| blob | 095ce29f34b573c097b511f442e90dd125b089cf |
1 Starting with 1.47, changes marked with SYSLINUX/PXELINUX/ISOLINUX
2 apply to that specific program only; other changes apply to all of
3 them.
5 Changes in 3.35:
6 * MEMDISK: New "safeint" mode.
7 * MEMDISK: Be more compliant with the PnP BIOS spec.
8 * MEMDISK: Turn on EDD support by default.
9 * MEMDISK: Try to work on some machines on which it would not
10 work when there was no floppy drive in the system.
11 * Simple menu system: fix serial console support (broken in
12 3.30).
13 * SYSLINUX: Support subdirectories. Like ISOLINUX, the
14 "current directory" is the directory in which syslinux.cfg
15 is found; this is searched for in the sequence
16 /boot/syslinux, /syslinux, /. As a side benefit, label names
17 like "linux-2.6.18" and "linux-2.6.19" are now supported.
19 To install ldlinux.sys in a subdirectory, pass the -d
20 directory option to the SYSLINUX installer.
22 This work was sponsored by slax.org (thanks, Tomas!)
23 * New API call: read disk.
24 * Invoke ONERROR on initrd load failure.
26 Changes in 3.31:
27 * The simple menu system (menu.c32 and vesamenu.c32) now
28 support loading more than one configuration file at a time,
29 using MENU INCLUDE or by specifying multiple filenames.
30 * The MENU COLOR statement can now control the shadowing mode.
32 Changes in 3.30:
33 * libcom32 extended to support graphics mode and graphical console.
34 * vesamenu.c32, new graphical version of the Simple
35 Menu System, see README.menu.
36 * New com32 modules by Erwan Velu do selection based on CPUID
37 or PCI devices present.
38 * RPM spec: add syslinux-tftpboot module; move syslinux by
39 default to the /usr/share/syslinux directory.
40 * RPM spec: extlinux is now a separate package.
42 Changes in 3.20:
43 * EXTLINUX: New options --install (-i) and --update (-U), to
44 make it clear if a boot loader should be installed or
45 updated. For now, defaults to --install for compatibility;
46 a future version will require one of these options.
47 * New library functions to load and place files in memory.
48 * mboot.c32 bug fixes.
49 * Remove 8 MB kernel size restriction.
50 * Add "klibc" target for building unix/syslinux and
51 extlinux/extlinux with klcc (klibc-1.4.27 or later.)
52 * PXELINUX: Fail (and eventually reboot) if no configuration
53 file was found.
54 * COM32 module by Erwan Velu to make decisions based on DMI
55 info.
56 * Fix issue where going back and forth between menus a lot
57 would cause a hang.
58 * ISOLINUX: Fix bug which made "cd boot sectors" not work.
60 Changes in 3.11:
61 * MEMDISK: Fix bug by which accessing the real floppy disk
62 as B: in MS-DOS was broken.
63 * Simple menu system: allow tweaking of the screen layout.
64 * Simple menu system: better command-line editing, correctly
65 handle command lines above 256 characters.
66 * PXELINUX: revert memory allocation change that caused
67 problems on some network cards.
68 * MEMDISK: Try work around a bug on some BIOSes when no
69 physical floppy disk is present in the system.
70 * Enable the 16550A FIFOs, if present, when doing serial
71 console.
72 * New "totaltimeout" command establishes a timeout without
73 regard for any user input.
74 * Simple menu system: timeout behaviour now more in line with
75 user expectations.
76 * Simple menu system: "ontimeout" should now work correctly.
78 Changes in 3.10:
79 * gcc 4.0.1 compilation fixes.
80 * Add support for querying the PCI BIOS in libcom32
81 (used by ethersel et al.)
82 * Fix PCI handing (ethersel etc) on several old chipsets (and
83 VMWare.)
84 * Try to deal with systems with broken EBIOS.
85 * New API call to do "localboot".
86 * New API call to query features.
