root/NEWS

Revision d0564771471d41dce35d4c8b37ab6845930c3354, 66.6 KB (checked in by Paulo Alcantara <pcacjr@…>, 3 months ago)

NEWS: trivial change

Change Paulo Cezar to Paulo Alcantara.

Signed-off-by: Paulo Alcantara <pcacjr@…>

  • Property mode set to 100644
Line 
1Starting with 1.47, changes marked with SYSLINUX, PXELINUX, ISOLINUX
2or EXTLINUX apply to that specific program only; other changes apply
3to all derivatives.
4
5Changes in 4.06:
6        * Support for NTFS, by Paulo Alcantara.
7
8Changes in 4.05:
9        * HDT updated, and now supports uploading data to a TFTP
10          server.
11        * ISOLINUX: remove the .img file support; it has been broken
12          on virtually all systems since the beginning, and has been
13          totally broken since 4.00 at least.  Use MEMDISK instead.
14        * chain.c32: Support chaining ReactOS' FreeLdr (Shao Miller)
15        * isohybrid: -m option to add support for Mac EFI booting.
16        * ifmemdsk.c32: Choose boot option based on presence of
17          MEMDISK.
18        * Remove bogus distributed mk-lba-img binary.
19        * The Syslinux project has a new, cool logo by Abi
20          "ixxvil" Rasheed (doc/logo/*).
21
22Changes in 4.04:
23        * PXELINUX: Fix handling of unqualified DNS names.
24        * PXELINUX: Fix timer bug when PXELINUX might be unloaded
25          (Gene Cumm).
26        * core/writedec.inc: Fix duplicate declaration and overflow
27          (Gene Cumm).
28        * GCC 4.5 fixes.
29        * sample directory: Fix Makefile include (Gene Cumm).
30        * ver.com: New universal DOS/COMBOOT application to display
31          version information (includes DRMK) (Gene Cumm).
32        * rosh.c32: updated; Using getopt() for internal commands to aid
33          parsing options; Fix bugs in ls; add warm reboot and echo
34          (Gene Cumm).
35        * com32: fix a file descriptor leak.
36        * gfxboot.c32: handle TEXT..ENDTEXT; error out on no LABELs
37          found (Sebastian Herbszt).
38        * Fix booting on non-partitioned devices.
39        * MBR, isohybrid: Workaround for a BIOS issue on Acer
40          Travelmate and possibly other machines.
41        * COM32: Adding ACPI parsing libary
42        * HDT: Release 0.4.1 to support ACPI parsing,
43          improved mutli-core/cpu reporting
44        * LUA: Updating to 5.1.4-2
45        * SYSLINUX: core/diskstart.inc: Reset DS after checksum in case
46          it isn't 0 (Gene Cumm).
47        * win64: Script update for additional mingw compiler names
48          (Gene Cumm).
49        * diag: New directory for diagnostic-related tools.  Add a
50          handoff MBR/VBR and geometry display images (Gene Cumm).
51        * MEMDISK: use "mem=" parameter to mark available memory above
52          this point as reserved (core already does alignment) (Gene Cumm).
53        * MEMDISK: Additional disk probe checks and debug output
54          (Shao Miller, Gene Cumm).
55        * gpxe: add gpxelinuxk.0, based off of undionly.kpxe + new
56          script (Gene Cumm).
57        * isohybrid: install the isohdpfx*.bin/isohdppx*.bin files to
58          make isohybrid images in one step with GNU xorriso.
59        * PXELINUX: disable a hack that would make localboot work on
60          some machines, but break just about as many.  Some machines
61          which worked with "localboot 0" in previous versions may
62          need "localboot -1" in this one.  If you have a machine
63          which requires "localboot -1", a copy of the dmidecode
64          or sysdump output would be appreciated.
65        * Include a set of diagnostics by Gene Cumm.
66        * Fixes for gcc 4.6 and binutils 2.21.51.
67        * chain.c32: Allow "uuid" as a synonym to "guid".
68        * Handle directory names starting with .. for vfat and
69          iso9660.
70        * New MENU HIDDENKEY command to provide a one-keystroke way to
71          activate a boot option from a hidden menu intro screen.
72
73Changes in 4.03:
74        * Don't hang if no configuration file is found.
75        * Better support for booting from MBRs which don't pass
76          handover information.
77        * EXTLINUX: Try to be smarter about finding the partition
78          offset.
79        * chain.c32: support chainloading Dell Real Mode Kernel (Gene
80          Cumm).
81        * chain.c32: fix booting in CHS mode.
82        * rosh.c32 updated (Gene Cumm).
83        * Fix the -s option to the syslinux/extlinux installer (Arwin
84          Vosselman).
85        * isohybrid: fix padding of large images (PJ Pandit).
86
87Changes in 4.02:
88        * SYSLINUX: correctly handle the case where the -d option is
89          specified with a non-absolute path, i.e. "syslinux -d
90          syslinux" instead of "syslinux -d /syslinux".
91        * ISOLINUX: recognize the directory names /boot/syslinux and
92          /syslinux, and the filename syslinux.cfg in addition to the
93          isolinux-specific names.  Thus, "syslinux.cfg" is now a
94          generic name, whereas "isolinux.cfg" or "extlinux.conf" is
95          specific to different derivative.
96        * chain.c32: support setting alternate config filename for
97          stage2 of GRUB Legacy (Gert Hulselmans).
98        * whichsys.c32: execute specific command, based on Syslinux
99          bootloader variant (Gert Hulselmans).
100        * lua.c32: a lot of new bindings added to the "syslinux"
101          namespace: VESA, PCI, DMI, kernel loading (Marcel Ritter).
102        * btrfs: print a comprehensive error message if compressed or
103          encrypted files are encountered (neither is currently
104          supported.)
105        * SYSLINUX: mtools installer: honor TMPDIR, error out on disk
106          full.
107        * Handle fallbacks from EDD to CHS, to deal with systems which
108          announce EDD support but don't actually have it.
109        * SYSLINUX: the mtools, DOS and win32 installers now use the new
110          command line options.
111        * PXELINUX: fix the use of IP addresses in TFTP :: or tftp://
112          host syntax.
113        * SYSLINUX: experimental Win64 installer (syslinux64.exe).
114
115Changes in 4.01:
116        * ISOLINUX: fix initialization on systems which don't zero
117          low memory.
118        * SYSLINUX/EXTLINUX: fix handing of disk read retries in
119          EDD mode.
120        * ISOLINUX: change the initialization sequence to avoid
121          problems with certain (old) BIOSes.  Special thanks to
122          Helmut Hullen for invaluable debugging support.
123        * ifplop.c32: new module which detects if the PLoP Boot Loader
124          already has booted a CDROM or USB drive (Gert Hulselmans).
125        * Correct a severe memory overwrite bug, triggered primarily
126          when selecting a very long command line in the menu system.
127        * lua.c32: Lua script interpreter, currently experimental
128          (Alexey Zaytsev, Marcel Ritter, Geert Stappers).
129        * PXELINUX: new option IPAPPEND 4 to append the system UUID to
130          the kernel command line.
131        * PXELINUX: display BOOTIF and SYSUUID at startup time, and
132          when Ctrl-N is pressed on the command line.
133
134Changes in 4.00:
135        * Major code base changes; all filesystem rewritten in C.
136          This work was done primarily by Liu Aleaxander (Yuanhan Liu).
137        * EXTLINUX: btrfs and ext4 support.  btrfs support was done by
138          Alek Du of Intel.
139        * EXTLINUX is no longer a separate derivative; extlinux and
140          syslinux both install the same loader (ldlinux.sys); for the
141          Linux-based installers the extlinux binary is used for a
142          mounted filesystem; the syslinux binary for an unmounted
143          filesystem.
144        * When loading a new configuration file with the CONFIG
145          command, one can now also specify a new current directory
146          with an APPEND statement.
147        * Full ADV support for Syslinux, to boot-once and MENU SAVE
148          works.
149        * Full support of GPT-partitioned disks, including disks
150          and/or parititions larger than 2 TiB (if supported by BIOS.)
151        * The GPT handover protocol adjusted to the current T13
152          committee draft; see doc/gpt.txt.
153        * HDT: code cleanup, small bugfixes
154        * The "linux" syslinux installer (syslinux-nomtools) now has a
155          command-line syntax closer to the extlinux installer.  The
156          mtools, dos and win32 installers will get this new syntax
157          eventually, but it is not implemented yet.
158        * chain.c32: support booting GPT partitions by index, GUID, label.
159        * chain.c32: support booting the Syslinux partition with "fs".
160        * chain.c32: implement gpt.txt hand-over protocol.
161        * chain.c32: support for chainloading Grub stage 2.
162        * PXELINUX: TFTP URL syntax (tftp://) supported even when not
163          running gPXE/gpxelinux.
164        * New ls.c32 module to display the contents of the disk from
165          the command line, and pwd.c32 to display the current
166          directory.
167        * rosh.c32 (read only shell) updated and hopefully usable.
168        * PXELINUX: Support "localboot -1", just like the other
169          derivatives.
170        * gfxboot.com removed in favor of gfxboot.c32.
171        * New MENU HELP statement to display fullscreen help text as a
172          result of a menu selection.
173        * memdiskfind utility that can be used with the phram driver
174          in the Linux kernel to mount a memdisk.
