot loader. Previously,
450 rEFInd could detect FreeBSD's BIOS-mode MBR boot loader, which gave
451 FreeBSD an appropriate icon on Macs; but the BIOS-mode GPT boot loader
452 code is different, so some recent FreeBSD installations showed up with
453 generic grey diamond icons. This change creates FreeBSD icons instead.
454
455 - Added "Secure Boot [active|inactive]" notice to "about" menu for x86
456 (32-bit) systems, since there are now a few 32-bit UEFI systems that
457 support Secure Boot. (AFAIK, these are mostly tablets and convertibles
458 such as the ASUS T100.)
459
460 - Added KeyTool.efi and KeyTool-signed.efi to list of MOK managers. KeyTool
461 is the "super-deluxe" Secure Boot key and hash manager provided as part
462 of the efitools package.
463
464 - Fixed more instances of "invalid parameter" errors on some EFIs.
465
466 - Improved Secure Boot detection in install.sh.
467
468 - install.sh should no longer complain when copying Shim or MokManager over
469 itself.
470
471 0.8.6 (2/8/2015):
472 -----------------
473
474 - Removed special case of ignoring an HFS+ name of "HFS+ volume", since the
475 old rEFInd HFS+ driver that produced this name for all HFS+ volumes has
476 long since been updated to deliver a real name.
477
478 - Addition of new Windows 8 OS icon. On Macs and for BIOS/legacy boots, the
479 new icon is now used for Windows Vista, 7, and 8, while the old one is
480 used for earlier versions of Windows. For EFI-mode boots, the new icon is
481 used universally.
482
483 - If the NTFS driver is loaded, rEFInd now scans NTFS volumes on Macs for
484 the presence of Windows boot files, and removes any NTFS volume that
485 lacks such files from the BIOS/legacy boot list. This should help
486 unclutter the display on Macs that contain NTFS data partitions.
487
488 - Fixed bug that caused misidentification of both whole disks and NTFS
489 volumes as being FAT. (This bug affected the identification of devices
490 and locations in the rEFInd menu, not actual access to devices.)
491
492 - Code refactoring to clear out legacy-boot functions from the
493 ever-expanding refind/main.c file.
494
495 - Added new "badges" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf. This
496 option hides the device-type badges associated with the OS boot options.
497
498 - Reverted rEFIt commit r472, introduced in rEFInd 0.8.5 to support more
499 BMP images because I've received bug reports that it's causing existing
500 selection images to fail to load.
501
502 - Fixed install.sh bug that caused misidentification of installation
503 directory under OS X if an already-mounted ESP has spaces in its path.
504
505 - Fixed Mac-specific install.sh bug that could cause misidentification of
506 the ESP on disks with partition numbers of 10 or above.
507
508
509 0.8.5 (2/1/2015):
510 -----------------
511
512 - Added NTFS EFI filesystem driver.
513
514 - Minor improvements to filesystem driver framework code.
515
516 - Changes to
517
518 - Fixed bug in Btrfs driver's address reference.
519
520 - Improved install.sh to make it smarter about figuring out where to
521 install on Macs. Specifically, this version now upgrades existing
522 installations, if found (as it always has under Linux), rather than
523 blindly install to EFI/BOOT; it installs to EFI/refind if not existing
524 installation is found; it installs using the --shortform option to bless,
525 which seems to eliminate the 30-second delay problem; and it can handle
526 an HFS+ ESP, which it treats as a separate HFS+ volume (as if the user
527 had used --ownhfs). These changes do not affect behavior under Linux.
528
529 - Added missing check of architecture type for several tools.
530
531 - Applied rEFIt commit r472, which adds support for BMP images with negative
532 height fields, indicating that the image is NOT vertically flipped. This
533 commit and r467 were not incorporated in the original rEFInd because I
534 forked it from a Debian rEFIt package that had been patched to build
535 under GNU-EFI, and was apparently based on a slightly earlier version.
536
537 - Applied rEFIt commit r467, which improves Mac handling of legacy boots
538 from other than the first hard disk.
539
540
541 0.8.4 (12/8/2014):
542 ------------------
543
544 - Tweaked default for dont_scan_volumes: Removed "Recovery HD". This change
545 better suits the needs of OS X 10.10 ("Yosemite") installations, but may
546 result in some stray Recovery HD entries on some Macs.
547
548 - Updated icons for Fedora and Ubuntu and added an icon for Xubuntu.
549
550 - Added new configuration option, "enable_and_lock_vmx", which sets an
551 Intel CPU feature that's required for some types of virtualization to
552 work. Most EFIs enable setting this feature in their own setup utilities,
553 but some (such as most Macs) don't.
554
555 - If rEFInd can't locate an icons directory (either the default or one
556 specified by the icons_dir token), the program switches to text-only
557 mode.
558
559 - If a loader contains the string "grub" and no other clue to the loader's
560 OS association exists, search for os_grub.{png|icns} (which is not
561 provided with rEFInd) or os_linux.{png|icns}. (Previous versions provided
562 a generic loader icon for GRUB.)
563
564 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_files to not work with special-case
565 boot loaders (for OS X and Windows) when specifying the complete path to
566 the loader (e.g., EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi).
567
568 - Added support for the iPXE network boot tool (see BUILDING.txt for
569 building and basic use instructions).
570
571 0.8.3 (7/6/2014):
572 -----------------
573
574 - Added new feature: Setting "timeout = -1" in refind.conf causes rEFInd to
575 immediately boot the default option UNLESS a keypress is in the buffer
576 when rEFInd launches. In that case, if the keypress corresponds to a
577 shortcut key, the associated boot loader is launched; or if not, the menu
578 is displayed.
579
580 - Added new icons for Clover boot loader and for Mythbuntu Linux
581 distribution.
582
583 - rEFInd now displays the partition's label, when one is available, when
584 offering a BIOS-mode boot option for a partition with no filesystem
585 driver. This works only on Macs doing BIOS-mode booting.
586
587 - Removed GPLv2 code from the FSW core files. This was done because the
588 Btrfs driver is derived from the GRUB Btrfs driver, which is licensed
589 under the GPLv3. Ironically, the GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible
590 licenses, so ensuring that the Btrfs driver doesn't rely on GPLv2 code
591 was legally necessary. In most cases, I reverted to the original rEFIt
592 code, although I kept my own cache code; since I wrote it, I can
593 change its license to a BSD license.
594
595 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to unload drivers immediately after loading
596 them. This didn't affect rEFInd's own drivers because they didn't include
597 the unload hooks, but it did affect some other drivers.
598
599 - Changed default scan_all_linux_kernels setting from "false" to "true",
600 and commented the option out in refind.conf-sample. This should not
601 affect most people, since refind.conf-sample had this option commented
602 out, and most rEFInd users either use it that way or don't have Linux
603 kernels installed at all. I've made this change because I want rEFInd to
604 "do the right thing" by default in as many cases as possible. For a while
605 now, rEFInd has been excluding non-bootable files from its menu, and most
606 kernels "in the wild" now include the EFI stub. Thus, enabling this
607 support by default seems worthwhile. If you prefer to not scan Linux
608 kernels by default, simply uncomment the "scan_all_linux_kernels" line
609 and ensure it's set to "false".
610
611 0.8.2.1 (6/8/2014):
612 -------------------
613
614 - Removed stray bit of debugging code that caused a prompt to press a
615 key to appear at rEFInd startup.
616
617 0.8.2 (6/8/2014):
618 -----------------
619
620 - Changed behavior when default_selection is not set: It now boots the
621 previously-booted loader, assuming it's still available; if not, rEFInd
622 boots the first loader (as it does now). Behavior is unchanged if
623 default_selection is set. Note that this behavior depends on the ability
624 of rEFInd to store an EFI variable in NVRAM. It therefore fails on
625 systems with flaky NVRAM storage. You can view the previously-booted
626 loader in the
627 /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740
628 variable under Linux.
629
630 - Added icon for Mageia Linux (os_mageia.png).
631
632 - Fixed bug that could misidentify a not-quite-GUID as a GUID in a
633 manual boot stanza's "volume" line.
634
635 - I've updated my personal build system, and therefore the rEFInd Makefiles
636 and related files, to use TianoCore UDK2014 rather than UDK2010.