87 * New API call to run kernel image, a lower-level call than
88 "run command". See comboot.doc.
89 * Fix for bug in EBIOS code discovered by Arwin Vosselman.
90 * NOESCAPE security fix.
91 * Comments are now recognized even without a space following #.
92 * Fix incorrect handling of mixes of entries with and without
93 MENU PASSWD.
94 * The idle API call now harmlessly returns failure if it is a
95 no-op. That way the caller can decide whether or not to
96 bother invoking it again.
97 * Temporarily disable the idle API call on PXELINUX, due to
98 some platforms on which the idle API call seems to hang; this
99 problem has not yet been debugged.
100 * MEMDISK: the handling of DOSEMU-headered images was broken;
101 fix it.
102 * EXTLINUX: symlinks are now supported.
103 * Simple menu system: N and P now work correctly as hotkeys.
104 * MEMDISK: more BIOS bug workarounds.
106 Changes in 3.09:
107 * gcc4 compilation fix.
108 * <BEL> (Ctrl-G) in message files now causes a beep.
109 * Reduce the command line to 511 characters; 1023 caused
110 memory overflows.
112 Changes in 3.08:
113 * SYSLINUX: Fix performance regression (-s mode always
114 enabled.)
115 * Add API function for idle loop.
116 * libutil: Add do_idle() function for idle loop, make
117 get_key() use it.
118 * libutil: Add SHA-1 and base64 functions.
119 * Simple menu system: add password support.
120 * EXTLINUX: Sparse files now handled correctly.
121 * EXTLINUX: Large directories now handled correctly.
122 * ALL: At the prompt, Ctrl-X now forces text mode.
123 * Fix configuration file parsing error, that could cause
124 hangs.
125 * Rewritten advanced menuing system from Murali Ganapathy.
126 * MEMDISK: New "bigraw" mode to work around certain broken
127 BIOS flash programs.
128 * COM32 module to boot Multiboot systems, including Xen. See
129 com32/modules/mboot.doc.
130 * Max command line changed to 1023 characters. Note that the
131 kernel proper still can only handle 255 characters without
132 patching, and COM16 binaries can only handle 125 characters.
134 Changes in 3.07:
135 * Fix chainloading (chain.c32).
136 * Fix zlib build problem.
137 * Use a private copy of <linux/ext2_fs.h>.
139 Changes in 3.06:
140 * Fix typo that caused the ramdisk to load in the wrong place.
142 Changes in 3.05:
143 * New API function "shuffle and boot"; allows COM32 modules to
144 load or construct (almost) arbitrarily complex objects,
145 e.g. a kernel and its initrd/initramfs in pieces, and have
146 the API core reorganize memory for booting. (A library API
147 for this function will be introduced in a later version.)
148 * The initrd= option now supports multiple filenames separated
149 by commas. This is mostly useful for initramfs, which can
150 be composed of multiple separate cpio or cpio.gz archives.
151 (Note: all files except the last one are zero-padded to a 4K
152 page boundary. This should not affect initramfs.)
153 * EXTLINUX: Fix API function 000Ah (get derivative-specific
154 info).
155 * libcom32/ethersel: Support PCI Config Mechanism #2 on
156 machines still infested with that hideous old hack.
157 * SYSLINUX: Fix directory-parsing bug.
159 Changes in 3.02:
160 * SYSLINUX: The "unix" installer now sets the MS-DOS
161 attributes (hidden, system, readonly.)
162 * COM32 library: build the .lnx (test modules for running
163 under Linux) as architecture native modules, in case
164 i386 devel libraries aren't installed.
165 * EXTLINUX: Hack for systems which don't have BLKGETSIZE64
166 defined in the standard header files.
167 * Simple menu system: minor aestetic improvements, and try to
168 work better over a serial console (speed, and readability on
169 monochrome terminal emulators.)
