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