637
638 - Added "deep_uefi_legacy_scan" token. When not set (the default), rEFInd
639 does not modify EFI NVRAM settings when scanning for BIOS-mode boot
640 loaders on UEFI-based (non-Mac) computers. Some computers require
641 uncommenting this setting for rEFInd to reliably detect some BIOS-mode
642 boot devices. Passing "0", "off", or "false" as an option resets it to
643 the default value (useful in a loaded secondary configuration file to
644 override a setting in the main file).
645
646 0.8.1 (5/15/2014):
647 ------------------
648
649 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to fail to detect boot loaders stored
650 on the root directory of a partition.
651
652 - Added two new bitmap fonts to those distributed with rEFInd: Ubuntu Mono
653 and Nimbus Mono. Both come in 12-, 14-, 16-, and 24-point sizes.
654
655 - Messages about pauses for scanning and re-scanning of boot loaders are
656 now suppressed when doing an initial delayed scan when scan_delay is 1
657 second.
658
659 - Improved centering of legacy boot option descriptions on some systems'
660 screens.
661
662 - Fixed bug that could cause a BIOS-mode boot to boot from an inappropriate
663 device if that device had an innately high boot priority (as set by the
664 firmware).
665
666 - Changed icons from ICNS to PNG form. There are several reasons to do
667 this, all of them minor; but together they're enough to warrant a change.
668 PNG is more common, and therefore more accessible to most users --
669 particularly those who don't use OS X. The PNG files are smaller than
670 their ICNS equivalents. PNG supports a wider range of sizes (although I'm
671 not now using anything that ICNS doesn't support, I might in the future).
672 The icon-scaling support added a few versions ago makes ICNS's support
673 for multiple icon sizes relatively unimportant.
674
675 - Reversed order of search for icons by extension: rEFInd now searches
676 for PNG files before ICNS files, rather than the other way around. This
677 makes it possible to override a volume icon for rEFInd by giving it the
678 name .VolumeIcon.png, even when a .VolumeIcon.icns file exists on the
679 volume and is used by OS X.
680
681 - Fixed bug that caused .VolumeIcon.icns to take higher-than-intended
682 precedence in icon setting for OS X.
683
684 - Chainloading to BIOS-mode boot loaders now works on UEFI-based PCs when
685 rEFInd is built with GNU-EFI, not just when built with Tianocore.
686
687 0.8.0 (5/4/2014):
688 -----------------
689
690 - The "dont_scan_volumes" parameter now also works with legacy-boot
691 volumes. Unlike with EFI volumes, where the option you pass must exactly
692 match an entire volume name, when applied to legacy-boot volumes, it
693 matches any part of the description that appears beneath the item when
694 you select it in the rEFInd main menu.
695
696 - Can now boot in legacy mode from second (and probably later) hard disks!
697
698 - rEFInd now limits the length of the firmware name string shown in the
699 system information screen to 65 characters. This is done because at least
700 one EFI presents a longer string by default, and this causes the entire
701 information display to come up empty on 800x600 displays.
702
703 - rEFInd now uses the partition's name (as stored in the GPT data
704 structures) as a fallback for the filesystem's name if the latter can't
705 be found. Exceptions are if the partition name is one of three generic
706 names used by GPT fdisk: "Microsoft basic data", "Linux filesystem", or
707 "Apple HFS/HFS+". These are ignored in favor of the descriptive fallback
708 (e.g., "20 GiB Btrfs volume")
709
710 - It's now possible to specify a volume by partition GUID number in a
711 manual boot stanza. This should be more reliable (albeit also more
712 awkward) than using a filesystem number (such as fs0: or fs1:).
713
714 - Fixed memory-allocation bug that could cause error message displays,
715 and possibly hangs, when re-scanning boot loaders.
716
717 0.7.9 (4/20/2014):
718 ------------------
719
720 - Attempt to fix rEFInd perpetually re-scanning after ejecting a disc on
721 some Macs.
722
723 - Added check to remove redundant (or non-functional if Secure Boot is
724 active) kernel entries for Ubuntu, which is now including two versions of
725 kernels, one signed and the other unsigned.
726
727 - Fixed bug in install.sh that could cause it to display error messages
728 if the dmraid utility was not installed.
729
730 - The HFS+ driver now reports a correct volume name.
731
732 - Fixed some EFI filesystem driver bugs that could cause lockups under
733 some circumstances. These bugs could affect any of the filesystem
734 drivers.
735
736 - Added "gdisk" option to the "showtools" configuration file token. When
737 active, this adds gdisk.efi or gdisk_{arch}.efi, if present in the
738 EFI\tools directory, to the tools row.
739
740 - Fixed mistaken identification of the MOK utility as the "MOK utility
741 utility."
742
743
744 0.7.8 (3/9/2014):
745 -----------------
746
747 - Added "debian" directory to source, which facilitates creation of Debian
748 packages. Packages built in this way are built with GNU-EFI and don't run
749 any post-installation script, so although the rEFInd binaries are on the
750 hard disk, they aren't installed to be bootable; you must manually run
751 install.sh. Also, at least on Ubuntu, the Make.common file's /usr/lib64
752 references must be changed to /usr/lib. This is more of a proof of
753 concept and a "leg up" for distribution maintainers than anything else.
754
755 - Two new options, big_icon_size and small_icon_size, set the size of
756 the first-row OS icons and of the second-row tool icons, respectively.
757 The big_icon_size option also indirectly sets the size of disk-type
758 badges; they're 1/4 the size of the big icons. Default values are 128 and
759 48, respectively, to match the actual icon files provided with rEFInd. If
760 the icon you're using is of a different size than you've specified,
761 rEFInd scales it. For best quality, you should both provide icons drawn
762 to the right size and set the icon sizes in refind.conf.
763
764 - rEFInd now automatically scales icons to fit the standard icon sizes.
765 This won't have any effect with the icons that come with rEFInd, but it
766 can help if you want to use another icon, since you needn't scale it in a
767 graphics program before using it. Note that rEFInd uses bitmap icons, so
768 scaling by a huge amount (say, a 16x16 icon to fit the standard 128x128
769 OS icon) is not likely to look good.
770
771 - Added new option, banner_scale, that tells rEFInd how to handle banners:
772 Set to "noscale" (the default), banners are not scaled, although they'll
773 be cropped if they're too big for the display. This is the same as the
774 behavior in previous versions. Set to "fillscreen", rEFInd now scales the
775 banner image (larger or smaller) to fill the display.
776
777 - Adjusted the post-installation script in refind.spec (used to generate
778 RPMs, and therefore also indirectly Debian packages) to search for
779 existing shim program files under the filesnames shim.efi and shimx64.efi
780 rather than just shim.efi. Ubuntu uses shimx64.efi, so Debian packages
781 were failing to detect Ubuntu's shim in previous versions. (Note,
782 however, that Ubuntu's early shim 0.1 is unsuitable for use with rEFInd
783 The newer 0.4 version that's in the repositories now should work fine;
784 it's only when installing on an older system that's NOT been updated that
785 problems might arise.
786
787 0.7.7 (1/3/2014):
788 -----------------
789
790 - Can now specify complete paths, optionally including volumes, in
791 dont_scan_files.
792
793 - Added shimx64.efi to the default dont_scan_files list.
794
795 - Added windows_recovery_files token, to specify what program(s) launch a
796 Windows recovery utility; and the "windows_recovery" option to
797 "showtools," to control whether or not to display the Windows recovery
798 utility on the second row of icons.
799
800 - The use_graphics_for, also_scan_dirs, dont_scan_dirs, dont_scan_files,
801 and scan_driver_dirs tokens in refind.conf now support "+" as the first
802 option, which causes the remaining options to be added to the default
803 value rather than replacing that value. (This has no practical effect for
804 scan_driver_dirs, though, since it has a null default value.)
805
806 - Added support for specifying the configuration file at program launch,
807 via the "-c" parameter, as in "refind_x64.efi -c foo.conf" to use the
808 foo.conf file as the main configuration file.
809
810 - Scans of ext2/3/4fs and ReiserFS partitions now omit partitions with
811 duplicate filesystem UUIDs. These are likely parts of RAID arrays and so
812 would have the same boot loaders or kernels as the first one with a given
813 UUID.
814
815 - Added feature in install.sh: Script now tries to locate and mount an ESP
816 in Linux, if it's currently unmounted.