175        * ifcpu.c32: Adding usage when no parameters are given,
176          adding PAE support.
177        * ifcpu.c32, ifcpu64.c32: handle more than one argument per
178          target.
179        * isohybrid: C version which does not require Perl.
180        * New command MENU IMMEDIATE to permit hotkeys to activate
181          immediately without needing Enter.
182        * mdiskchk.com supports a --no-sequential (or -n) option to
183          suppress the classic all-drive-probing heuristic.  Useful
184          on BIOSes who crash/hang when certain drive numbers are
185          probed.
186        * ElTorito.Sys DOS driver now scans drive numbers upwards
187          instead of downwards, in order to avoid a fairly common
188          bug on some BIOSes where probing drive 0xFF causes a
189          failure.
190        * NASM 2.03 or later required to build.  2.07 or later
191          recommended.
192
193Changes in 3.86:
194        * chain.c32: fix chainloading the MBR of a hard disk (broken
195          in 3.85).
196        * mboot.c32: report the boot loader name in the information
197          structure.
198        * com32: set argv[0] in a com32 module.
199        * core: add a workaround for a bug in Xen HVM older than
200          version 3.3: disable halt on those platforms.
201        * Fix problems where certain operations in com32 modules would
202          cause the core to believe the system was idle.
203        * MEMDISK: fix MBR detection when used with a DOSEMU header or
204          an offset.
205        * MEMDISK: generate the mBFT checksum correctly.
206
207Changes in 3.85:
208        * gPXELINUX: updated to gPXE 1.0.0.  gPXELINUX can now do NBP
209          chainloading, and does not require a second DHCP.
210        * vesamenu.c32: unbreak the default "grey hole" background.
211        * We no longer have a built-in default of "linux auto".
212          Instead, if no DEFAULT or UI statement is found, or the
213          configuration file is missing entirely, we drop to the boot:
214          prompt with an error message (if NOESCAPE is set, we stop
215          with a "boot failed" message; this is also the case for
216          PXELINUX if the configuration file is not found.)
217        * chain.c32: support chainloading Grub4DOS; patch by Gert
218          Hulselmans.
219        * New tool: sysdump.c32, can be used to produce system
220          information for debugging via tftp or ymodem (serial port).
221        * "vga=current" on the Linux command line is now supported.
222        * chain.c32: support for Windows Recovery Console, via the
223          "cmldr=" option.
224        * chain.c32: should now support loading NTLDR from different
225          type media than loaded from.
226        * chain.c32: support chainloading to a FAT/NTFS partition with
227          invalid "hidden sectors" via the "sethidden" option.
228        * memdisk: fix the mBFT ACPI table.
229        * vesamenu.c32: if the image is smaller than the screen, tile
230          it across the whole screen.
231        * mkdiskimage: -s option for producing a sparse image.
232        * vesamenu.c32: support arbitrary resolution setting (beyond
233          BIOS support) on some Intel-based video chipsets.  This code
234          is a modified version of the "915resolution" tool by
235          Steve Tomljenovic; your mileage might vary.
236         
237Changes in 3.84:
238        * SYSLINUX: make the DOS installer work for MS-DOS 7.x/8.x
239          (Win9x/ME) again.
240        * HDT: updated to version 0.3.6 (numerous changes.)
241        * mboot.c32: now supports video mode setting if requested by
242          the image.
243        * MEMDISK: Fix floppy images of PC-DOS.
244        * MEMDISK: Add support for emulation of CD-ROM images; patch
245          by Shao Miller.
246        * MEMDISK: Comply with the Win9x "safe hook" standard,
247          allowing a protected-mode driver.
248        * MEMDISK: New "mBFT" ACPI table, by analogy with the iSCSI
249          iBFT table.  This allows detection from a protected-mode
250          operating system without EDD support.
251        * 32-bit version of the gfxboot loader (gfxboot.c32), so far
252          experimental.  This will replace gfxboot.com in the future.
253        * vesamenu.c32: new MENU RESOLUTION directive to set a screen
254          resolution other than 640x480.
255        * chain.c32: add support for loading isolinux.bin.
256        * chain.c32: make sure to always return to text mode.
257        * eltorito.sys: DOS driver for generic CD-ROMs; by Gary Tong
258          and Bart Lagerweij.
259
260Changes in 3.83:
261        * PXELINUX: clear memory before handing over to a chainloaded
262          NBP.  This may help avoid a bug in Windows RIS.
263        * PXELINUX: fix localboot after NBP chainloading on certain
264          BIOSes (including ASUS A8N-E, but possibly others.)
265        * chain.c32: support chainloaded bootloaders on ISOLINUX.
266        * PXELINUX: allow filenames up to 251 characters.
267        * MEMDISK: fix problems booting from USB on Thinkpads, and
268          possibly other machines or hardware combinations.
269        * isohybrid: fix the -id option.
270        * HDT: updated to version 0.3.4.
271        * MEMDISK: the stack size is now configurable, with the stack=
272          option.
273        * Simple menu: fix Ctrl-W (word erase) in command-line edit.
274        * Simple menu: fix crash on some platforms.
275        * Gfxboot: fixes to the configuration file parsing.
276        * PXELINUX: add a tool to override specific DHCP options via
277          values hardcoded in the pxelinux.0 file.  These hardcoded
278          values can be either "before DHCP" (defaults if DHCP do not
279          provide values), or "after DHCP" (overrides DHCP).  The tool
280          pxelinux-options can be used to set these options.  This
281          feature does not apply to gpxelinux.0; when used with gPXE
282          this is better handled by modifying the embedded script.
283
284Changes in 3.82:
285        * isohybrid: fix the -partok logic for loading from a partition.
286        * ISOLINUX: deal with systems which return from INT 13h with
287          interrupts disabled.
288        * Do not invoke the idle handler during large file loads.
289        * Simple menu: make ONTIMEOUT work with MENU HIDDEN.
290        * PXELINUX: handle TFTP servers which have extra NULs at the
291          end of an OACK packet.
292
293Changes in 3.81:
294        * Shuffler: fix bug in real-mode entry.  This affected a
295          number of modules, probably in relatively unimportant ways,
296          but it completely broke linux.c32.
297        * Improved performance.
298        * Attempt to halt the processor while idle.  This can cause
299          bad reponsiveness when using a serial console especially for
300          automated input; if that ends up being a problem, use the
301          new "NOHALT 1" configuration command.
302        * linux.c32 now suppresses all messages if the "quiet" flag is
303          specified.
304        * isohybrid: add a variety of options, and a help message.
305        * ISOLINUX: fix booting in hybrid mode when CBIOS is used.
306          This unfortunately means that the isohybrid handoff protocol
307          has changed, so the isohybrid utility must version-match
308          isolinux.bin.
309        * Drop support for ACPI 3 extended memory flags.
310        * Menu system: don't set the autocr flag on the serial
311          console.
312        * altmbr: fix handling of logical partitions.
313        * altmbr: cap at 439 bytes so the partition select byte isn't
314          part of the file.
315
316Changes in 3.80:
317        * New shuffler mechanism and API.
318        * Rewritten mboot.c32 module.
319        * The syslinux_boot_linux() function has been simplified.
320        * Don't hang trying to boot a "menu quit" label from the CLI.
321        * Fix problem with boot-once "sticking" on some BIOSes.
322        * isohybrid: fix problem with images over 2 GB in size.
323        * APM poweroff module (poweroff.com) by Sebastian Herbszt.
324        * ISOLINUX: fix the handling of large directories.  Bug found
325          and fixed by Steffen Winterfeldt.
326
327Changes in 3.75:
328        * PXELINUX: fix the "keeppxe" option, which was broken in
329          3.74.
330        * MEMDISK: correct the extraction of geometry information from
331          the MBR of a hard disk image, again broken in 3.74.
332        * extlinux(1) man page from Brian Pellin.
333        * Simple menu: MENU SAVE is now controllable on a menu-by-menu
334          or entry-by-entry basis.
335        * gPXELINUX: fix interrupt-disabling bug.
336        * HDT: fix lockup on machines with certain PCI configurations.
337
338Changes in 3.74:
339        * New UI directive, which allows a more natural way to specify
340          a menu system (or not.)  With the UI directive specifying
341          the menu system, the DEFAULT directive can be used to select
342          the default entry inside the menus.
343        * kbdmap.c32: new module to load a new keyboard map
344          dynamically.
345        * isohybrid: workaround bug in some versions of binutils.
346        * Fix issue with the placement of the initrd on some machines.
347        * ifcpu64: fix handling of less than three arguments.
348        * Fix bug in the shuffle library when dealing with a very
349          large number of fragments.
350        * Documentation fixes by Vicente Jimenez Aguilar.
351        * gPXE updated to version 0.9.7.
352        * hdt.c32: Hardware Detection Tool, an interactive hardware
353          analyzer module by Erwan Velu.
354        * MEMDISK: enable automatic determination of the disk geometry
355          for a large floppy disk image if (and only if) it is
356          formatted with a FAT filesystem.
357        * SYSLINUX: fix the handling of .bss files on FAT12/16.
358        * Suppress the Loading ... message if "quiet" is specified on
359          the kernel command line.
360        * Fix the use of "CONSOLE 0" with menu.c32.