170 * New CONSOLE directive to control output on the video console
171 (useful for dealing with some broken serial-forwarding
172 BIOSes.)
173 * New com32 module "ethersel" for searching for an Ethernet
174 card and selecting the proper version of Etherboot.
175 * EXTLINUX: Allow the user to override the detected geometry.
176 Add help.
178 Changes in 3.01:
179 * EXTLINUX, SYSLINUX: Fix compile errors on some systems.
180 * EXTLINUX: Default to zipdrive geometry (64 heads, 32
181 sectors) if no other geometry can be detected.
183 Changes in 3.00:
184 * SYSLINUX: Support FAT32 and EDD. As an unfortunate
185 consequence, LDLINUX.SYS is no longer an ordinary file; it
186 is block-mapped at install time, which means it can only be
187 written using the syslinux installers.
188 * SYSLINUX: Reorganize the source code for the installers;
189 each one of the installers (dos, win32, unix, mtools) is now
190 built in its own subdirectory. In particular, "mtools" is
191 the unprivileged installer which uses mtools; "unix" is the
192 privileged installer which uses system calls.
193 * SYSLINUX: Completely rewritten DOS installer in C.
194 * ALL: "label" statement information is now stored in a
195 compressed format, which means that a lot more labels are
196 permitted (500-1000 in a typical configuration, but depends
197 on the complexity.)
198 * EXTLINUX: New derivative, which boots from an ext2/ext3
199 filesystem.
200 * SYSLINUX: The DOS and Win32 installers can now optionally
201 write the boot sector to a file instead of the real boot
202 sector. This is not supported in the Linux installers,
203 however.
204 * ALL: New NOESCAPE command, disables the "hold down the Shift
205 key to display the prompt" behaviour.
206 * New simple menu system, as an alternative to the advanced
207 menu system already present. See README.menu for details.
208 * PXELINUX: Filenames can now be prefixed with an IP address
209 or DNS name plus :: (e.g. 192.0.2.1::filename or
210 server.domain.com::filename), which downloads a file from an
211 alternate TFTP server, or just a :: (e.g. ::filename), which
212 suppresses the common pathname prefix. See pxelinux.doc.
213 * SYSLINUX: Add an -m option to the DOS and Win32 installers
214 to write an MBR and -a to mark the partition SYSLINUX is
215 being installed on active.
216 * MEMDISK: Give a way to query the boot loader type while
217 running MEMDISK; see memdisk/memdisk.doc and
218 sample/mdiskchk.c.
219 * mkdiskimage: substantially improved mkdiskimage which, among
220 other things, can now be used to initialize USB keys as
221 zipdrives; see README.usbkey for more information.
223 Changes in 2.13:
224 * MEMDISK: Fix command-line parsing "brown paper bag" class
225 bug.
226 * MEMDISK: Add "raw" mode to support the DOS boot disk from
227 WinME/XP, which seems to deliberately crash the system
228 when someone uses the "INT 15h mover" highmem API.
229 * Make "make install" do something sane for the com32
230 development environment.
231 * In the spec file, create a separate -devel RPM for the com32
232 development environment.
234 Changes in 2.12:
235 * Simple C library, based on klibc, for writing COM32
236 programs.
237 * Fix the handling of file length in loading of COM32
238 programs.
239 * MEMDISK: Work around a linker bug by rearranging the code to
240 not use the linker for the 16-bit code.
241 * SYSLINUX: If we're building on a machine without a Win32
242 (mingw) compiler, just skip building syslinux.exe.
243 * ISOLINUX: Support non-mkisofs mastering programs, at least
244 as long as the image is single-session. For best results,
245 ISOLINUX should be the only boot loader installed.
246 * MEMDISK: Allow the user to specify that the simulated disk
247 should be write-protected.
249 Changes in 2.11:
250 * ALL: Add an API call to get the configuration file name.
251 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in 2.10 that prevented it from working
252 correctly for a lot of people.
253 * SYSLINUX: In the installer, make mtools a bit less fussy.
254 * Make the menu system compile with newer gcc's.