817
818 - Fixed bug in mkrlconf.sh and install.sh that caused a stray line break
819 and PARTUUID= specification to appear in generated refind_linux.conf file
820 under some circumstances.
821
822 0.7.6 (12/15/2013):
823 -------------------
824
825 - Added support for multiple "default_selection" targets. These MUST be
826 comma-separated AND enclosed in quotes, as in:
827 default_selection "fred,ginger"
828 This example will launch "fred" by default if it's available; and if
829 it's not, rEFInd will attempt to launch "ginger" as the default.
830
831 - Added support for time-sensitive "default_selection" setting. This token
832 may now have either one or three options. If one, it's interpreted as it
833 has been in the past, as setting a default that's independent of times.
834 If you follow this default by two times, however, those are interpreted
835 as the start and end times (in 24-hour format) for a default setting. For
836 instance, "default_selection foo 8:00 17:00" causes foo to be the default
837 from 8:00 (AM) to 17:00 (aka 5:00 PM). You can include multiple
838 "default_selection" lines to set different defaults for a variety of
839 times. If they're in conflict, the last one takes precedence. Note that
840 times are hardware clock's native value, which may be local time or UTC,
841 depending on your computer.
842
843 - Added support for a blank-screen startup: Set "screensaver -1" and the
844 screen saver will be initialized when rEFInd starts. If you set a low
845 "timeout" value, the result will be a boot straight to the default OS
846 unless you hit a key soon after rEFInd starts. Once you hit a key, the
847 screensaver will be disabled.
848
849 - Added --ownhfs {target} option to install.sh. This option causes rEFInd
850 to install to an HFS+ partition in a way that's more consistent with the
851 way the Mac's native boot loader is installed. Note that you should NOT
852 install to an already-bootable partition with this option, since it will
853 overwrite the existing boot loader, which would render OS X unbootable.
854
855 0.7.5 (11/10/2013):
856 -------------------
857
858 - Fixed bug that caused unbootable exFAT partitions to show up as
859 bootable on Macs with BIOS/CSM/legacy boot options enabled.
860
861 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused installs to the ESP on recent
862 versions of OS X to fail.
863
864 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to hang on some Macs when multiple EFI
865 drivers were present.
866
867 - Fixed bug that caused clear to default gray screen when launching OSes
868 with 'use_graphics_for' enabled, even when the rEFInd background is not
869 gray. Now rEFInd clears to the same background color used in its menu.
870 When launching OS X, though, the OS X boot loader will itself clear to
871 gray a second or so later; and when launching Linux, it will clear to
872 black a second or so later.
873
874 0.7.4.1 (8/25/2013):
875 --------------------
876
877 - My initial 0.7.4 release broke legacy-boot ability on Macs, so I quickly
878 released this version using the original 0.7.4 filenames to fix the
879 problem.
880
881 0.7.4 (8/25/2013):
882 ------------------
883
884 - Fixed options passing to loader to include loader's filename as the first
885 option. This omission had no effect on most boot loaders, but caused
886 VMware's mboot64.efi to fail.
887
888 - Added support for memtest86 as second-row option. Program must be
889 stored in EFI/tools, EFI/tools/memtest, EFI/tools/memtest86, EFI/memtest,
890 or EFI/memtest86; and must use the name memtest86.efi, memtest86_x64.efi,
891 memtest86x64.efi, or bootx64.efi (changing "x64" to "ia32" on IA-32
892 systems). The memtest86 program is scanned for when the "showtools"
893 option includes the "memtest" or "memtest86" token, which it does by
894 default.
895
896 - Added space to end of "Boot %s from %s" string; enables adding a space
897 to the end of the "default_selection" item (in quotes) to set a default
898 that matches a volume name that's identical to another one except for
899 extra characters at the end of the non-wanted volume's name.
900
901 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to hang when launching boot loaders
902 under some conditions. (Launching from Firewire drives on Macs is the
903 known case, but there may be others.)
904
905 0.7.3 (8/7/2013):
906 -----------------
907
908 - Fixed bug that caused missing media-type badges on BIOS-mode boot
909 loaders on Macs.
910
911 - Fixed bug that caused failure when launching BIOS-mode OSes on Macs.
912
913 0.7.2 (8/6/2013):
914 -----------------
915
916 - Fixed bug that caused display glitches in the final entry on the first
917 row of icons if the second row of icons was empty.
918
919 - Fixed bug that could cause incorrect scanning or even a rEFInd crash when
920 using volume specification in also_scan_dirs token.
921
922 - Added protection against loading invalid drivers and other EFI programs.
923 (Some EFIs crash when attempting to load such drivers and programs.)
924
925 - Added PreLoader.efi and shim-fedora.efi to default dont_scan_files list;
926 it's now "shim.efi, shim-fedora.efi, PreLoader.efi, TextMode.efi,
927 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, MokManager.efi, HashTool.efi,
928 HashTool-signed.efi".
929
930 - Added icon for Funtoo Linux.
931
932 - Fixed reading of volume badges from user-specified icons directory, which
933 was broken.
934
935 - Fixed handling of /.VolumeBadge.icns (or /.VolumeBadge.png) files, which
936 was broken.
937
938 0.7.1 (7/8/2013):
939 -----------------
940
941 - Fixed build problem with recent development versions of EDK2.
942
943 - Added scan for Boot Repair's backup of the Windows boot loader
944 (bkpbootmgfw.efi). If found, give separate entries for it and for
945 bootmgfw.efi, each with its own descriptive text label.
946
947 - Fixed also_scan_dirs; used to have bug that caused it to ignore
948 volume specification, if present.
949
950 - Fixed bug in driver cache that caused Btrfs driver to hang sometimes.
951
952 0.7.0 (6/27/2013):
953 ------------------
954
955 - Added Btrfs signature to rEFInd, so that it can identify the filesystem
956 type for volumes that lack labels.
957
958 - Changed some critical filesystem driver pointers from 32-bit to 64-bit.
959 This *SHOULD* enable use of over-2TiB filesystems (for those filesystems
960 that support such large volumes). This capability is largely untested,
961 though.
962
963 - Added a cache to the filesystem driver core, and therefore to all the
964 filesystem drivers. This cache greatly improves performance in
965 VirtualBox, and offers modest performance improvements on a few "real"
966 computers. The most dramatic improvement is on ext2/3fs under VirtualBox:
967 Loading a kernel and initrd used to take ~200 seconds on my system, but
968 now takes ~3 seconds! On most "real" hardware, the improvement is much
969 less dramatic -- an improvement of a second or less, presumably because
970 of cacheing within the EFI or on the hard disk itself.
971
972 - Filter boot loaders based on a test of their validity; keeps out Linux
973 kernels without EFI stub loader code, loaders for the wrong architecture,
974 non-EFI loaders, etc.
975
976 - New Btrfs driver, contributed by Samuel Liao based on GRUB 2.00 Btrfs
977 code.
978
979 0.6.12 (6/18/2013):
980 -------------------
981
982 - Changed the 64-bit EFI shell included in the CD-R and USB flash drive
983 images to a version 2 shell that should support the "bcfg" command.
984
985 - Added support for PreBootloader to refind.spec's built-in installation
986 script.
987
988 - Added support for the Linux Foundation's PreLoader to install.sh. It's
989 treated just like shim, including using the --shim option (or, now,
990 --preloader); but it searches for and copies HashTool.efi rather than
991 MokManager.efi, and filenames are adjusted appropriately.
992
993 - Added code to determine Linux root filesystem from /etc/fstab file, if
994 it's on the same partition as the kernel and if the refind_linux.conf
995 file is not available. This enables rEFInd to boot Linux without any
996 rEFInd-specific configuration files on some (but not all) systems.
997
998 0.6.11 (5/13/2013):
999 -------------------
1000
1001 - New feature: rEFInd now ignores symbolic links to files on filesystems
1002 that support them. This prevents the "vmlinuz" symbolic link that some
1003 distributions create in the root directory from appearing in the loader
1004 list. Note that this does NOT affect symbolic links to directories.
1005
1006 - Added icons for Lubuntu and Kubuntu.
1007
1008 - Improved the install.sh script so that it does a better job dealing with
1009 directory names that contain spaces.