361        * Allow COM32 modules to be aware of all memory even in the
362          presence of a memory hole.  The "linux.c32" module can be
363          used to load a kernel (or memdisk) plus large initrd on
364          such a system.
365        * MBR: produce alternate MBR variants which force the drive
366          number to hd0 (_f variants), or force the drive number to
367          hd0 if the Ctrl key is pressed (_c variants.)  Furthermore,
368          add an MBR variant (altmbr*.bin) which ignores the active
369          flag and instead boots the partition number specified in the
370          byte at offset 439 decimal.
371        * Add IPAPPEND strings to com32 modules, especially needed for
372          linux.c32.
373        * New MENU SAVE directive which saves the latest menu
374          selection until the next boot.  Currently only implemented for
375          EXTLINUX.
376        * gfxboot.com: *experimental* interface module to Steffen
377          Winterfeldt's "gfxboot" graphical front end
378          (http://gfxboot.sourceforge.net/).  Module by Sebastian Herbszt.
379
380Changes in 3.73:
381        * Upgrade gPXE to release version 0.9.5.
382        * Fix a number of build errors on various platforms.
383        * Handle systems with E820 "extended attributes" per ACPI 3.
384          Someone "cleverly" decided to change the E820 spec in a
385          backwards-incompatible manner!
386        * MEMDISK: default to "safeint".
387        * Adopt the moniker "The Syslinux Project", standard proper
388          noun capitalization, to refer to the project as a whole.
389          Thus, reserve the all-caps "SYSLINUX" to refer to the FAT
390          loader.
391        * mboot.c32: add "-solaris" option to pass DHCP information to
392          the Solaris kernel; required for automatic Solaris boot
393          without using Solaris' pxeboot program.
394        * config.c32: trivial COM32 module to restart Syslinux with
395          another configuration file from the command line (equivalent
396          to the CONFIG command in the configuratin file.)
397
398Changes in 3.72:
399        * Include the pxechain.com module from Jeffery Hutzelman at
400          Carnegie Mellon University.  This allows chaining another
401          PXE boot program while changing the DHCP packet passed to
402          it.
403        * Reorganize the Makefile system.
404        * Major PCI core cleanups and other source cleanup.
405        * gPXE code updated.
406        * Try to avoid memory-snooping attacks on passwords.  Note
407          that if someone has root on the box, they generally don't
408          need to compromise the boot loader...
409        * ISOLINUX: fix crash when given a zero-length file.
410        * sdi.c32: support gzipped SDI images.
411        * ISOLINUX: support generating images which can be either
412          a CD-ROM or a hard disk (USB disk, etc.)  See
413          doc/isolinux.txt for more information.
414        * Remote gdb support for COM32 modules; patch from Stefan
415          Hajnoczi.
416        * Support beeps in F-key help in the simple menu system.
417        * Tab display of labels, based on a patch from Sebastian
418          Herbszt.  Can be disabled with the NOCOMPLETE configuration
419          command.
420        * "menu default" can now be specified after "menu begin", to
421          indicate that a specific submenu should be the default entry.
422
423Changes in 3.71:
424        * Workaround for a VESA BIOS which tries to make DOS system
425          calls(!!)
426        * Simple menu: fix navigation around disabled entries
427          (or at least try to...)
428        * EXTLINUX: proper error message when confused about mount
429          point.
430        * MEMDISK: be smarter about incompletely disabled floppies in
431          the BIOS and about being the only floppy.
432        * Optionally allow initrd to be specified on a separate line
433          rather than as part of the "append" line.  This is not
434          recommended, but apparently makes life easier for some
435          tools.
436        * SYSLINUX: if no config file is present, set the current
437          directory to the root directory (Sebastian Herbszt).
438        * chain.c32: option "hide" to support hiding and unhiding of
439          primary partitions on the boot drive with DOS, Win, or OS/2
440          partition types (01, 04, 06, 07, 0b, 0c, 0e).
441        * Unbreak the KBDMAP command (broken in 3.70).
442        * EXTLINUX: fix the handling of the ADV when using CBIOS.
443        * ifcpu64.c32: simple COM32 module to select a 32- or 64-bit
444          kernel (and optionally 32-bit kernels with or without PAE.)
445          Eventually we want a scripting language for this
446          kind of stuff; a Lua module is under development.
447        * Fix parsing of the SERIAL command without a baud rate
448          specified.
449        * chain.c32: error out when try to boot an unbootable
450          partition.
451        * SYSLINUX: when building the Win32 installer, search for
452          MinGW under a large number of possible names.
453
454Changes in 3.70:
455        * PXELINUX: Support enhanced capabilities when running on top
456          of gPXE (http://www.etherboot.org/).  In particular, support
457          URL-style syntax for filenames, and any protocol that gPXE
458          supports (except, currently, iSCSI and AoE.)  This feature
459          is currently highly experimental.
460        * Substantial infrastructure changes to support files whose
461          length aren't known at open time (typically network
462          connections.)  Please note that the semantics of some of the
463          comboot APIs have changed slightly; please see doc/comboot.txt.
464        * PXELINUX: We no longer require a TFTP server which supports
465          the tsize option for all transfers.
466        * PXELINUX: Integrate with the gPXE source base; unified image
467          now included as "gpxelinux.0".
468        * The source tree has been restructured; files that were
469          previously in the root have moved into the core, dos, gpxe,
470          and utils directories.
471        * "make install", "make netinstall", and "make extbootinstall"
472          have been updated massively.  "make install-all" now installs
473          all three.
474        * Change default dir for auxiliary files from
475          /usr/lib/syslinux to /usr/share/syslinux.
476        * SYSLINUX: VFAT long filename support.
477        * MEMDISK: Any image less than 4096K (4 MB) is treated as a
478          floppy disk.  The geometry-guessing code will recognize all
479          common extended formats, but it is still possible some very
480          exotic formats need geometry specification.  Large floppies
481          and very small harddisks still need explicit specification.
482        * chain.c32: option "swap" to support swapping of BIOS drive
483          numbers.  This is necessary to boot certain operating systems
484          (DOS, Windows) from a secondary drive.
485        * chain.c32: option "file=" to support loading a boot file from
486          the SYSLINUX filesystem instead of loading the boot sector
487          from the drive.
488        * chain.c32: option "seg=" to control the load location.
489        * chain.c32: option "ntldr=" as a shorthand for "seg=0x2000
490          file="; use this to load one of WinNT's loaders:
491
492          chain.c32 hd0 1 ntldr=/MiniNT/setupldr.bin
493
494          Note that the file needs to be in the SYSLINUX filesystem.
495        * chain.32: options "freedos=" and "msdos="/"pcdos=" as
496          shorthands for "seg=0x60 file=" and "seg=0x70 file="
497          respectively; use this to load FreeDOS's kernel.sys, MS-DOS's
498          io.sys or PC-DOS's ibmbio.sys.
499        * Change to the A20 algorithm which *MIGHT* help systems that
500          have systems which freeze when Syslinux is used with USB
501          keyboards.  Note that this has been hard do verify, so I
502          would greatly appreciate feedback on it.
503        * Complex menu system: unbreak menus which has unnamed
504          submenus, like complex.c.
505        * Fix newline on the serial port for some com32 modules.
506        * chain.c32: support "boot" as the drive specification,
507          indicating the drive from which it was booted
508          (for syslinux/extlinux).
509        * SYSLINUX/EXTLINUX: support "localboot" with the same feature
510          set as ISOLINUX.
511        * Add an experimental MBR for GPT partition tables.
512        * Use $(CC) when determining compile flags.
513        * chain.c32: fix booting from logical partitions (Sergey
514          Vlasov.)
515
516Changes in 3.63:
517        * Fix errors in the PCI and DMI detection modules (Erwan Velu,
518          Sebastian Herbszt).
519        * Fix host dependencies and other issues in the build system.
520        * PXELINUX: Allow class E addresses as unicast.
521        * sdi.c32: module to load Microsoft System Deployment Images.
522          For additional information, please see:
523            http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms838543.aspx
524        * EXTLINUX: Correct reading directories with deleted entries.
525        * Shuffle library: correct the handling of certain geometries
526          (an upward move with source material blocking the move); as
527          required by sdi.c32 but theoretically possible for other
528          formats as well.
529        * Add "make netinstall" to install /tftpboot.
530        * Fix some documentation files that didn't get moved/renamed.
531
532Changes in 3.62:
533        * Clean up garbage after "aborted." message.
534        * Clean up memdump.com filenames.
535        * Support SHA256 and SHA512 encrypted passwords.
536        * The shuffle library now can generate chained descriptors,
537          thus allowing pretty much arbitrarily complex memory maps.
538        * Handle command lines up to 2047 characters, the current
539          Linux kernel limit.
540        * vesamenu: support systems without linear framebuffer support
541          (sigh, what is this, 1993?) and 15-bit RGB modes.
542        * Move the label storage (for the command-line interface) to
543          high memory, removing the size limit and freeing up 64K of
544          low memory.
545        * Get rid of 4096-entry limit in the simple menu system.
546        * New hierarchial submenu support: see MENU BEGIN, MENU END,
547          MENU GOTO in doc/menu.txt.
548        * MENU QUIT allows creating a menu entry for returning to the
549          command line.
550        * ISOLINUX: Work around bug in certain Adaptec BIOSes,
551          patch by Bruce Robson.
552        * pngtopnm dependency removed from samples/ directory.