256 Changes in 2.10:
257 * MEMDISK: Handle images compressed with zip as well as with
258 gzip. Some Windows-based image tools apparently generate
259 these kinds of images by default. Patch by Patrick
260 LoPresti.
261 * Major menu improvement from Murali Ganapathy.
262 * ISOLINUX: Wonderfully sick and brilliant workaround for
263 severe bugs in certain Award BIOSes; from Knut Petersen.
264 * SYSLINUX: Fix for the nomtools installed, from Frederic
265 Pasteleurs.
266 * PXELINUX: Fix handling of IP numbers in the ranges
267 100-109 and 200-209.
268 * ALL: New option "allowoptions" (defaults to 1), which
269 controls if options are allowed on the command line or not.
270 * SYSLINUX: Support building under klibc (see the klibc
271 distribution for details.)
273 Changes in 2.09:
274 * SYSLINUX: Remove residual setuid crap from
275 syslinux-nomtools.
276 * Handle video pages correctly when using the API functions.
277 * Handle compiling on an x86-64 platform correctly.
278 * Menu system from Murali Krishnan Ganapathy; see the menu
279 directory for information.
280 * COMBOOT: Allow COMBOOT programs to change screen text mode.
281 * COMBOOT: Correct the documentation of how to detect
282 SYSLINUX from COMBOOT!!!!
283 * COMBOOT: Fix "get key without echo" API function.
284 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug that affected the API open function.
285 * ALL: Improve the E820 memory parser, to work around some
286 buggy BIOSes.
288 Changes in 2.08:
289 * Add new configuration command "ontimeout" to allow timeout
290 to have a different action than just pressing Enter.
291 * Add new configuration command "onerror" to allow a custom
292 command to be executed in case the kernel image is not found.
293 * Fix bugs in the COMBOOT/COM32 command-line parsing. APPEND
294 now works with COMBOOT/COM32 images.
295 * PXELINUX: Poll for ARP requests while sitting at the
296 prompt. This makes some boot servers a lot less unhappy.
297 * PXELINUX: Actually free sockets when we get a failure
298 (including file not found.) This bug would cause us to run
299 out of sockets and thus "go deaf" after a while.
300 * MEMDISK: Add an API to query for the existence of MEMDISK.
301 * SYSLINUX: Fix loading boot sectors (.bs/.bss) from floppy
302 disk.
303 * .c32 is now one of the extensions searched for
304 automatically.
305 * PXELINUX: RFBG.exe seems to randomly overwrite memory
306 location 0x5700. Thus, don't use it!
307 * PXELINUX: Change pathname length max from 63 to 127; change
308 max vkernels from 128 to 64.
309 * Support Ctrl-U -> kill entire command line input.
310 * The "samples" directory contains a (barely at all tested)
311 chain loading example, chain.c32, which may be used to
312 chainload local floppy disks and hard disks. Use with
313 "chain fdN" or "chain hdN [partition]"; N = 0 for the first
314 drive of each type.
316 Changes in 2.07:
317 * MEMDISK: Workaround for BIOSes which go into a snit when
318 they get a RESET command for the floppy system when there is
319 no floppy in the system.
320 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend 2", which passes the hardware
321 address of the boot interface to the kernel as a
322 command-line option.
323 * mkdiskimage: fix the generation of the end limit.
324 * PXELINUX: Fix multiple bugs in chainloading of other NBPs.
325 * MEMDISK: Fix bug that would occationally cause "ran out of
326 input data" when using compressed disk images.
327 * SYSLINUX: Updates for the win32 installer (from Lars Munch.)
328 * PXELINUX: PXELINUX-specific options are now recognized both
329 in a vendor-option-space (a.k.a. type 43 encapsulated) as
330 well as in a site-option-space (unencapsulated.)
331 * COM32: Don't crash when DS != 0.