1010
1011 - rEFInd now tries to guess the Linux distribution type based on the kernel
1012 filename (Fedora and RHEL only) or the "ID" or "NAME" variables in
1013 /etc/os-release on the kernel's partition. None of these is guaranteed to
1014 work. A fallback of the Tux penguin icon remains in place in case rEFInd
1015 can't find anything substantive enough for a guess.
1016
1017 - Added "EFI\opensuse" to the locations searched for MOK utilities, since
1018 OpenSUSE now uses that name.
1019
1020 - Renamed "Reboot to Firmware User Interface" to "Reboot to Computer Setup
1021 Utility" in menu.
1022
1023 - Fixed bug in gptsync that caused it to hang if the disk had too few GPT
1024 partitions to fill the MBR.
1025
1026 0.6.10 (5/5/2013):
1027 ------------------
1028
1029 - Added support for "screensaver" token. If set to a positive integer, this
1030 causes the screen to blank after the specified number of seconds of
1031 inactivity. Pressing most keys (unfortunately NOT including Shift, Alt,
1032 or Ctrl) will restore the display and restart the screen saver timeout.
1033
1034 - Added icon for ChromeOS (os_chrome.icns in the icons subdirectory).
1035 ChromeBooks reportedly boots using the fallback filename, but if a user
1036 wants to install rEFInd on a ChromeBook, renaming the original EFI/BOOT
1037 directory to EFI/chrome and then installing rEFInd in the fallback
1038 filename will bring up this new icon for ChromeOS.
1039
1040 - Added new option to reboot the computer into the firmware's user
1041 interface. This option is active by default, or can be set via the
1042 "firmware" option to the "showtools" token in refind.conf. It works
1043 on only some computers, though; older computers lack this feature, and
1044 when rEFInd is told to use this feature on such computers, the directive
1045 is quietly ignored.
1046
1047 - Upgraded LodePNG library from version 20121216 to 20130415 and
1048 restructured rEFInd-specific modifications to simplify future upgrades.
1049
1050 - Replaced hexadecimal error code with description if an error is
1051 encountered when saving a screen shot.
1052
1053 - Enable multiple screen shots: Rather than naming all screen shots
1054 "screenshot.bmp", the name is now "screenshot_###.bmp", where "###" is a
1055 sequence number, starting with "001".
1056
1057 0.6.9 (4/25/2013):
1058 ------------------
1059
1060 - Modified default banner to include the new rEFInd icon, provided by Erik
1061 Kemperman.
1062
1063 - Worked around a suspected firmware bug that caused rEFInd 0.6.6 to 0.6.8
1064 to hang at startup on some systems (DUET and some Macs).
1065
1066 - Modified rEFInd to search for gptsync under the names gptsync.efi and
1067 gptsync_{arch}.efi, where {arch} is ia32 or x64. (Previous versions
1068 searched only for gptsync.efi.)
1069
1070 - Added gptsync program from rEFIt project, but with some changes to
1071 improve flexibility and make it less likely that UEFI users will
1072 accidentally trash their systems.
1073
1074 - Changed timeout code so that the timeout continues if the keyboard is
1075 disconnected. This can help in booting a headless server or a system with
1076 a bluetooth or other keyboard that's not recognized by the EFI.
1077
1078 0.6.8 (3/18/2013):
1079 ------------------
1080
1081 - Added workaround for presumed EFI bug that was causing "Invalid
1082 Parameter" errors when scanning for boot loaders on some computers.
1083
1084 - Added search for an EFI shell called shell.efi in the root directory
1085 (previously this name was only accepted in EFI\tools).
1086
1087 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail on some systems (Fedora
1088 18, for instance) because of a problem identifying the ESP.
1089
1090 - Fixed bug that caused icons named after boot loaders to not be used.
1091
1092 0.6.7 (2/3/2013):
1093 -----------------
1094
1095 - Added a more explicit error message summarizing options when a launch of
1096 a program results in a Secure Boot failure.
1097
1098 - Changed MOK tool detection to scan all volumes, not just the rEFInd
1099 home volume. This is desirable because the Linux Foundation's HashTool
1100 can only scan its own volume, making it desirable to place copies of this
1101 program on every volume that holds EFI boot loader binaries.
1102
1103 - Added support for launching the Linux Foundation HashTool as a means of
1104 managing MOKs (or MOK hashes, at any rate).
1105
1106 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to present an entry for itself as a
1107 Microsoft OS if it was launched as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.
1108
1109 - Fixed bug that caused dont_scan_volumes option to be added to
1110 also_scan_dirs list.
1111
1112 - Fixed dont_scan_volumes so that it works with OS X boot loaders.
1113
1114 - Fixed broken mixing of PNG and ICNS icons when using a user-specified
1115 icons directory -- previously, an ICNS file in the default directory
1116 would override a PNG file in the user-specified directory.
1117
1118 0.6.6 (1/26/2013):
1119 ------------------
1120
1121 - rEFInd now ignores the fallback boot loader (EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
1122 EFI/BOOT/bootia32.efi) if it's identical to another boot loader on
1123 the same volume. This is intended to help unclutter the display on
1124 systems that run Windows, since Windows tends to duplicate its own boot
1125 loader under the fallback name.
1126
1127 - Added new "font" token to refind.conf, which enables specifying a font in
1128 the form of a PNG file. This file must contain monospace glyphs for the
1129 95 characters from ASCII 32 to 126 (space through tilde), inclusive, plus
1130 a glyph to be displayed for characters outside of this range, for a total
1131 of 96 glyphs.
1132
1133 - Replaced the old font (inherited from rEFInd) with an anti-aliased
1134 version of Luxi Mono Regular 14 point.
1135
1136 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore manual boot stanzas in files
1137 included via the "include" token in refind.conf.
1138
1139 - Fixed bug that caused ASSERT error on some systems (and conceivably a
1140 crash on startup on some) when default_selection line in refind.conf was
1141 commented out or empty.
1142
1143 - Fixed bug that caused "Binary is whitelisted" message to persist on
1144 screen after loading MOK-signed drivers in Secure Boot mode.
1145
1146 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to ignore the "icon" token in refind.conf
1147 manual boot stanzas.
1148
1149 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused the script to fail to update
1150 drivers when rEFInd was installed in EFI/BOOT/.
1151
1152 0.6.5 (1/16/2013):
1153 ------------------
1154
1155 - Improved text color support: rEFInd now uses black text against light
1156 backgrounds and white text against dark backgrounds.
1157
1158 - Added support for PNGs as banners, icons, and selectors.
1159
1160 - Added icon for ALT Linux.
1161
1162 - Added "safemode" option to "hideui" token, to hide option to boot into
1163 safe mode for OS X ("-v -x" option to boot.efi).
1164
1165 - Added icon for Haiku (os_haiku.icns).
1166
1167 - Enable transparency of icons & main-menu text when the banner icon is
1168 sized to cover these areas.
1169
1170 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to crash if fed a banner image that's
1171 too big. Note that "too big" can be substantially smaller than the screen
1172 resolution!
1173
1174 0.6.4 (1/8/2013):
1175 -----------------
1176
1177 - Revised install.sh to copy ext2fs driver, rather than ext4fs driver, for
1178 ext2/3 filesystems. This can help keep non-functional entries from links
1179 from /vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz out of the menu if the system uses ext4fs
1180 on root and ext2fs or ext3fs on /boot.
1181
1182 - Fixed a couple of memory management bugs that cause rEFInd to hang at
1183 startup on some systems.
1184
1185 0.6.3 (1/6/2013):
1186 -----------------
1187
1188 - Added the ability to specify a volume name or number in the
1189 "dont_scan_dirs" and "also_scan_dirs" tokens.
1190
1191 - Fixed a bug that caused removable EFI media to not appear in scan lists
1192 if rEFInd was installed as EFI/BOOT/boot{arch}.efi on a hard disk.
1193
1194 - Modified ISO-9660 driver so that it can handle discs with other than
1195 2048-byte sectors. This makes it useful for reading "hybrid ISO" images
1196 burned to USB flash disks.
1197
1198 - New mvrefind.sh script to move a rEFInd installation between a standard
1199 location (typically EFI/refind) and one of the fallback locations
1200 (EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot). It can also do more exotic locations.
1201
1202 - The install.sh script now installs to EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi or
1203 EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi if it's run in BIOS mode. This is
1204 intended to give some chance of producing a bootable installation should
1205 a user accidentally install Linux in EFI mode and then install rEFInd
1206 from that installation.