553        * Text documentation files (in doc/) renamed *.doc -> *.txt.
554
555Changes in 3.61:
556        * EXTLINUX: fix crash when accessing an empty file.
557        * elf.c32: If a PHDR segment is present, load it.
558        * Fix SHA-1 and MD5 passwords.
559        * ISOLINUX: fix booting when mastered without
560          mkisofs -boot-info-table (broken since 3.50, sigh...)
561        * Handle BIOSes which emit multiple contiguous valid
562          memory regions in the e820 map.
563
564Changes in 3.60:
565        * Support for "auxilliary data vector", a small amount of
566          writable storage.  Currently only supported for EXTLINUX,
567          but the infrastructure is there for the other derivatives,
568          assuming a suitable storage location can be found.
569        * EXTLINUX: boot-once support (--once, --clear-once, and
570          --reset-adv).
571        * A command is now required to the EXTLINUX installer, i.e. at
572          least one of --install, --update, --once, --clear-once, or
573          --reset-adv.
574
575Changes in 3.55:
576        * PXELINUX: as per RFC 5071, PXELINUX no longer requires the
577          use of the magic cookie option (208) for unencapsulated
578          options.  Currently it does not require it for
579          vendor-encapsulated options (vendor-option-space) either,
580          but that MAY be reverted in the future if it causes
581          problems.
582        * Documentation text files moved to a common "doc" directory;
583          man pages from the Debian project added to the "man"
584          directory.
585        * Correct bug with self-overlapping memory areas when using
586          the shuffle interface.
587
588Changes in 3.54:
589        * Add "menu separator", "menu indent", "menu disabled"
590          (see README.menu).
591        * vesamenu: fix handing of VESA modes with noncontiguous
592          memory buffers.  In particular, Qemu/KVM sets up such a mode
593          when Cirrus Logic emulation is enabled (which is the
594          default.)
595        * Support for calling real mode functions using far calls,
596          with argument on the stack.  This was implemented to support
597          the BIOS BBS specification, but subsequent experiments show
598          that the at least one of the most common BIOS cores, Award,
599          passes the presence check but doesn't actually implement the
600          functionality.
601
602Changes in 3.53:
603        * Fix bugs related to the $PnP BIOS functionality on some
604          platforms.
605        * PXELINUX: Fix the "naked" version of :: (suppress prefix.)
606        * elf.c32: better error messages.
607        * Faster operation under Intel VT virtualization.
608        * PXELINUX: Fix DHCP bootfile option.
609        * mkdiskimage: Support more than 1024 cylinders.
610        * (Hopefully) fix installer on non-x86 platforms.
611        * Fix shuffle_and_boot_rm, used by linux.c32.
612        * Fix shuffle_and_boot_pm on 386/486.
613        * ISOLINUX (at least): fix bss memory overwrite hang.
614        * MBR: Fix booting from logical partitions.
615        * Code cleanups.
616
617Changes in 3.52:
618        * Handle capitalized F-key commands in the menu system.
619        * Fix padding error when loading multiple ramdisks.
620        * Workaround for VMware crashing when trying to print a
621          message during early kernel boot (does not seem to work,
622          consider deleting.)
623        * chain.c32: add the ability to search for a specific MBR
624          signature at runtime.
625        * Fall back to the server identity option if the siaddr field
626          in the DHCP header isn't set.  This seems to match the
627          behaviour of most PXE stacks.
628        * mkdiskimage: give the generated disk image an MBR signature.
629        * MEMDISK: Fix failures on some BIOSes.
630        * Simple menu system: new "MENU HIDDEN" option to not display
631          the menu unless the user presses a key.
632        * Simple menu system: support MD5-encrypted passwords (modern
633          Unix standard style, with "$1$" prefixes.)
634        * pcitest.c32: now functions as a full "lspci".  Thanks to
635          Erwan Velu for this work.
636        * MEMDISK: Make EDD actually work.
637        * ISOLINUX: Fix for certain broken CD-ROM BIOSes which
638          randomly corrupted register FS.
639        * Simple menu system: fix memory overwrite bug that caused
640          some systems to lock up or behave weirdly.
641        * Fix building on 64-bit systems without a 32-bit libc installed.
642
643Changes in 3.51:
644        * EXTLINUX: Fix failure to find the configuration file.
645
646Changes in 3.50:
647        * New keywords allow the type of file to be specified in the
648          configuration file.
649        * It is now supported to load a different configuration file
650          with the CONFIG keyword.
651        * Fix API call 0x0019 (Read Disk.)
652        * MENU AUTOBOOT, MENU TABMSG, MENU PASSPROMPT allows
653          internationalization of menu messages.
654        * A new feature, TEXT HELP, allows the administrator to set
655          a multi-line help message for individual selections.
656        * Fix API call 0x0012 (Cleanup, shuffle and boot.)
657        * New API call "Cleanup, shuffle and boot to flat protected mode"
658        * New API call "Cleanup, shuffle and boot to real mode",
659          similar to API call 0x0012 but allows arbitrary register setting.
660        * Introduce a library interface for loading arbitrary binary
661          formats with relatively easily understood code.  See
662          the elf.c32 module for an example on how to use it.
663        * New module "elf.c32", to load a protected-mode ELF kernel.
664        * MBR (old and new): Fix bug in CHS mode when LBA >
665          65535*sectors.
666        * vesamenu: fix decoding of palettized PNG images.
667        * Update the Linux kernel boot protocol.
668        * PXELINUX: Press Ctrl-N at the boot prompt to read out the
669          network info.
670        * Instead of the (non-existent) MAC, use the client identifier
671          for networks like Infiniband and Firewire/1394.
672        * Add a new INCLUDE command to the core syslinux parser.
673        * Allow binding help text to F11 and F12.
674        * F-key help now available in the simple menu system.
675        * Disabled the polling for ARP during idle.  It is simply too
676          slow on some (broken!) PXE stacks.
677        * PXELINUX: also try to fetch the config file based on UUID.
678        * SYSLINUX/EXTLINUX: New RAID mode (-r) which calls the BIOS
679          to load the next device (typically the next drive) on boot
680          failure.
681
682Changes in 3.36:
683        * MEMDISK: Disable EDD by default on floppy disks.  EDD can be
684          enabled with the "edd" option and disabled with "noedd".
685          This (hopefully) should make Ghost work again.
686        * SYSLINUX: "unix" installer now uses Linux ioctls instead of
687          using libfat.
688        * New MBR which can boot from logical partitions.
689        * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in detecting special extensions which was
690          introduced in 3.35 :(
691        * PXELINUX: Unbreak chainbooting FreeBSD (and possibly others.)
692
693Changes in 3.35:
694        * MEMDISK: New "safeint" mode.
695        * MEMDISK: Be more compliant with the PnP BIOS spec.
696        * MEMDISK: Turn on EDD support by default.
697        * MEMDISK: Try to work on some machines on which it would not
698          work when there was no floppy drive in the system.
699        * Simple menu system: fix serial console support (broken in
700          3.30).
701        * SYSLINUX: Support subdirectories.  Like ISOLINUX, the
702          "current directory" is the directory in which syslinux.cfg
703          is found; this is searched for in the sequence
704          /boot/syslinux, /syslinux, /.  As a side benefit, label names
705          like "linux-2.6.18" and "linux-2.6.19" are now supported.
706
707          To install ldlinux.sys in a subdirectory, pass the -d
708          directory option to the SYSLINUX installer.
709
710          This work was sponsored by slax.org (thanks, Tomas!)
711        * New API call: read disk.
712        * Invoke ONERROR on initrd load failure.
713
714Changes in 3.31:
715        * The simple menu system (menu.c32 and vesamenu.c32) now
716          support loading more than one configuration file at a time,
717          using MENU INCLUDE or by specifying multiple filenames.
718        * The MENU COLOR statement can now control the shadowing mode.
719
720Changes in 3.30:
721        * libcom32 extended to support graphics mode and graphical console.
722        * vesamenu.c32, new graphical version of the Simple
723          Menu System, see README.menu.
724        * New com32 modules by Erwan Velu do selection based on CPUID
725          or PCI devices present.
726        * RPM spec: add syslinux-tftpboot module; move syslinux by
727          default to the /usr/share/syslinux directory.
728        * RPM spec: extlinux is now a separate package.
729
730Changes in 3.20:
731        * EXTLINUX: New options --install (-i) and --update (-U), to
732          make it clear if a boot loader should be installed or
733          updated.  For now, defaults to --install for compatibility;
734          a future version will require one of these options.
735        * New library functions to load and place files in memory.
736        * mboot.c32 bug fixes.
737        * Remove 8 MB kernel size restriction.
738        * Add "klibc" target for building unix/syslinux and
739          extlinux/extlinux with klcc (klibc-1.4.27 or later.)
740        * PXELINUX: Fail (and eventually reboot) if no configuration
741          file was found.
742        * COM32 module by Erwan Velu to make decisions based on DMI
743          info.
744        * Fix issue where going back and forth between menus a lot
745          would cause a hang.
746        * ISOLINUX: Fix bug which made "cd boot sectors" not work.
747
748Changes in 3.11:
749        * MEMDISK: Fix bug by which accessing the real floppy disk
750          as B: in MS-DOS was broken.
751        * Simple menu system: allow tweaking of the screen layout.