332 * COMBOOT/COM32: Make file reading work correctly. Thanks to
333 Phung Chi Kien for submitting a test program.
335 Changes in 2.06:
336 * ALL: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
337 boot failure, depending on the length of the kernel.
338 * ISOLINUX: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
339 boot failure, depending on the length of directories.
340 * SYSLINUX: Win32 installer now flushes buffers.
341 * ppmtolss16: Be fully compliant with the PNM spec;
342 actually process comments in the header and odd
343 alignments of the various parameters, as well as
344 "plain" (not raw) files and PBM and PGM files.
345 * PXELINUX: Lower the default MTU to 1472 in order to deal
346 with systems with slightly nonstandard MTUs, and PXE
347 stacks which don't defragment correctly. Unfortunately this
348 is very hard to test dynamically.
350 Changes in 2.05:
351 * PXELINUX: Add a default query based on the hardware address
352 of the boot device. This is in lower case hexadecimal form
353 separated by dashes and including the hardware type, for
354 example, the Ethernet (type 1) address 88:99:AA:BB:CC:DD
355 would query the file pxelinux.cfg/01-88-99-aa-bb-cc-dd.
356 * PXELINUX: Fix bug involving non-IP-based config file names.
357 * SYSLINUX: New installer for WinNT-based systems, from Lars
358 Munch.
359 * MEMDISK: Fix handling of memory region overlap when
360 decompressing. Thanks to Mikhail Kupchik for identifying
361 the problem.
363 Changes in 2.04:
364 * ALL: Reclaim even more low memory by observing that
365 comboot_seg == real_mode_seg is perfectly fine, and by the
366 fact that the 1000h segment managed to get unused in all
367 derivatives...
368 * PXELINUX: Attempt to negotiate full Ethernet-sized blocks
369 (1468 bytes) using the blksize option.
370 * SYSLINUX: Resurrect the old no-mtools version of the
371 installer, although as a root-only tool. Some distributors
372 have indicated that they need a small standalone installer.
373 * MEMDISK: Fix a memory offset computation error when
374 installing compressed disks which generally would cause
375 1 MB of memory to be wasted.
376 * MEMDISK: Fix installing the E820 memory map. Calling
377 INT 15h AX=0E820h with MEMDISK 2.03 loaded would give a
378 completely corrupt memory map.
379 * SYSLINUX: Make libsyslinux a dynamic library, so that it can
380 be updated separately from client programs. The whole idea,
381 after all, is to enable alternate programs to become
382 syslinux installers.
383 * Include an rpm spec file in the distribution, so rpmbuild
384 -ta works.
386 Changes in 2.03:
387 * Actually support comment lines in the configuration file.
388 * PXELINUX: Try to resolve some problems with stack switches.
389 * PXELINUX: Handle PXE stacks with broken routing.
390 With these workarounds, the remote install PXE boot floppy
391 (rbfg.exe) from Argon Technologies should work correctly.
392 * Fix problems with Perl scripts in UTF-8 locales.
393 * You probably need NASM 0.98.34 or later to compile this
394 version. 0.98.36 is recommended.
395 * MEMDISK: Now supports gzip compressed images.
397 Changes in 2.02:
398 * SYSLINUX: Security flaws have been found in the SYSLINUX
399 installer when running setuid root. Rewrite the SYSLINUX
400 installer so it uses mtools instead. It therefore now
401 requires mtools (specifically mcopy and mattrib) to exist on
402 your system, but it will not require root privileges and
403 SHOULD NOT be setuid.
405 Changes in 2.01:
406 * MEMDISK: Fix memory sizing bug when the ramdisk crosses the
407 16 MB boundary.
408 * MEMDISK: Add a "pause" option to stop immediately before
409 booting, to read off the messages.
410 * MEMDISK: Support disk images with DOSEMU headers.
411 * Update the mkdiskimage script to handle newer mtools
412 versions, and be able to generate disk images with DOSEMU
413 headers (controlled by the -d option).
414 * Fix the COM32 sample program.
