X-Git-Url: https://code.delx.au/refind/blobdiff_plain/65eb839a6d8d68a439056473a0d3728dfd39d2c4..c1935b0f6d9272cfa51e9a6c1e342c252ea41b1f:/docs/refind/revisions.html
diff --git a/docs/refind/revisions.html b/docs/refind/revisions.html
index 8bac805..e0cbbbb 100644
--- a/docs/refind/revisions.html
+++ b/docs/refind/revisions.html
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
by Roderick W. Smith, rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
-Last Web page update: 5/20/2012
+Last Web page update: 12/5/2012
I'm a technical writer and consultant specializing in Linux technologies. This Web page is provided free of charge and with no annoying outside ads; however, I did take time to prepare it, and Web hosting does cost money. If you find this Web page useful, please consider making a small donation to help keep this site up and running. Thanks!
@@ -93,6 +93,22 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
+- 0.5.0 (12/5/2012)—I've focused on adding support for Matthew J. Garrett's shim program to this version of rEFInd; with this support, rEFInd is capable of launching Linux kernels and other programs signed with a suitable key while the computer is in Secure Boot mode. This initial release, however, requires significant manual configuration and has some known bugs and limitations. See the Managing Secure Boot page for details. Beyond this major new feature, this version includes several more minor improvements. These include a change to the resolution token so that it applies to text mode as well as to graphics mode; a bug fix that caused the line editor to blank out lines that were left unedited; a new dont_scan_files option to blacklist boot programs by filename; support for launching MokManager and Apple's Recovery HD partitions via tools (2nd-row) icons; new --usedefault and --drivers options to the install.sh script; and a change of the esp installation script option to --esp.
+
+- 0.4.7 (11/6/2012)—The most important new feature in this version is a boot options editor. From rEFInd's main menu, press Insert or F2 to see the options menu. Select one of the options and press Insert or F2 again and the screen switches to a text-mode display in which you can edit the options that will be passed to the boot loader. A second new feature is a new icon for gummiboot, which is another EFI boot manager. This version also alters the behavior of the scan_delay option, since I've been told that the previous version didn't work; the new one does. Finally, this version omits the space that followed boot options when booting most OSes. This behavior was inherited from rEFIt; a comment in the source code indicates it's needed by OS X, but I've been told it causes boot failures when launching Linux on some Macs. Thus, rEFInd now adds this space only when booting Mac OS X.
+
+- 0.4.6 (10/6/2012)—Thanks to contributor John Bressler, rEFInd can now boot legacy (BIOS) boot loaders on many UEFI PCs. (Previously, rEFInd could do this only on Macs.) Other changes include a new scan_delay option that inserts a delay between rEFInd starting and disk scans (to help detect disks that are slow to appear to the firmware) and a change in the default scanfor value so that legacy OSes are detected by default on Macs (but not on PCs). I've also fixed some memory management problems that caused error messages to appear on some systems when rEFInd was compiled with the TianoCore EDK2 toolkit. Finally, I'm now using the TianoCore toolkit to make my primary binary builds, since the new UEFI legacy boot support requires the TianoCore environment. (rEFInd still builds with GNU-EFI, but it doesn't support booting legacy OSes on UEFI systems when built in this way.)
+
+- 0.4.5 (8/12/2012)—This version fixes a couple of Mac-related bugs. The most important is that version 0.4.3 and 0.4.4 couldn't boot BIOS-based (aka CSM or Boot Camp) OS installations; 0.4.5 restores this important feature. The second bug is in the install.sh script, which would often fail to detect rEFItBlesser, thus leaving it enabled and causing rEFInd to fail to start after the first reboot into OS X.
+
+- 0.4.4 (6/23/2012)—This is a bug-fix release. Most importantly, it fixes a bug in the new use_graphics_for feature; in 0.4.3, the options were set incorrectly (they just happened to work as expected on my main test configuration). I've also fixed problems with volume names in the 32-bit versions of both the drivers and the TianoCore EDK2 build of rEFInd itself. Finally, I've tweaked the install.sh script to do a better job of identifying the computer's ESP under OS X.