752        * Simple menu system: better command-line editing, correctly
753          handle command lines above 256 characters.
754        * PXELINUX: revert memory allocation change that caused
755          problems on some network cards.
756        * MEMDISK: Try work around a bug on some BIOSes when no
757          physical floppy disk is present in the system.
758        * Enable the 16550A FIFOs, if present, when doing serial
759          console.
760        * New "totaltimeout" command establishes a timeout without
761          regard for any user input.
762        * Simple menu system: timeout behaviour now more in line with
763          user expectations.
764        * Simple menu system: "ontimeout" should now work correctly.
765
766Changes in 3.10:
767        * gcc 4.0.1 compilation fixes.
768        * Add support for querying the PCI BIOS in libcom32
769          (used by ethersel et al.)
770        * Fix PCI handing (ethersel etc) on several old chipsets (and
771          VMWare.)
772        * Try to deal with systems with broken EBIOS.
773        * New API call to do "localboot".
774        * New API call to query features.
775        * New API call to run kernel image, a lower-level call than
776          "run command".  See comboot.doc.
777        * Fix for bug in EBIOS code discovered by Arwin Vosselman.
778        * NOESCAPE security fix.
779        * Comments are now recognized even without a space following #.
780        * Fix incorrect handling of mixes of entries with and without
781          MENU PASSWD.
782        * The idle API call now harmlessly returns failure if it is a
783          no-op.  That way the caller can decide whether or not to
784          bother invoking it again.
785        * Temporarily disable the idle API call on PXELINUX, due to
786          some platforms on which the idle API call seems to hang; this
787          problem has not yet been debugged.
788        * MEMDISK: the handling of DOSEMU-headered images was broken;
789          fix it.
790        * EXTLINUX: symlinks are now supported.
791        * Simple menu system: N and P now work correctly as hotkeys.
792        * MEMDISK: more BIOS bug workarounds.
793
794Changes in 3.09:
795        * gcc4 compilation fix.
796        * <BEL> (Ctrl-G) in message files now causes a beep.
797        * Reduce the command line to 511 characters; 1023 caused
798          memory overflows.
799
800Changes in 3.08:
801        * SYSLINUX: Fix performance regression (-s mode always
802          enabled.)
803        * Add API function for idle loop.
804        * libutil: Add do_idle() function for idle loop, make
805          get_key() use it.
806        * libutil: Add SHA-1 and base64 functions.
807        * Simple menu system: add password support.
808        * EXTLINUX: Sparse files now handled correctly.
809        * EXTLINUX: Large directories now handled correctly.
810        * ALL: At the prompt, Ctrl-X now forces text mode.
811        * Fix configuration file parsing error, that could cause
812          hangs.
813        * Rewritten advanced menuing system from Murali Ganapathy.
814        * MEMDISK: New "bigraw" mode to work around certain broken
815          BIOS flash programs.
816        * COM32 module to boot Multiboot systems, including Xen.  See
817          com32/modules/mboot.doc.
818        * Max command line changed to 1023 characters.  Note that the
819          kernel proper still can only handle 255 characters without
820          patching, and COM16 binaries can only handle 125 characters.
821
822Changes in 3.07:
823        * Fix chainloading (chain.c32).
824        * Fix zlib build problem.
825        * Use a private copy of <linux/ext2_fs.h>.
826
827Changes in 3.06:
828        * Fix typo that caused the ramdisk to load in the wrong place.
829
830Changes in 3.05:
831        * New API function "shuffle and boot"; allows COM32 modules to
832          load or construct (almost) arbitrarily complex objects,
833          e.g. a kernel and its initrd/initramfs in pieces, and have
834          the API core reorganize memory for booting.  (A library API
835          for this function will be introduced in a later version.)
836        * The initrd= option now supports multiple filenames separated
837          by commas.  This is mostly useful for initramfs, which can
838          be composed of multiple separate cpio or cpio.gz archives.
839          (Note: all files except the last one are zero-padded to a 4K
840          page boundary.  This should not affect initramfs.)
841        * EXTLINUX: Fix API function 000Ah (get derivative-specific
842          info).
843        * libcom32/ethersel: Support PCI Config Mechanism #2 on
844          machines still infested with that hideous old hack.
845        * SYSLINUX: Fix directory-parsing bug.
846
847Changes in 3.02:
848        * SYSLINUX: The "unix" installer now sets the MS-DOS
849          attributes (hidden, system, readonly.)
850        * COM32 library: build the .lnx (test modules for running
851          under Linux) as architecture native modules, in case
852          i386 devel libraries aren't installed.
853        * EXTLINUX: Hack for systems which don't have BLKGETSIZE64
854          defined in the standard header files.
855        * Simple menu system: minor aestetic improvements, and try to
856          work better over a serial console (speed, and readability on
857          monochrome terminal emulators.)
858        * New CONSOLE directive to control output on the video console
859          (useful for dealing with some broken serial-forwarding
860          BIOSes.)
861        * New com32 module "ethersel" for searching for an Ethernet
862          card and selecting the proper version of Etherboot.
863        * EXTLINUX: Allow the user to override the detected geometry.
864          Add help.
865
866Changes in 3.01:
867        * EXTLINUX, SYSLINUX: Fix compile errors on some systems.
868        * EXTLINUX: Default to zipdrive geometry (64 heads, 32
869          sectors) if no other geometry can be detected.
870
871Changes in 3.00:
872        * SYSLINUX: Support FAT32 and EDD.  As an unfortunate
873          consequence, LDLINUX.SYS is no longer an ordinary file; it
874          is block-mapped at install time, which means it can only be
875          written using the syslinux installers.
876        * SYSLINUX: Reorganize the source code for the installers;
877          each one of the installers (dos, win32, unix, mtools) is now
878          built in its own subdirectory.  In particular, "mtools" is
879          the unprivileged installer which uses mtools; "unix" is the
880          privileged installer which uses system calls.
881        * SYSLINUX: Completely rewritten DOS installer in C.
882        * ALL: "label" statement information is now stored in a
883          compressed format, which means that a lot more labels are
884          permitted (500-1000 in a typical configuration, but depends
885          on the complexity.)
886        * EXTLINUX: New derivative, which boots from an ext2/ext3
887          filesystem.
888        * SYSLINUX: The DOS and Win32 installers can now optionally
889          write the boot sector to a file instead of the real boot
890          sector.  This is not supported in the Linux installers,
891          however.
892        * ALL: New NOESCAPE command, disables the "hold down the Shift
893          key to display the prompt" behaviour.
894        * New simple menu system, as an alternative to the advanced
895          menu system already present.  See README.menu for details.
896        * PXELINUX: Filenames can now be prefixed with an IP address
897          or DNS name plus :: (e.g. 192.0.2.1::filename or
898          server.domain.com::filename), which downloads a file from an
899          alternate TFTP server, or just a :: (e.g. ::filename), which
900          suppresses the common pathname prefix.  See pxelinux.doc.
901        * SYSLINUX: Add an -m option to the DOS and Win32 installers
902          to write an MBR and -a to mark the partition SYSLINUX is
903          being installed on active.
904        * MEMDISK: Give a way to query the boot loader type while
905          running MEMDISK; see memdisk/memdisk.doc and
906          sample/mdiskchk.c.
907        * mkdiskimage: substantially improved mkdiskimage which, among
908          other things, can now be used to initialize USB keys as
909          zipdrives; see README.usbkey for more information.
910
911Changes in 2.13:
912        * MEMDISK: Fix command-line parsing "brown paper bag" class
913          bug.
914        * MEMDISK: Add "raw" mode to support the DOS boot disk from
915          WinME/XP, which seems to deliberately crash the system
916          when someone uses the "INT 15h mover" highmem API.
917        * Make "make install" do something sane for the com32
918          development environment.
919        * In the spec file, create a separate -devel RPM for the com32
920          development environment.
921
922Changes in 2.12:
923        * Simple C library, based on klibc, for writing COM32
924          programs.
925        * Fix the handling of file length in loading of COM32
926          programs.
927        * MEMDISK: Work around a linker bug by rearranging the code to
928          not use the linker for the 16-bit code.
929        * SYSLINUX: If we're building on a machine without a Win32
930          (mingw) compiler, just skip building syslinux.exe.
931        * ISOLINUX: Support non-mkisofs mastering programs, at least
932          as long as the image is single-session.  For best results,
933          ISOLINUX should be the only boot loader installed.
934        * MEMDISK: Allow the user to specify that the simulated disk
935          should be write-protected.
936
937Changes in 2.11:
938        * ALL: Add an API call to get the configuration file name.
939        * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in 2.10 that prevented it from working
940          correctly for a lot of people.
941        * SYSLINUX: In the installer, make mtools a bit less fussy.
942        * Make the menu system compile with newer gcc's.
943
944Changes in 2.10:
945        * MEMDISK: Handle images compressed with zip as well as with
946          gzip.  Some Windows-based image tools apparently generate
947          these kinds of images by default.  Patch by Patrick
948          LoPresti.
949        * Major menu improvement from Murali Ganapathy.
950        * ISOLINUX: Wonderfully sick and brilliant workaround for
951          severe bugs in certain Award BIOSes; from Knut Petersen.
952        * SYSLINUX: Fix for the nomtools installed, from Frederic
953          Pasteleurs.
954        * PXELINUX: Fix handling of IP numbers in the ranges
955          100-109 and 200-209.