1207
1208 - The install.sh script now tries to find an existing rEFInd installation
1209 and upgrade it, even if it's in EFI/BOOT or EFI/Microsoft/Boot rather
1210 than in EFI/refind.
1211
1212 - New "--yes" option to install.sh to help with unattended or automated
1213 installations (as from an RPM or Debian package).
1214
1215 0.6.2 (12/30/2012):
1216 -------------------
1217
1218 - Inclusion of a sample refind.spec file for the benefit of RPM
1219 distribution maintainers who might want to include rEFInd. It's a bit
1220 rough, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there....
1221
1222 - The EFI filesystem drivers can now be built with the GNU-EFI toolkit as
1223 well as with the TianoCore EDK2. See the BUILDING.txt file for details on
1224 how to build them with either toolkit. This improvement doesn't affect
1225 users of my binary packages, but it should make it easier for Linux
1226 distributions to adopt rEFInd into their package systems.
1227
1228 - Tweaked refind.inf file for better build results using "native" TianoCore
1229 EDK2 build process (vs. the Makefile-based build process that I use under
1230 Linux). This won't affect those who use my binary builds or build under
1231 Linux with the "make" command.
1232
1233 - Fixed bug that prevented Secure Boot launches from working when rEFInd
1234 was built with GNU-EFI rather than the TianoCore EDK2.
1235
1236 - Substantial reworking of Secure Boot code, based on James Bottomley's
1237 PreLoader program. This new code eliminates the limitation of launching
1238 just one driver in Secure Boot mode and is likely to be more reliable
1239 with future or obscure boot loaders. It should also work with non-x86-64
1240 systems, although this relies on a platform-specific shim program, which
1241 to date exists only for x86-64. The basic features are the same as before
1242 -- rEFInd relies on shim for authentication functions and will launch
1243 programs that are signed by Secure Boot keys, shim keys, or MOKs.
1244
1245 - Altered default for "textmode" option (when it's commented out) to not
1246 adjust the text mode at all. (Prior versions set it to mode 0 by
1247 default.)
1248
1249 0.6.1 (12/21/2012):
1250 -------------------
1251
1252 - Added "--root" option to install.sh, to enable installation of rEFInd
1253 to something other than the currently-running OS. This is intended for
1254 use on emergency discs.
1255
1256 - Thanks to Stefan Agner, the ext4fs driver now supports the "meta_bg"
1257 filesystem feature, which distributes metadata throughout the disk. This
1258 feature isn't used by default, but can be set at filesystem creation time
1259 by passing the "-O meta_bg,^resize_inode" option to mke2fs. (Using
1260 "^resize_inode" is necessary because meta_bg is incompatible with
1261 resize_inode, which IS used by default.) This feature can be used on
1262 ext3fs and ext2fs as well as on ext4fs, so the ext4fs driver can now
1263 handle some ext3fs and ext2fs partitions that the ext2fs driver can't
1264 handle.
1265
1266 - Fixed some screen resolution-setting bugs.
1267
1268 - Added the "words" that make up a filesystem's label (delimited by spaces,
1269 dashes, or underscores) to the list of bases used to search for OS icons.
1270 For instance, if the filesystem's label is "Arch", rEFInd searches for
1271 os_Arch.icns; if it's "Fedora 17", it searches for os_Fedora.icns and
1272 os_17.icns; and if it's "NEW_GENTOO", it searches for os_NEW.icns and
1273 os_GENTOO.icns.
1274
1275 - Refined hints displays to be more context-sensitive, particularly in text
1276 mode.
1277
1278 - Instead of displaying a blank filesystem label when a filesystem has
1279 none, rEFInd now displays the size and/or type of the filesystem, as in
1280 "boot EFI\foo\bar.efi from 200 MiB ext3 volume" rather than "boot
1281 EFI\foo\bar.efi from".
1282
1283 - Fixed a bug that caused the screen to clear after displaying an error
1284 message but before displaying the "Hit any key to continue" message when
1285 a boot loader launch failed.
1286
1287 0.6.0 (12/16/2012):
1288 -------------------
1289
1290 - Fixed a memory allocation bug that could cause a program crash when
1291 specifying certain values with the "also_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_volumes",
1292 "dont_scan_dirs", "dont_scan_files", and "scan_driver_dirs" refind.conf
1293 options.
1294
1295 - Modified Linux kernel initrd-finding code so that if an initrd is
1296 specified in refind_linux.conf, rEFInd will not add any initrd it finds.
1297 This enables an override of the default initrd, and is likely to be
1298 particularly helpful to Arch Linux users.
1299
1300 - Added ext4fs driver!
1301
1302 - Made "boot" the default value for "also_scan_dirs".
1303
1304 - Added identifying screen header to line editor.
1305
1306 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd's display to be mis-sized upon return
1307 from a program that set the resolution itself.
1308
1309 - Adjusted "resolution" refind.conf parameter so that it can accept EITHER
1310 a resolution as width and height OR a single digit as a UEFI mode number
1311 (which is system-specific). This is done because some systems present the
1312 same mode twice in their mode lists, perhaps varying in refresh rate,
1313 monitor output, or some other salient characteristics; specifying the
1314 mode number enables selecting the higher-numbered mode, whereas using
1315 horizontal and vertical resolution values selects the lowest-numbered
1316 mode.
1317
1318 - Added "textmode" refind.conf parameter to set the text mode used in
1319 text-only displays, and for the line editor and boot-time handoff
1320 display even in graphics mode.
1321
1322 - Fixed bug that caused tools (shell, etc.) to launch when they were
1323 highlighted and F2 or Insert was pressed.
1324
1325 - Added "editor" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf, which
1326 disables the boot options editor.
1327
1328 - Added hints text to rEFInd main menu and sub-menus. This can be disabled
1329 by setting the new "hints" option to the "hideui" token in refind.conf.
1330
1331 - Added "boot with minimal options" entry to refind_linux.conf file
1332 generated by install.sh. This entry boots without the options extracted
1333 from the /etc/default/grub file.
1334
1335 - Added keys subdirectory to main distribution, to hold public Secure
1336 Boot/shim keys from known sources.
1337
1338 - Changed install.sh --drivers option to --alldrivers, added new
1339 --nodrivers option, and made the default on Linux to install the one
1340 driver that's used on /boot (or the root filesystem if /boot isn't a
1341 separate partition). Of course, this won't install a non-existent driver,
1342 and it also won't work properly if run from an emergency disk unless you
1343 mount a separate /boot partition at that location.
1344
1345 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented creation of refind_linux.conf file
1346 on Linux systems.
1347
1348 0.5.1.1 (12/12/2012):
1349 ---------------------
1350
1351 - Fixed bug in install.sh that prevented it from working on OS X.
1352
1353 0.5.1 (12/11/2012):
1354 -------------------
1355
1356 - Added support for "0" options to "textonly" and "scan_all_linux_kernels"
1357 to reverse the usual meaning of these tokens. This is useful for
1358 including these options in a secondary configuration file called with the
1359 new "include" token to override a setting set in the main file.
1360
1361 - Added "include" token for refind.conf, to enable including a secondary
1362 configuration file from a primary one.
1363
1364 - Modified install.sh so that it creates a simple refind_linux.conf file in
1365 /boot, if that file doesn't already exist and if install.sh is run from
1366 Linux. If that directory happens to be on a FAT, HFS+, ext2fs, ext3fs, or
1367 ReiserFS volume, and if the necessary drivers are installed, the result
1368 is that rEFInd will detect the Linux installation with no further
1369 configuration on many systems. (Some may still require tweaking of kernel
1370 options, though; for instance, adding "dolvm" on Gentoo systems that use
1371 LVM.)
1372
1373 - Added --shim and --localkeys options to install.sh to help simplify setup
1374 on systems with Secure Boot active.
1375
1376 - Fixed (maybe) bug that caused resolution options to not be displayed on
1377 recent Macs with GOP graphics when specifying an invalid resolution in
1378 refind.conf.
1379
1380 - Fixed bug that caused some programs (EFI shells, in particular) to hang
1381 when launching on some systems (DUET, in particular).
1382
1383 - Implemented a fix to enable ELILO to launch with Secure Boot active.