415 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix some COMBOOT API calls.
416 * PXELINUX: Doc fix.
417 * Build SYSLINUX into a small library for encapsulation into
418 other programs (however, please keep in mind this is a GPL'd
419 library.)
420 * SYSLINUX: Make installer work with "owner" in /etc/fstab.
421 * SYSLINUX: Fix issue with working on nonpartitioned hard disk
422 devices. THIS CONFIGURATION IS NOT RECOMMENDED.
424 Changes in 2.00:
425 * ALL: Add support for "COM32" (32-bit COMBOOT) images.
426 * ALL: Add an API for COMBOOT/COM32 images. See comboot.doc
427 for details. There is a C development environment for
428 COM32 being created; it should be ready at some point in
429 the future.
430 * Fix mbr.asm so that it actually works.
431 * SYSLINUX: The syslinux installer *SHOULD* now be safe to
432 run setuid root.
433 * PXELINUX: Fix bug where PXELINUX would override random
434 chunks of the UNDI code segment! Thanks to Kevin Tran for
435 finding this bug.
436 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug related to slashes in pathnames.
437 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug in handling initrds over 128 MB.
438 * ALL: Make the <Ctrl-V> key print out the version; this is
439 to help debugging.
440 * Add a small script, mkdiskimage, to create a DOS-formatted
441 hard disk image using mtools. This may be useful in
442 conjunction with MEMDISK.
443 * ISOLINUX: Search for a /boot/isolinux directory as well as
444 /isolinux.
445 * ALL: Fix a bug related to very long configuration files.
446 * PXELINUX: Work around a NASM bug which would result in no
447 delay before reset if an error occurs.
449 Changes in 1.76:
450 * ISOLINUX: Remove code no longer used which caused hangs on
451 some Toshiba laptops.
453 Changes in 1.75:
454 * ALL: NASM 0.98.32 or later is now required to build
455 SYSLINUX from sources.
456 * SYSLINUX: put back in the workaround for the BIOS floppy
457 table. This seems to be a requirement for "extended" floppy
458 formats to work correctly.
459 * SYSLINUX: No longer warn if one is trying to boot on a 286
460 or older. The above BIOS workaround no longer fits if the
461 requirement to use only 8086-compatible code in the early
462 boot is maintained. It made sense in 1994, but in 2002 a
463 286 or older is a museum object.
464 * SYSLINUX: Use a downright bizarre, stateful algorithm to try
465 to guess the maximum transfer size. I am *hoping* this will
466 cut down on the number of systems for which -s is required
467 to work at any acceptable speed.
468 * ISOLINUX: Add a few more workarounds for various broken El
469 Torito BIOSes.
470 * Make sure .depend files aren't accidentally packed...
471 * ALL: Fix bugs in the extension-detect code; this caused
472 files like COMBOOT images and CD boot sectors to be
473 mis-identified as Linux kernels and rejected.
474 * ALL: Fix the return from COMBOOT.
475 * ALL: Do some of the early groundwork for supporting DOS
476 system calls in COMBOOT.
477 * Get rid of unnecessary "near" directives, making the code
478 bigger.
479 * PXELINUX: Put the PXE stack back in the init state before
480 invoking a chain-loaded NBP.
481 * PXELINUX: Actually found the combination of calls that
482 allows some (most?) PXE 2+ stacks to be unloaded from memory
483 properly.
484 * PXELINUX: Add "keeppxe" command-line option to disable
485 the standard unloading of the PXE stack.
487 Changes in 1.74:
488 * SYSLINUX: fix bug that would cause valid kernel images to be
489 labelled "invalid".
491 Changes in 1.73:
492 * Work on removing gratuitous differences between modules.
493 * Break up the source in common and module-specific files.
494 * PXELINUX: Allow chaining of other PXE NBPs.
495 * ISOLINUX: Allow loading "CD-ROM boot sectors".
496 * ALL: generalize the definition of a boot sector/NBP.