956        * ALL: New option "allowoptions" (defaults to 1), which
957          controls if options are allowed on the command line or not.
958        * SYSLINUX: Support building under klibc (see the klibc
959          distribution for details.)
960
961Changes in 2.09:
962        * SYSLINUX: Remove residual setuid crap from
963          syslinux-nomtools.
964        * Handle video pages correctly when using the API functions.
965        * Handle compiling on an x86-64 platform correctly.
966        * Menu system from Murali Krishnan Ganapathy; see the menu
967          directory for information.
968        * COMBOOT: Allow COMBOOT programs to change screen text mode.
969        * COMBOOT: Correct the documentation of how to detect
970          SYSLINUX from COMBOOT!!!!
971        * COMBOOT: Fix "get key without echo" API function.
972        * SYSLINUX: Fix bug that affected the API open function.
973        * ALL: Improve the E820 memory parser, to work around some
974          buggy BIOSes.
975
976Changes in 2.08:
977        * Add new configuration command "ontimeout" to allow timeout
978          to have a different action than just pressing Enter.
979        * Add new configuration command "onerror" to allow a custom
980          command to be executed in case the kernel image is not found.
981        * Fix bugs in the COMBOOT/COM32 command-line parsing.  APPEND
982          now works with COMBOOT/COM32 images.
983        * PXELINUX: Poll for ARP requests while sitting at the
984          prompt.  This makes some boot servers a lot less unhappy.
985        * PXELINUX: Actually free sockets when we get a failure
986          (including file not found.)  This bug would cause us to run
987          out of sockets and thus "go deaf" after a while.
988        * MEMDISK: Add an API to query for the existence of MEMDISK.
989        * SYSLINUX: Fix loading boot sectors (.bs/.bss) from floppy
990          disk.
991        * .c32 is now one of the extensions searched for
992          automatically.
993        * PXELINUX: RFBG.exe seems to randomly overwrite memory
994          location 0x5700.  Thus, don't use it!
995        * PXELINUX: Change pathname length max from 63 to 127; change
996          max vkernels from 128 to 64.
997        * Support Ctrl-U -> kill entire command line input.
998        * The "samples" directory contains a (barely at all tested)
999          chain loading example, chain.c32, which may be used to
1000          chainload local floppy disks and hard disks.  Use with
1001          "chain fdN" or "chain hdN [partition]"; N = 0 for the first
1002          drive of each type.
1003
1004Changes in 2.07:
1005        * MEMDISK: Workaround for BIOSes which go into a snit when
1006          they get a RESET command for the floppy system when there is
1007          no floppy in the system.
1008        * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend 2", which passes the hardware
1009          address of the boot interface to the kernel as a
1010          command-line option.
1011        * mkdiskimage: fix the generation of the end limit.
1012        * PXELINUX: Fix multiple bugs in chainloading of other NBPs.
1013        * MEMDISK: Fix bug that would occationally cause "ran out of
1014          input data" when using compressed disk images.
1015        * SYSLINUX: Updates for the win32 installer (from Lars Munch.)
1016        * PXELINUX: PXELINUX-specific options are now recognized both
1017          in a vendor-option-space (a.k.a. type 43 encapsulated) as
1018          well as in a site-option-space (unencapsulated.)
1019        * COM32: Don't crash when DS != 0.
1020        * COMBOOT/COM32: Make file reading work correctly.  Thanks to
1021          Phung Chi Kien for submitting a test program.
1022
1023Changes in 2.06:
1024        * ALL: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
1025          boot failure, depending on the length of the kernel.
1026        * ISOLINUX: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
1027          boot failure, depending on the length of directories.
1028        * SYSLINUX: Win32 installer now flushes buffers.
1029        * ppmtolss16: Be fully compliant with the PNM spec;
1030          actually process comments in the header and odd
1031          alignments of the various parameters, as well as
1032          "plain" (not raw) files and PBM and PGM files.
1033        * PXELINUX: Lower the default MTU to 1472 in order to deal
1034          with systems with slightly nonstandard MTUs, and PXE
1035          stacks which don't defragment correctly.  Unfortunately this
1036          is very hard to test dynamically.
1037
1038Changes in 2.05:
1039        * PXELINUX: Add a default query based on the hardware address
1040          of the boot device.  This is in lower case hexadecimal form
1041          separated by dashes and including the hardware type, for
1042          example, the Ethernet (type 1) address 88:99:AA:BB:CC:DD
1043          would query the file pxelinux.cfg/01-88-99-aa-bb-cc-dd.
1044        * PXELINUX: Fix bug involving non-IP-based config file names.
1045        * SYSLINUX: New installer for WinNT-based systems, from Lars
1046          Munch.
1047        * MEMDISK: Fix handling of memory region overlap when
1048          decompressing.  Thanks to Mikhail Kupchik for identifying
1049          the problem.
1050
1051Changes in 2.04:
1052        * ALL: Reclaim even more low memory by observing that
1053          comboot_seg == real_mode_seg is perfectly fine, and by the
1054          fact that the 1000h segment managed to get unused in all
1055          derivatives...
1056        * PXELINUX: Attempt to negotiate full Ethernet-sized blocks
1057          (1468 bytes) using the blksize option.
1058        * SYSLINUX: Resurrect the old no-mtools version of the
1059          installer, although as a root-only tool.  Some distributors
1060          have indicated that they need a small standalone installer.
1061        * MEMDISK: Fix a memory offset computation error when
1062          installing compressed disks which generally would cause
1063          1 MB of memory to be wasted.
1064        * MEMDISK: Fix installing the E820 memory map.  Calling
1065          INT 15h AX=0E820h with MEMDISK 2.03 loaded would give a
1066          completely corrupt memory map.
1067        * SYSLINUX: Make libsyslinux a dynamic library, so that it can
1068          be updated separately from client programs.  The whole idea,
1069          after all, is to enable alternate programs to become
1070          syslinux installers.
1071        * Include an rpm spec file in the distribution, so rpmbuild
1072          -ta works.
1073
1074Changes in 2.03:
1075        * Actually support comment lines in the configuration file.
1076        * PXELINUX: Try to resolve some problems with stack switches.
1077        * PXELINUX: Handle PXE stacks with broken routing.
1078          With these workarounds, the remote install PXE boot floppy
1079          (rbfg.exe) from Argon Technologies should work correctly.
1080        * Fix problems with Perl scripts in UTF-8 locales.
1081        * You probably need NASM 0.98.34 or later to compile this
1082          version.  0.98.36 is recommended.
1083        * MEMDISK: Now supports gzip compressed images.
1084
1085Changes in 2.02:
1086        * SYSLINUX: Security flaws have been found in the SYSLINUX
1087          installer when running setuid root.  Rewrite the SYSLINUX
1088          installer so it uses mtools instead.  It therefore now
1089          requires mtools (specifically mcopy and mattrib) to exist on
1090          your system, but it will not require root privileges and
1091          SHOULD NOT be setuid.
1092
1093Changes in 2.01:
1094        * MEMDISK: Fix memory sizing bug when the ramdisk crosses the
1095          16 MB boundary.
1096        * MEMDISK: Add a "pause" option to stop immediately before
1097          booting, to read off the messages.
1098        * MEMDISK: Support disk images with DOSEMU headers.
1099        * Update the mkdiskimage script to handle newer mtools
1100          versions, and be able to generate disk images with DOSEMU
1101          headers (controlled by the -d option).
1102        * Fix the COM32 sample program.
1103        * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix some COMBOOT API calls.
1104        * PXELINUX: Doc fix.
1105        * Build SYSLINUX into a small library for encapsulation into
1106          other programs (however, please keep in mind this is a GPL'd
1107          library.)
1108        * SYSLINUX: Make installer work with "owner" in /etc/fstab.
1109        * SYSLINUX: Fix issue with working on nonpartitioned hard disk
1110          devices.  THIS CONFIGURATION IS NOT RECOMMENDED.
1111
1112Changes in 2.00:
1113        * ALL: Add support for "COM32" (32-bit COMBOOT) images.
1114        * ALL: Add an API for COMBOOT/COM32 images.  See comboot.doc
1115          for details.  There is a C development environment for
1116          COM32 being created; it should be ready at some point in
1117          the future.
1118        * Fix mbr.asm so that it actually works.
1119        * SYSLINUX: The syslinux installer *SHOULD* now be safe to
1120          run setuid root.
1121        * PXELINUX: Fix bug where PXELINUX would override random
1122          chunks of the UNDI code segment!  Thanks to Kevin Tran for
1123          finding this bug.
1124        * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug related to slashes in pathnames.
1125        * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug in handling initrds over 128 MB.
1126        * ALL: Make the <Ctrl-V> key print out the version; this is
1127          to help debugging.
1128        * Add a small script, mkdiskimage, to create a DOS-formatted
1129          hard disk image using mtools.  This may be useful in
1130          conjunction with MEMDISK.
1131        * ISOLINUX: Search for a /boot/isolinux directory as well as
1132          /isolinux.
1133        * ALL: Fix a bug related to very long configuration files.
1134        * PXELINUX: Work around a NASM bug which would result in no
1135          delay before reset if an error occurs.
1136
1137Changes in 1.76:
1138        * ISOLINUX: Remove code no longer used which caused hangs on
1139          some Toshiba laptops.