1384 This fix might help with some other boot loaders in Secure Boot mode,
1385 too, but I don't know of any specifics.
1386
1387 0.5.0 (12/6/2012):
1388 ------------------
1389
1390 - Added the ability to include quote marks ('"') in refind.conf and
1391 refind_linux.conf tokens by doubling them up, as in:
1392 "ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value=""this is it"""
1393 This example results in the following string being passed as an
1394 option:
1395 ro root=/dev/sda4 some_value="this is it"
1396
1397 - Changed refind.conf-sample to uncomment the scan_all_linux_kernels
1398 option by default. If this option is deleted or commented out, the
1399 program default remains to not scan all Linux kernels; but with
1400 increasing numbers of distributions shipping with kernels that include
1401 EFI stub loader support, setting the configuration file default to scan
1402 for them makes sense.
1403
1404 - Modified the "resolution" token so that it affects text mode as well
1405 as graphics mode. On my systems, though, the actual text area is still
1406 restricted to an 80x25 area. (This seems to be a firmware limitation; my
1407 EFI shells are also so limited.)
1408
1409 - Fixed a bug that caused the options line editor to blank out lines that
1410 were not actually edited.
1411
1412 - Added support for using Matthew Garrett's Shim program and its Machine
1413 Owner Keys (MOKs) to extend Secure Boot capabilities. If rEFInd is
1414 launched from Shim on a computer with Secure Boot active, rEFInd will
1415 launch programs signed with either a standard UEFI Secure Boot key or a
1416 MOK. For the moment, this feature works only on x86-64 systems.
1417
1418 - Added new "dont_scan_files" (aka "don't_scan_files") token for
1419 refind.conf. The effect is similar to dont_scan_dirs, but it creates a
1420 blacklist of filenames within directories rather than directory names.
1421 I'm initially using it to place shim.efi and MokManager.efi in the
1422 blacklist to keep these programs out of the OS list. (MokManager.efi is
1423 scanned separately as a tool; see below.) I've moved checks for
1424 ebounce.efi, GraphicsConsole.efi, and TextMode.efi to this list. (These
1425 three had previously been blacklisted by hard-coding in ScanLoaderDir().)
1426
1427 - Added the directory from which rEFInd launched to dont_scan_dirs. This
1428 works around a bug in which rEFInd would show itself as a bogus Windows
1429 entry if it's installed as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi.
1430
1431 - Added support for launching MokManager.efi for managing the Machine Owner
1432 Keys (MOKs) maintained by the shim boot loader developed by Fedora and
1433 SUSE. This program is scanned and presented as a second-row tool.
1434
1435 - Added support for Apple's Recovery HD partition: If it's detected, a new
1436 icon appears on the second row. This icon can be removed by explicitly
1437 setting the "showtools" option in refind.conf and excluding the
1438 "apple_recovery" option from that line.
1439
1440 - Fixed bug that caused text-mode ("textonly" refind.conf option enabled)
1441 menu entries to be right-aligned rather than left-aligned when rEFInd was
1442 compiled with the TianoCore EDK2.
1443
1444 - Added "--usedefault {devicename}" and "--drivers" options to the
1445 install.sh script and changed the "esp" option to "--esp".
1446
1447 0.4.7 (11/6/2012):
1448 ------------------
1449
1450 - Added an icon for gummiboot.
1451
1452 - Added a boot option editor: Pressing the Insert or F2 key from a boot
1453 tag's options menu opens a simple text-mode line editor on which the boot
1454 options may be edited for a one-time boot with altered options.
1455
1456 - Modified the "scan_delay" feature to delay and then perform a re-scan,
1457 which may work better than the first attempt at this feature (which I'm
1458 told isn't working as planned).
1459
1460 - Modified rEFInd to add a space after the command-line options only when
1461 launching Mac OS X. On some early Macs, the extra space (which had been
1462 present by default, as a carryover from rEFIt) causes problems when
1463 booting Linux kernels from FAT partitions.
1464
1465 0.4.6 (10/6/2012):
1466 ------------------
1467
1468 - Fixed some minor memory management issues.
1469
1470 - Added new "scan_delay" feature to impose a delay before scanning
1471 for disks.
1472
1473 - Changed default "scanfor" option from internal-external-optical to either
1474 internal-external-optical-manual (for non-Macs) or
1475 internal-hdbios-external-biosexternal-optical-cd-manual (for Macs). I've
1476 done this for two reasons:
1477 - Many Mac users have been confused by the fact that rEFInd needs
1478 reconfiguration to detect Windows (or Linux installed in BIOS mode),
1479 since rEFIt scans BIOS devices by default. Adding the BIOS options as
1480 default for them should help them.
1481 - Adding the "manual" option enables users to simply add manual boot
1482 stanzas and have them work, which is more intuitive. Adding the
1483 "manual" option will have no effect unless manual stanzas are created
1484 or uncommented, so this part of the change won't affect users' working
1485 default configurations.
1486
1487 - Added new legacy (BIOS) boot support for UEFI-based PCs.
1488
1489 0.4.5 (8/12/2012):
1490 ------------------
1491
1492 - Fixed bug that caused a failure to boot BIOS-based OSes on Macs.
1493
1494 - Fixed bug in install.sh that caused it to fail to detect rEFItBlesser.
1495
1496 0.4.4 (6/23/2012):
1497 ------------------
1498
1499 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be corrupted by rEFInd on
1500 32-bit systems.
1501
1502 - Fixed bug that caused filesystem labels to be truncated in the drivers
1503 on 32-bit systems.
1504
1505 - Fixed bug in use_graphics_for option parsing that caused most options
1506 to set graphics mode for OS X and/or Linux but not other boot
1507 loaders/OSes.
1508
1509 - Tweaked install script to better isolate the ESP under OS X.
1510
1511 0.4.3 (6/21/2012):
1512 ------------------
1513
1514 - rEFInd now supports compilation using the TianoCore UDK2010/EDK2
1515 development kit in addition to GNU-EFI.
1516
1517 - Added new "use_graphics_for" option to control which OSes to boot in
1518 graphics mode. (This effect lasts for a fraction of a second on most
1519 systems, since the boot loader that rEFInd launches is likely to set
1520 graphics or text mode itself.)
1521
1522 - Graphics-mode booting now clears the screen to the current rEFInd
1523 background color (rather than black) and does NOT display boot messages.
1524 The intent is for a smoother transition when booting OS X, or perhaps
1525 other OSes that don't display boot loader messages. In practice, this
1526 effect will be tiny for many OSes, since the boot loader generally clears
1527 the screen within a fraction of a second of being launched; but the
1528 "flicker" of a rEFInd message in that time can sometimes be distracting.
1529
1530 - Filesystem drivers now work on EFI 1.x systems, such as Macs.
1531
1532 - Removed "linux.conf" as a valid alternative name for "refind_linux.conf"
1533 for holding Linux kernel options. The kernel developers plan to use
1534 "linux.conf" themselves.
1535
1536 0.4.2 (6/3/2012):
1537 -----------------
1538
1539 - Added a message to install.sh when run on Macs to remind users to update
1540 the "scanfor" line in refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes
1541 via rEFInd.
1542
1543 - Modified install.sh script to be smarter about running efibootmgr on
1544 Linux. It now uses the whole path to the rEFInd binary as a key to
1545 determine whether an existing entry exists, rather than just the filename
1546 portion. If an entry exists and is the first entry in the boot order, the
1547 script does nothing to the NVRAM entries. If such an entry exists but is
1548 not the default, the script deletes that entry and creates a new one
1549 (implicitly making it the first in the boot order). If such an entry does
1550 not exist, the script creates a new one (again, making it the first in
1551 the boot order).
1552
1553 - Added "dont_scan_dirs" configuration file option, which adds directories
1554 to a "blacklist" of directories that are NOT scanned for boot loaders.
1555
1556 0.4.1 (5/25/2012):
1557 ------------------
1558
1559 - Added "scanning for new boot loaders" message to the re-scan function
1560 (hitting Esc at the main menu). It usually flashes up too quickly to
1561 be of importance, but if the scan function takes a while because of
1562 access to a CD that must be spun up, it should make it clear that the
1563 system hasn't hung.
1564
1565 - Modified install.sh script to detect rEFItBlesser on Macs, and if
1566 present, to ask the user if it should be removed.