498 Changes in 1.72:
499 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix bugs in the new core code.
501 Changes in 1.71:
502 * Fix a "brown paper bag" class bug in the new core code.
504 Changes in 1.70:
505 * Major code restructuring.
506 * Relax the conventional memory limits somewhat.
507 * MEMDISK: Set up the "version number string" pointer in the
508 header correctly.
509 * SYSLINUX: Fix, again, "the bug that won't die": the use of
510 the offset parameter with the SYSLINUX installer.
511 * SYSLINUX: Fix possible superblock corruption problem in the
512 SYSLINUX installer.
514 Changes in 1.67:
515 * Handle bug in the location of initrd.
517 Changes in 1.66:
518 * MEMDISK: Make compile with newer versions of gcc.
520 Changes in 1.65:
521 * ISOLINUX: Support booting disk image files (to boot DOS or
522 other non-Linux operating systems), *IF* the BIOS works
523 correctly; unfortunately many BIOSes apparently don't.
524 * Support Linux boot protocol version 2.03 (explicitly
525 specify the initrd address limit.)
526 * Handle small "pseudo-kernels"; images that use the Linux
527 kernel boot protocols but are less than 64K in size.
528 * MEMDISK: New subsystem; this is a driver which allows
529 legacy OSes to boot using an in-memory simulated disk.
530 See memdisk/memdisk.doc for more info.
531 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Correctly handle files larger than 65535
532 blocks (32 MB for PXELINUX, 128 MB for ISOLINUX.)
533 * PXELINUX: Make a best-effort attempt at freeing all memory
534 claimed. From the looks of it, it will fail on most PXE
535 stacks.
537 Changes in 1.64:
538 * Limited support for hardware flow control when using a
539 serial port console.
540 * Support specifying the serial port I/O address explicitly.
541 * Make DOS installer hopefully behave more nicely when used on
542 recent Windows versions.
543 * Fix returning to text mode when a font has been specified.
544 * Attempt to detect missing serial port hardware and disable
545 the serial port if there is nothing there.
547 Changes in 1.63:
548 * Make the ppmtolss16 program handle color conversion more
549 correctly.
550 * Clean up "make install" target, honour INSTALLROOT if it
551 exists.
552 * SYSLINUX: Fix stack-smash bug identified by Steffen
553 Winterfeldt.
554 * Hopefully fix return-to-text-mode on some graphics cards.
555 * ISOLINUX: Bug workaround for Award BIOS 4.51, and perhaps
556 other buggy BIOSes as well.
558 Changes in 1.62:
559 * PXELINUX: Allow the DHCP server to override the
560 configuration file name and pathname prefix, using
561 "site-specific" DHCP options.
562 * PXELINUX: Documentation fixes.
563 * PXELINUX: Fix the "ipappend" option; the last two values
564 were reversed vs. what the kernel expected.
565 * Introduce a way to return to text mode once we are already
566 in graphics mode. This may be useful for F-key help
567 screens.
568 * Fix several bugs in the way return to text mode was handled.
570 Changes in 1.61:
571 * ISOLINUX: Support full pathname searches. Max length for a
572 pathname is 255 characters. As a result, only 64 "label"
573 statements are supported in ISOLINUX.
574 * PXELINUX: Max filename length extended to 63 characters.
576 Changes in 1.60:
577 * Add support for graphical splash screens.
578 * Add mode control characters, which allows you to control
579 message display output depending on output mode (text,
580 graphics, or serial port.)
581 * ISOLINUX: New program, which boots Linux from a CD-ROM
582 without using floppy emulation mode. See isolinux.doc for
583 more details.
584 * PXELINUX: Don't search for boot sector file types, since
585 they don't work anyway.
586 * SYSLINUX: Document the LOCK command for Win9x, and the error
587 dialog box for WinNT/2K.
589 Changes in 1.54:
590 * PXELINUX: Fix code for finding !PXE from PXENV+. This was
591 due to a spec bug; match the most recent spec since that
592 seems to be what implementations actually do.