1140
1141Changes in 1.75:
1142        * ALL: NASM 0.98.32 or later is now required to build
1143          SYSLINUX from sources.
1144        * SYSLINUX: put back in the workaround for the BIOS floppy
1145          table.  This seems to be a requirement for "extended" floppy
1146          formats to work correctly.
1147        * SYSLINUX: No longer warn if one is trying to boot on a 286
1148          or older.  The above BIOS workaround no longer fits if the
1149          requirement to use only 8086-compatible code in the early
1150          boot is maintained.  It made sense in 1994, but in 2002 a
1151          286 or older is a museum object.
1152        * SYSLINUX: Use a downright bizarre, stateful algorithm to try
1153          to guess the maximum transfer size.  I am *hoping* this will
1154          cut down on the number of systems for which -s is required
1155          to work at any acceptable speed.
1156        * ISOLINUX: Add a few more workarounds for various broken El
1157          Torito BIOSes.
1158        * Make sure .depend files aren't accidentally packed...
1159        * ALL: Fix bugs in the extension-detect code; this caused
1160          files like COMBOOT images and CD boot sectors to be
1161          mis-identified as Linux kernels and rejected.
1162        * ALL: Fix the return from COMBOOT.
1163        * ALL: Do some of the early groundwork for supporting DOS
1164          system calls in COMBOOT.
1165        * Get rid of unnecessary "near" directives, making the code
1166          bigger.
1167        * PXELINUX: Put the PXE stack back in the init state before
1168          invoking a chain-loaded NBP.
1169        * PXELINUX: Actually found the combination of calls that
1170          allows some (most?) PXE 2+ stacks to be unloaded from memory
1171          properly.
1172        * PXELINUX: Add "keeppxe" command-line option to disable
1173          the standard unloading of the PXE stack.
1174
1175Changes in 1.74:
1176        * SYSLINUX: fix bug that would cause valid kernel images to be
1177          labelled "invalid".
1178
1179Changes in 1.73:
1180        * Work on removing gratuitous differences between modules.
1181        * Break up the source in common and module-specific files.
1182        * PXELINUX: Allow chaining of other PXE NBPs.
1183        * ISOLINUX: Allow loading "CD-ROM boot sectors".
1184        * ALL: generalize the definition of a boot sector/NBP.
1185
1186Changes in 1.72:
1187        * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix bugs in the new core code.
1188
1189Changes in 1.71:
1190        * Fix a "brown paper bag" class bug in the new core code.
1191
1192Changes in 1.70:
1193        * Major code restructuring.
1194        * Relax the conventional memory limits somewhat.
1195        * MEMDISK: Set up the "version number string" pointer in the
1196          header correctly.
1197        * SYSLINUX: Fix, again, "the bug that won't die": the use of
1198          the offset parameter with the SYSLINUX installer.
1199        * SYSLINUX: Fix possible superblock corruption problem in the
1200          SYSLINUX installer.
1201
1202Changes in 1.67:
1203        * Handle bug in the location of initrd.
1204
1205Changes in 1.66:
1206        * MEMDISK: Make compile with newer versions of gcc.
1207
1208Changes in 1.65:
1209        * ISOLINUX: Support booting disk image files (to boot DOS or
1210          other non-Linux operating systems), *IF* the BIOS works
1211          correctly; unfortunately many BIOSes apparently don't.
1212        * Support Linux boot protocol version 2.03 (explicitly
1213          specify the initrd address limit.)
1214        * Handle small "pseudo-kernels"; images that use the Linux
1215          kernel boot protocols but are less than 64K in size.
1216        * MEMDISK: New subsystem; this is a driver which allows
1217          legacy OSes to boot using an in-memory simulated disk.
1218          See memdisk/memdisk.doc for more info.
1219        * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Correctly handle files larger than 65535
1220          blocks (32 MB for PXELINUX, 128 MB for ISOLINUX.)
1221        * PXELINUX: Make a best-effort attempt at freeing all memory
1222          claimed.  From the looks of it, it will fail on most PXE
1223          stacks.
1224
1225Changes in 1.64:
1226        * Limited support for hardware flow control when using a
1227          serial port console.
1228        * Support specifying the serial port I/O address explicitly.
1229        * Make DOS installer hopefully behave more nicely when used on
1230          recent Windows versions.
1231        * Fix returning to text mode when a font has been specified.
1232        * Attempt to detect missing serial port hardware and disable
1233          the serial port if there is nothing there.
1234
1235Changes in 1.63:
1236        * Make the ppmtolss16 program handle color conversion more
1237          correctly.
1238        * Clean up "make install" target, honour INSTALLROOT if it
1239          exists.
1240        * SYSLINUX: Fix stack-smash bug identified by Steffen
1241          Winterfeldt.
1242        * Hopefully fix return-to-text-mode on some graphics cards.
1243        * ISOLINUX: Bug workaround for Award BIOS 4.51, and perhaps
1244          other buggy BIOSes as well.
1245
1246Changes in 1.62:
1247        * PXELINUX: Allow the DHCP server to override the
1248          configuration file name and pathname prefix, using
1249          "site-specific" DHCP options.
1250        * PXELINUX: Documentation fixes.
1251        * PXELINUX: Fix the "ipappend" option; the last two values
1252          were reversed vs. what the kernel expected.
1253        * Introduce a way to return to text mode once we are already
1254          in graphics mode.  This may be useful for F-key help
1255          screens.
1256        * Fix several bugs in the way return to text mode was handled.
1257
1258Changes in 1.61:
1259        * ISOLINUX: Support full pathname searches.  Max length for a
1260          pathname is 255 characters.  As a result, only 64 "label"
1261          statements are supported in ISOLINUX.
1262        * PXELINUX: Max filename length extended to 63 characters.
1263
1264Changes in 1.60:
1265        * Add support for graphical splash screens.
1266        * Add mode control characters, which allows you to control
1267          message display output depending on output mode (text,
1268          graphics, or serial port.)
1269        * ISOLINUX: New program, which boots Linux from a CD-ROM
1270          without using floppy emulation mode.  See isolinux.doc for
1271          more details.
1272        * PXELINUX: Don't search for boot sector file types, since
1273          they don't work anyway.
1274        * SYSLINUX: Document the LOCK command for Win9x, and the error
1275          dialog box for WinNT/2K.
1276
1277Changes in 1.54:
1278        * PXELINUX: Fix code for finding !PXE from PXENV+.  This was
1279          due to a spec bug; match the most recent spec since that
1280          seems to be what implementations actually do.
1281        * SYSLINUX: Add some smarts to the boot sector, which
1282          hopefully should reduce the number of systems which require
1283          stupid mode ("syslinux -s").
1284        * PXELINUX: Document further some of the pathologies with old
1285          PXE stacks.
1286        * When specifying a "default" command line, no longer
1287          automatically appent "auto".  See the "DEFAULT" command in
1288          syslinux.doc for more information.
1289        * PXELINUX: Clean up the allocation of local socket numbers.
1290
1291Changes in 1.53:
1292        * PXELINUX: Rename pxelinux.bin to pxelinux.0, to match what
1293          most PXE servers seem to expect.
1294        * PXELINUX: Update the DHCP/boot server setup documentation.
1295        * PXELINUX: Support new "localboot" option for "label"
1296          sections.
1297        * PXELINUX: More robust parsing of DHCP/boot server packets.
1298        * PXELINUX: Include a small utility program "gethostip" to
1299          compute hexadecimal IP addresses.
1300
1301Changes in 1.52:
1302        * PXELINUX: Fix bugs introduced by new A20 code.  (SYSLINUX
1303          has also been changed for code consistency reasons, but I'm
1304          pretty sure the changes are don't care on SYSLINUX.)
1305        * Documentation updates.
1306        * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend" option to generate an ip= option to
1307          the kernel.
1308
1309Changes in 1.51:
1310        * PXELINUX: Not all PXE stacks fill in the IP address for a
1311          type 3 cached info query.  Use a type 2 cached info query
1312          for this information (only.)
1313        * Yet another attempt at A20 coding.  Now support BIOS call
1314          15:2401 as well, and handle machines which always have A20
1315          on separately.
1316        * Support memory detection using INT 15h, AX=0E820h.  BIOS
1317          manufacturers have apparently gotten sloppy about keeping
1318          INT 15h, AX=0E801h working properly.
1319        * Don't issue <CR><LF> onto the serial port when we're doing
1320          screen wraparound.
1321
1322Changes in 1.50:
1323        * Yet another A20-code update.  It seems some "legacy-free"
1324          machines and embedded gear simply don't have a KBC to talk
1325          to, and that waiting for one will wait forever.  Sigh.
1326
1327Changes in 1.49:
1328        * SYSLINUX: Implement a hack for BIOS drivers which hog significant
1329          chunks of low memory during boot.  (Note: PXELINUX already
1330          had this modification.  SYSLINUX does still require that the
1331          low 512K is available; PXELINUX requires 384K.  Machines
1332          with a physical memory hole in the low 640K cannot boot
1333          Linux no matter what.)  Depending what the reason is for the
1334          memory hole, a new kernel (2.4.0-test3-pre3 or later) may be
1335          required.
1336        * SYSLINUX: Default installer binary now compiled against
1337          glibc 2.1.  If this is inappropriate for your system and you
1338          still want to use the offical version of SYSLINUX, please
1339          follow the instructions in "distrib.doc" to rebuild the
1340          installer.