1567
1568 - Cleaned up the Make.common file for the filesystem drivers.
1569
1570 - Changed HFS+ driver to return volume label of "HFS+ volume" rather than
1571 an empty label. (The driver doesn't currently read the real volume
1572 label.)
1573
1574 - Fixed bug that could cause rEFInd to appear in its own menu after
1575 running a shell and then re-scanning for boot loaders.
1576
1577 0.4.0 (5/20/2012):
1578 ------------------
1579
1580 - Inclusion of drivers for ISO-9660, HFS+, ReiserFS, and ext2fs. Most of
1581 these drivers originated with rEFIt, although the HFS+ driver seems to
1582 have come from Oracle's VirtualBox, with some files from Apple. I hadn't
1583 included these drivers previously because the build process proved
1584 challenging. As it is, they don't work on my Mac Mini, I suspect because
1585 the build process with the UDK2010 development kit may not work with the
1586 EFI 1.x that Apple uses.
1587
1588 - Addition of support for drivers in the "drivers_{arch}" subdirectory of
1589 the main rEFInd binary directory (e.g., "drivers_x64" or "drivers_ia32").
1590 Drivers may continue to be placed in the "drivers" subdirectory.
1591
1592 - Added new feature to eject CDs (and other removable media): Press F12 to
1593 eject all such media. This function works only on some Macs, though (it
1594 relies on an Apple-specific EFI extension, and this extension isn't even
1595 implemented on all Macs, much less on UEFI-based PCs).
1596
1597 - Fixed a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to fail to read its configuration
1598 file when launched from rEFInd.
1599
1600 0.3.5 (5/15/2012):
1601 ------------------
1602
1603 - Removed the GRUB 2 detection "reciped" added with 0.3.2, since I've
1604 received reports that it's not working as intended.
1605
1606 - Added re-scan feature: Press the Esc key to have rEFInd re-read its
1607 configuration file, tell the EFI to scan for new filesystems, and re-scan
1608 those filesystems for boot loaders. The main purpose is to enable
1609 scanning a new removable medium that you insert after launching rEFInd;
1610 however, it can also be used to immediately implement changes to the
1611 configuration file or new drivers you load from an EFI shell.
1612
1613 - Fixed a bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced by the
1614 scroll-left arrow under some circumstances.
1615
1616 0.3.4 (5/9/2012):
1617 -----------------
1618
1619 - Added new configuration file option: "icons_dir", which sets the name
1620 of the subdirectory in which icons are found. See the documentation or
1621 sample configuration file for a full description.
1622
1623 - Modified Makefile to generate rEFInd binary that includes architecture
1624 code -- refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi, rather than the generic
1625 refind.efi. This is done mainly to help the install.sh script. The
1626 program can be named anything you like on the disk. (The generic name
1627 refind.efi is used on unknown architectures.)
1628
1629 - Improved install.sh script: Fixed bug on OS X 10.7 and enable it to be
1630 used after building from source code (or via new "make install" Makefile
1631 target).
1632
1633 - Improved screen redraws to produce less flicker when moving among the
1634 second-row tags or to the last tag on the first row.
1635
1636 0.3.3 (5/6/2012):
1637 -----------------
1638
1639 - Improved menu navigation:
1640 - In graphics mode, left & right arrow keys move left & right, while up &
1641 down arrows move between rows.
1642 - Page Up and Page Down now move through chunks of visible tags (in both
1643 text & graphics modes), jumping from one row to another only when at
1644 the edge of the row. In text mode, the "rows" are broken down as in
1645 graphics mode, but they aren't visibly distinguished on the screen.
1646
1647 - Improved text-mode use: rEFInd now displays the proper number of entries
1648 when first started in text mode and scrolling is done sensibly when too
1649 many entries exist to fit on the screen.
1650
1651 0.3.2 (5/4/2012):
1652 -----------------
1653
1654 - Added the install.sh script to install rEFInd on Linux and Mac OS X
1655 systems. This script must be run as root (or via sudo). It requires
1656 no options, but on Mac OS X, passing it the "esp" option causes it
1657 to install rEFInd on the computer's ESP rather than the default of the
1658 currently OS X boot partition. (Under Linux, the default is to install to
1659 the ESP.) Note that there may be some unusual cases in which this script
1660 will fail to work.
1661
1662 - Does a better job of clearing the screen when launching OSes in text
1663 mode.
1664
1665 - Added detection "recipe" for GRUB 2's BIOS Boot Partition.
1666
1667 - Fixed bogus detection of ESPs created by Linux's mkdosfs utility or
1668 Windows as bootable partitions when "scanfor" includes BIOS scanning
1669 options.
1670
1671
1672 0.3.1 (4/27/2012):
1673 ------------------
1674
1675 - Fixed bug that caused spurious "Unsupported while scanning the root
1676 directory" messages under some conitions on Macs.
1677
1678 - Modified loader scanning code to sort boot loader entries within a
1679 directory by modification time, so that the most recently-modified loader
1680 is first among those in a given directory. Thus, if you specify a
1681 directory name (or volume name, for loaders stored in the root directory
1682 of a volume) as the default_selection, the most recent of those loaders
1683 will be the default. This is intended to help with Linux kernel
1684 maintenance when using the EFI stub loader; set up this way, the most
1685 recent kernel copied to your kernel directory will be the default,
1686 obviating the need to adjust the refind.conf file when adding a new
1687 kernel. If you want to change the default among those in the default
1688 directory, you can use "touch" to adjust the modification timestamp.
1689
1690 - Tweaked code to find loader-specific .icns file so that it finds files
1691 for Linux kernels without .efi extensions. In this case, files should be
1692 named the same as the kernels they match, but with .icns extensions. For
1693 instance, bzImage-3.3.2 should have an icon called bzImage-3.3.2.icns.
1694 (The old code would have looked for an icon called bzImage-3.3.icns.)
1695
1696 - Eliminated bogus OS loader tags for filenames that end in ".icns" when
1697 the scan_all_linux_kernels option is set.
1698
1699 0.3.0 (4/22/2012):
1700 ------------------
1701
1702 - I'm officially upgrading this project's status from "alpha" to "beta" and
1703 giving it a bump from 0.2.x to 0.3.0. This doesn't reflect any major
1704 milestone with this version; rather, it reflects my sense that rEFInd has
1705 been "out there" for a while, and although I've gotten bug reports,
1706 they've been minor and/or have been fixed. The program still has known
1707 bugs, but my impression is that it is, overall, usable by ordinary users.
1708
1709 - Added "resolution" option to refind.conf, which enables setting the video
1710 resolution. To use it, pass two numeric values, as in "resolution 1024
1711 768" to use a 1024x768 video mode. Note that not all modes are supported.
1712 If you specify a non-supported video mode on a UEFI system, a message
1713 appears listing the supported video modes and you must then press a key
1714 to continue, using the default video mode (usually 800x600).
1715 Unfortunately, I don't know the calls to get a list of supported video
1716 modes on older EFI 1.x systems (including Macs), so on Macs setting an
1717 incorrect video mode silently fails (you keep using the default mode).
1718 This makes changing your video mode a hit-or-miss proposition on Macs.
1719 CAUTION: It's possible to set a legal video mode that your monitor can't
1720 handle, in which case you'll get a blank display until you boot an OS
1721 that resets the video mode.
1722
1723 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused rEFInd to crash when returning from an
1724 EFI shell or other programs on Macs, particularly when rEFInd used
1725 graphical mode. I'm not 100% sure this bug is squashed because I still
1726 don't understand the cause and I only have one Mac for testing. See
1727 comments in the ReinitRefitLib() function in refit/lib.c for more
1728 details.
1729
1730 - Added new refind.conf option: scan_all_linux_kernels, which causes Linux
1731 kernels that lack ".efi" extensions to be included in scans for EFI boot
1732 loaders. This may help integration with Linux distributions that don't
1733 give their kernels such names by default. Beware, though: It can detect
1734 unwanted files, such as older non-stub-loader kernels or .icns files used
1735 to give kernels with .efi extensions custom icons.
1736
1737 - Improved EFI boot loader detection on boards with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
1738 and perhaps other EFIs with a buggy StriCmp() function. Files with both
1739 ".efi" and ".EFI" extensions should now be detected as boot loaders.
