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