1341        * SYSLINUX: Linux installer program now supports -o <offset>
1342          option which does a loopback mount with the
1343          -o loop,offset=<> option.  Useful to run SYSLINUX on an
1344          individual partition of a whole-harddisk image.
1345        * Include the source code to a Master Boot Record (MBR)
1346          functionally equivalent to the one installed DOS except it
1347          includes EBIOS support, and should be resistant to geometry
1348          changes.  The MBR code is public domain.
1349        * PXELINUX: Fix "double p" bug: if the tftp prefix was null,
1350          all filenames would get a "p" preprended, e.g.
1351          "ppxelinux.cfg" and "pvmlinux".
1352
1353Changes in 1.48:
1354        * PXELINUX: Workaround for PXE ROMs based on the Intel PXE PDK
1355          3.0 build 071 and earlier: missing !PXE structure pointer.
1356        * PXELINUX: Handle larger BOOTP/DHCP packages.
1357        * PXELINUX: The command line passing was broken; fix.
1358        * PXELINUX: Make COMBOOT images work.
1359        * PXELINUX: Documentation on how to make booting work using
1360          the PDK 3.0-derived clients, which aren't so generous as to
1361          allow booting with only "PXEClient" specified.
1362
1363Changes in 1.47:
1364        * PXELINUX: RFC 1123 states that a TFTP implementation MUST
1365          use adaptive timeout, "at least an exponential backoff of
1366          retransmission timeout is necessary."  Implement a very
1367          simple exponential backoff for retransmits.
1368        * PXELINUX: Updated documentation, including pointer to new
1369          TFTP server.
1370        * PXELINUX: When sending ERROR due to bad OACK, use the proper
1371          destination port number (why are TFTP port numbers so odd?)
1372        * PXELINUX: If the boot dies in the middle somewhere,
1373          eventually give up and reset the machine (unattended
1374          operation.)
1375
1376Changes in 1.46:
1377        * New program PXELINUX to do network booting using a
1378          PXE-compliant (Pre-Execution Environment) network booting
1379          PROM.  See pxelinux.doc for details.
1380
1381Changes in 1.45:
1382        * Serial console support.  See syslinux.doc for details.
1383
1384Changes in 1.44:
1385        * Change HIGHMEM_MAX to 38000000h to (hopefully) avoid the
1386          kernel stepping on it; 3f000000h was apparently a higher
1387          limit than the kernel used!
1388
1389Changes in 1.43:
1390        * Add sys2ansi.pl script to display the contents of a
1391          colorized SYSLINUX file.
1392        * Changed the io_delay once again, after a report that the
1393          old delay port causes hangs on some systems.
1394
1395Changes in 1.42:
1396        * Frob the "fast A20 gate" port as well as the keyboard
1397          controller; will this help systems with problems?
1398        * Be even more paranoid about A20, unfortunately even this
1399          seems to be not paranoid enough... what I don't understand
1400          is that if there is hardware out there *this broken*, how
1401          can it run Linux at all?  Report an error message rather
1402          than hang forever if A20 is stuck.
1403        * Include some intermediate files in the distribution, plus
1404          provide a "make installer" target for distributors to relink
1405          the install programs only.  I would prefer the syslinux boot
1406          loader proper to be "binary clean" for debuggablity -- use
1407          "make clean ; make installer" to rebuild the installers only.
1408
1409Changes in 1.41:
1410        * Don't get confused by directories, volume labels, or VFAT
1411          long names.
1412        * Use INT 15h, AX=0E801h to query memory size before trying
1413          INT 15h, AH=88h.  This not only provides more headroom
1414          between the kernel and the initrd on large-memory machines,
1415          but it appears some recent BIOSes actually have started
1416          returning garbage for the AH=88h (older) call.
1417        * Trust high memory beyond the 15 MB mark if the user has
1418          specified it, or if obtained with INT 15h, AH=0E801h (with
1419          no memory holes above 1 MB.)
1420
1421Changes in 1.40:
1422        * Increase A20M delay and put in a test to avoid problems on
1423          certain IBM Thinkpads (thanks to Donnie Barnes of RedHat
1424          for vital info on this one.)
1425        * Support COMBOOT style boot command images.
1426        * Support chain loading (foreign operating systems, e.g. DOS).
1427        * Include a new "copybs" DOS utility to copy a boot sector to
1428          a file (under Linux, use "dd".)
1429        * Fix the DOS installer to work for disks over 32 MB.
1430        * SYSLINUX should now handle disks with more than 65536 tracks.
1431
1432Changes in 1.37:
1433        * Fix a bug that caused "label" statements in syslinux.cfg to
1434          not be handled properly.
1435        * Updated the documentation.  Among other things, we now allow
1436          up to 128 "label" statements.
1437
1438Changes in 1.36:
1439        * Fix for booting old (pre-initrd) kernels.
1440        * It seems at least some versions of OS/2 doesn't set up all
1441          the fields in the superblock correctly.  Account for that.
1442        * Fix bug that caused boot failure when using the mem= option.
1443
1444Changes in 1.35:
1445        * Loading from partitions now should work properly.  (Actually
1446          tested, this time.  You should even be able to dd a floppy
1447          to a partition and boot from it.)
1448        * Removed large workaround code for an alleged ancient BIOS
1449          bug I have never actually seen.  The -s option should work
1450          on those machines, anyway.
1451        * Support for simple keyboard remappings, same as used by
1452          LILO (once again to support localization.)  The program
1453          keytab-lilo.pl from the LILO distribution included to
1454          generate such maps.
1455        * Added a "safe, slow and stupid" (-s) option to the
1456          installers.  This option will lobotomize the boot sector to
1457          hopefully work on even very buggy BIOSes.
1458
1459Changes in 1.34:
1460        * Ability to load a VGA font on bootup (for localized Linux
1461          distributions.)
1462
1463Changes in 1.33:
1464        * Bug fix in the Linux installer.
1465        * Added a workaround for a bug in certain AMI/Intel BIOSes
1466          when booting from CD-ROM.
1467        * Documentation changes.
1468
1469Changes in 1.32:
1470        * FAT16 filesystems are now supported.
1471
1472Changes in 1.31:
1473        * Now compiles under Linux, using NASM, rather than using
1474          Turbo Assembler under DOS.  See http://www.cryogen.com/Nasm
1475          for information about NASM.
1476        * Linux-hosted SYSLINUX installer, as well as a
1477          rewritten DOS installer (now is written in assembler, so we
1478          don't need Turbo C.)
1479
1480Changes in 1.30:
1481        * Added support for loading bzImage and initrd loading, and made
1482          SYSLINUX new-setup-code aware (SYSLINUX 1.30 id=0x31).
1483        * Added LILO-style kernel labels; see the LABEL and IMPLICIT
1484          keywords in README file.
1485        * Added support for colorization of intro and help screens.
1486        * The vga= option is now handled correctly.
1487        * Massive rewrite of large chunks of the code in order to
1488          support the first two new features.
1489
1490Changes in 1.20:
1491        * Added simple online help at the "boot:" prompt.
1492        * Removed 2880K image as I no longer have access to such a
1493          floppy drive.  (Donations accepted!!)
1494        * Decided to distribute the source in a subdirectory rather
1495          than in a nested zipfile.
1496
1497Changes in 1.11:
1498        * Removed a sanity check which would cause booting to fail on
1499          Phoenix BIOS version 4.03.  Apparently this BIOS is buggy.
1500
1501Changes in 1.10:
1502        * Added configuration file SYSLINUX.CFG.  This file contains all
1503          configurable options, and can be edited from any OS which can
1504          access an MS-DOS filesystem; there is no longer a need to run
1505          SYSLINUX.EXE except to write the boot sector.
1506        * Default command line now given by "default" line in config
1507          file.
1508        * LINUXMSG.TXT and BOOTMSG.TXT hard-coded file names replaced by
1509          "display" and "prompt" lines in config file.
1510        * LILO-style option appending now supported ("append" line in
1511          config file).
1512        * Prompt timeout is now supported ("timeout" line in config
1513          file).  The timeout is cancelled when anything is typed on the
1514          command line.
1515        * Pressing <ESC> or <Ctrl-C> at the Loading... stage now aborts
1516          the kernel loading in progress and returns the user to the
1517          boot: prompt.
1518        * The installer now automatically sets the READONLY flag on
1519          LDLINUX.SYS.
1520        * Added 2880K disk image.
1521
1522Changes in 1.03:
1523        * Fixed bug that would prevent booting from double-density
1524          floppies and other DOS filesystems with multiple sectors per
1525          cluster.
1526        * Added 720K disk image.
1527        * Changed default kernel name on disk images to LINUX.
1528
1529Changes in 1.02:
1530        * Fixed bug that would garble the command line on recent kernels
1531          with more than 4 sectors of setup code (this wasn't really a
1532          *bug*; rather, a kernel change broke the code.  Unfortunately
1533          the Linux boot interface is still sorely undocumented).
1534        * Added BOOTMSG.TXT file support (message file which does not
1535          force display of the boot prompt).
1536
1537Changes in 1.01:
1538        * Fixed bug on some (most?) 386 BIOSes would require two boot
1539          attempts.
Note: See TracBrowser for help on using the browser.