+
+- 0.4.3 (6/21/2012)—The major user-visible change to this version is the addition of the use_graphics_for option, which enables you to specify the OSes that rEFInd launches in graphics mode vs. text mode. This effect is tiny on most systems, but can be important on some, as noted on the "Configuring the Boot Manager" page. There's also a change to the way graphics-mode boots are handled, to make for a slightly smoother visual transition. This version also fixes the incompatibility between the drivers and the firmware used by Macs (and probably other EFI 1.x systems). I've removed linux.conf as a valid alternative name for the refind_linux.conf file, so if you're still using the old name, now is the time to rename it! The biggest change is behind the scenes, though: I've added support for compiling rEFInd using the TianoCore EDK2, as well as the GNU-EFI toolkit that I've used up to this point. I have no intention of removing GNU-EFI support, but there's a chance that the TianoCore toolkit will help in implementing some future features or in debugging some problems. You can download either version from the downloads page.
+
+- 0.4.2 (6/3/2012)—I've added a new dont_scan_dirs option to the configuration file, enabling creation of a directory-scanning "blacklist." See the "Configuring the Boot Manager" page for details. This version also makes a couple of changes to the install.sh script. The first is a reminder for Mac users to update refind.conf if they need to boot BIOS-based OSes. The second change makes the script a bit smarter about updating NVRAM settings when run from Linux; it now attempts to make itself the default boot loader if an entry for rEFInd already exists but isn't the default. I've made this change in response to problem reports from users; apparently some distributions' GRUB update scripts make GRUB the default boot loader under all circumstances, which causes rEFInd to be taken out of the picture after a GRUB update. The previous install.sh code wouldn't add rEFInd back to the "top spot" after this happened, but the new code should do the trick. (Although re-installing rEFInd is overkill in this case, it's something many users would logically try.)
+
+- 0.4.1 (5/25/2012)—This version provides a number of small bug fixes and improvements: When re-scanning (initiated by pressing Esc in the main menu), a message that re-scanning is occurring appears on the screen; I've fixed a bug that could cause rEFInd to appear as an option in its own menu after running a shell program and re-scanning; the install.sh script now checks for, and optionally deletes, the rEFItBlesser program when run under OS X; and the HFS+ driver now returns a volume label of HFS+ volume, rather than nothing at all (unlike other drivers, the HFS+ driver can't yet return the volume's true label).
+
- 0.4.0 (5/20/2012)—I've bumped up this version number more than usual to reflect the addition of four filesystem drivers (for ext2fs, ReiserFS, HFS+, and ISO-9660) to the rEFInd package. These drivers originate with the original rEFIt, VirtualBox, and Clover boot loader projects. You can learn more on the drivers page. To facilitate inclusion of drivers on the CD image, rEFInd also now supports reading drivers from architecture-specific subdirectories—drivers_x64 and drivers_ia32 for x86-64 and x86 systems, respectively. This version also adds the ability to eject removable media on some Macs (this won't work on UEFI-based PCs, unfortunately). Finally, this version fixes a problem that could cause GRUB 2 to be unable to read its configuration file in some settings when launched from rEFInd.
- 0.3.5 (5/15/2012)—This version's biggest new feature is the ability to re-scan for boot loaders after launching the program. This is done by pressing the Esc key, which causes rEFInd to re-read its configuration file, to tell the EFI to reconnect all disks, and to do a fresh scan of all disks for loaders. This is useful if you insert a removable disk after starting the computer, if rEFInd starts before a disk has fully settled, if you make a change to the configuration file, or if you manually load a driver. This version also fixes a minor bug that could cause the scroll-right arrow to be replaced with a left-pointing arrow under some circumstances; and I've removed the scan for a BIOS Boot Partition that I added in 0.3.2, since I'm told it isn't launching correctly. (BIOS-mode GRUB 2 can still be launched on Macs from its boot code in the MBR.)