1740
1741 - Fixed a bug that caused rEFInd to fail to scan for drivers if the
1742 filesystem driver didn't set a volume name (that is, if the relevant
1743 field was set to NULL rather than even an empty string). In such
1744 situations, rEFInd now reports the volume name as "Unknown".
1745
1746 0.2.7 (4/19/2012):
1747 ------------------
1748
1749 - After much trial and tribulation, I've overcome a GNU-EFI limitation and
1750 enabled rEFInd to load EFI drivers. This feature was present in the
1751 original build of rEFIt but was removed in the versions that could
1752 compile under Linux, but now it's back -- and still being compiled under
1753 Linux! To use it, you should place your drivers in a convenient directory
1754 on the ESP (or whatever partition you use to launch rEFInd) and add a
1755 "scan_driver_dirs" entry to refind.conf to tell rEFInd where to look. (As
1756 always, you should specify the driver directory relative to the root of
1757 the filesystem.) Note that you can't launch drivers from another
1758 filesystem; they must be on the same volume that holds rEFInd. Those who
1759 compile from source code should note that implementing this feature
1760 necessitated using a more recent version of the GNU-EFI library. I'm
1761 currently using version 3.0p, and version 3.0i does NOT work. I don't
1762 know where the change occurred, but you may need to upgrade your GNU-EFI
1763 installation.
1764
1765 - Fixed bug that caused rEFInd to show up in its own menu sometimes.
1766
1767 - Added new refind.conf token: also_scan_dirs. When scanning volumes for
1768 EFI boot loaders, rEFInd always scans the root directory and every
1769 subdirectory of the /EFI directory, but it doesn't recurse into these
1770 directories. The also_scan_dirs token adds more directories to the scan
1771 list. It defaults to "elilo,boot", but you can set it to any directory or
1772 directories you like.
1773
1774 0.2.6 (4/14/2012):
1775 ------------------
1776
1777 - Added "volume" keyword to configuration file's stanza options. This
1778 option changes the volume from which subsequent files (specified by
1779 "loader" and "icon") are loaded. You pass "volume" the name/label of the
1780 FILESYSTEM you want to use (not the GPT partition name), or a number
1781 followed by a colon (e.g., "1:"). The former should reliably identify a
1782 filesystem, assuming the name is unique. The latter assigns numbers based
1783 on the order in which they're scanned, which may not be as reliable but
1784 should work when a volume is unnamed.
1785
1786 - Fixed bug in 0.2.5 that caused failure of Linux initial RAM disk
1787 mapping on some (but not all) systems. Affected computers include at
1788 least some Intel motherboards, maybe others.
1789
1790 0.2.5 (4/9/2012):
1791 -----------------
1792
1793 - Fixed bug that caused an inability to associate initial RAM disks with
1794 Linux kernels stored in a volume's root directory.
1795
1796 - Volume badges (that override default badges) are now stored in
1797 .VolumeBadge.icns. Although undocumented, rEFInd formerly loaded custom
1798 volume badges from .VolumeIcon.icns. This carryover from rEFIt was a
1799 confusing name, given the next (new) feature, so I've changed and
1800 documented the name....
1801
1802 - Added ability to set a default icon for a loader stored in the root
1803 directory of a volume: The icon is stored in .VolumeIcon.icns. This icon
1804 is also used for Mac OS X volumes booted from the standard location.
1805
1806 - Fixed bug that caused icons to drop back to generic icons when rEFInd
1807 was launched in certain ways (such as from an EFI shell in rEFInd's
1808 directory) on certain systems.
1809
1810 - Fixed bug that caused "unknown disable flag" to be shown (very briefly)
1811 instead of "unknown hideui flag" when an improper hideui flag was set.
1812
1813 0.2.4 (4/5/2012):
1814 -----------------
1815
1816 - Created new refind.conf entry: "showtools". This entry takes options of
1817 "shell", "gptsync", "about", "exit", "reboot", and "shutdown". This
1818 option is in some respects an affirmative version of portions of the old
1819 "disable" and "hideui" options; however, it enables users to specify the
1820 order in which these options appear on the screen. Also, the "exit"
1821 option is new; it terminates the program. The effect is usually to return
1822 to whatever tool launched it or to launch a default OS; however, this is
1823 somewhat unpredictable. The default therefore omits the "exit" option, as
1824 well as "gptsync", which has always been dangerous (but necessary on most
1825 MacOS/Windows dual-boot setups on Macs). As part of this reconfiguration,
1826 I've eliminated the "rescue Linux" option, which always seemed pointless
1827 to me.
1828
1829 - Folded "disable" and "hideui" refind.conf entries into one ("disable"),
1830 and reduced the number of options to six: "banner", "label",
1831 "singleuser", "hwtest", "arrows", and "all". ("arrows" is new and
1832 disables the scroll arrows when a system has too many tags to display
1833 simultaneously.)
1834
1835 - Added max_tags option to the refind.conf file, enabling users to reduce
1836 the maximum number of OS loader tags that can be displayed at once.
1837
1838 - Updated rEFIt icon, based on the 128x128 volume label from the rEFIt CD
1839 image.
1840
1841 - Added x86 and x86-64 EFI shells to the CD image version of the binary,
1842 but NOT to the binary zip file. The logic is that the CD image is more
1843 likely to be used directly as an emergency disc and so may need this
1844 feature, even though the source isn't part of the rEFInd project. (The
1845 source is readily available from the TianoCore project.)
1846
1847 - EFI shells may now be stored at /shellx64.efi for x86-64 systems or at
1848 /shellia32.efi for x86 systems. The /EFI/tools/shell.efi name is also
1849 recognized; however, if both files are present, two EFI shell icons will
1850 appear on the main menu. The /efi/{refind-path/apps/shell.efi filename,
1851 which was never officially documented but worked as a carryover from
1852 rEFIt, is no longer valid.
1853
1854 0.2.3 (3/26/2012):
1855 ------------------
1856
1857 - Fixed (maybe) a bug that caused hangs when launching a second program
1858 after returning from a first. There are some weird system-to-system
1859 differences, though, and this fix causes (apparently harmless) error
1860 messages about "(re)opening our installation volume" on at least one
1861 system (a 32-bit Mac Mini). I'm committing this change because, imperfect
1862 though it is, it's preferable to the earlier version, at least on my
1863 small sample of computers.
1864
1865 - Because of news that the Linux kernel developers are planning to use the
1866 filename linux.conf to hold Linux kernel configuration data for EFI
1867 booting, I'm transitioning rEFInd away from that name and to
1868 refind_linux.conf to avoid a conflict. This version can use either name,
1869 with refind_linux.conf taking precedence if both are present.
1870
1871 - Added logo for Arch Linux.
1872
1873 0.2.2 (3/23/2012):
1874 ------------------
1875
1876 - Fixed bug that caused program failure when Linux kernels with EFI stub
1877 support were detected with no associated version numbers. rEFInd now
1878 permits automatic linking of *ONE* versionless kernel to *ONE*
1879 versionless initrd file.
1880
1881 - Fixed bug that caused program hangs when a boot loader filename or label
1882 was too long. Such names are now properly truncated and program execution
1883 continues.
1884
1885 - Fixed bug that caused no text to appear in submenus on UEFI systems with
1886 small screens (800x600). NOTE: Problem still occurs on screens smaller
1887 than this, but such systems are very rare.
1888
1889 0.2.1 (3/19/2012):
1890 ------------------
1891
1892 - Added ability to set a "default_selection" that's a title or a substring
1893 of one -- the name given to a stanza in a "menuentry" or the boot
1894 loader's filename, in most cases, although "Mac OS X", "Windows XP
1895 (XoM)", and "Microsoft EFI boot" are also titles.
1896
1897 - Added support for semi-automatic scans of Linux kernels with EFI stub
1898 loader support. The program auto-detects matching initial RAM disk files
1899 and loads additional options from the "linux.conf" file in the same
1900 directory as the kernel.
1901
1902 - Added support for "submenuentry" keyword and associated sub-stanza
1903 entries in refind.conf file.
1904
1905 - Renamed icons/os_mint.icns to icons/os_linuxmint.icns to match the
1906 filename Linux Mint ACTUALLY uses for its ESP boot loader directory.
1907
1908
1909 0.2.0 (3/14/2012):
1910 ------------------
1911
1912 - Initial public release