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