593 * SYSLINUX: Add some smarts to the boot sector, which
594 hopefully should reduce the number of systems which require
595 stupid mode ("syslinux -s").
596 * PXELINUX: Document further some of the pathologies with old
597 PXE stacks.
598 * When specifying a "default" command line, no longer
599 automatically appent "auto". See the "DEFAULT" command in
600 syslinux.doc for more information.
601 * PXELINUX: Clean up the allocation of local socket numbers.
603 Changes in 1.53:
604 * PXELINUX: Rename pxelinux.bin to pxelinux.0, to match what
605 most PXE servers seem to expect.
606 * PXELINUX: Update the DHCP/boot server setup documentation.
607 * PXELINUX: Support new "localboot" option for "label"
608 sections.
609 * PXELINUX: More robust parsing of DHCP/boot server packets.
610 * PXELINUX: Include a small utility program "gethostip" to
611 compute hexadecimal IP addresses.
613 Changes in 1.52:
614 * PXELINUX: Fix bugs introduced by new A20 code. (SYSLINUX
615 has also been changed for code consistency reasons, but I'm
616 pretty sure the changes are don't care on SYSLINUX.)
617 * Documentation updates.
618 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend" option to generate an ip= option to
619 the kernel.
621 Changes in 1.51:
622 * PXELINUX: Not all PXE stacks fill in the IP address for a
623 type 3 cached info query. Use a type 2 cached info query
624 for this information (only.)
625 * Yet another attempt at A20 coding. Now support BIOS call
626 15:2401 as well, and handle machines which always have A20
627 on separately.
628 * Support memory detection using INT 15h, AX=0E820h. BIOS
629 manufacturers have apparently gotten sloppy about keeping
630 INT 15h, AX=0E801h working properly.
631 * Don't issue <CR><LF> onto the serial port when we're doing
632 screen wraparound.
634 Changes in 1.50:
635 * Yet another A20-code update. It seems some "legacy-free"
636 machines and embedded gear simply don't have a KBC to talk
637 to, and that waiting for one will wait forever. Sigh.
639 Changes in 1.49:
640 * SYSLINUX: Implement a hack for BIOS drivers which hog significant
641 chunks of low memory during boot. (Note: PXELINUX already
642 had this modification. SYSLINUX does still require that the
643 low 512K is available; PXELINUX requires 384K. Machines
644 with a physical memory hole in the low 640K cannot boot
645 Linux no matter what.) Depending what the reason is for the
646 memory hole, a new kernel (2.4.0-test3-pre3 or later) may be
647 required.
648 * SYSLINUX: Default installer binary now compiled against
649 glibc 2.1. If this is inappropriate for your system and you
650 still want to use the offical version of SYSLINUX, please
651 follow the instructions in "distrib.doc" to rebuild the
652 installer.
653 * SYSLINUX: Linux installer program now supports -o <offset>
654 option which does a loopback mount with the
655 -o loop,offset=<> option. Useful to run SYSLINUX on an
656 individual partition of a whole-harddisk image.
657 * Include the source code to a Master Boot Record (MBR)
658 functionally equivalent to the one installed DOS except it
659 includes EBIOS support, and should be resistant to geometry
660 changes. The MBR code is public domain.
661 * PXELINUX: Fix "double p" bug: if the tftp prefix was null,
662 all filenames would get a "p" preprended, e.g.
663 "ppxelinux.cfg" and "pvmlinux".
665 Changes in 1.48:
666 * PXELINUX: Workaround for PXE ROMs based on the Intel PXE PDK
667 3.0 build 071 and earlier: missing !PXE structure pointer.
668 * PXELINUX: Handle larger BOOTP/DHCP packages.
669 * PXELINUX: The command line passing was broken; fix.
670 * PXELINUX: Make COMBOOT images work.
671 * PXELINUX: Documentation on how to make booting work using
672 the PDK 3.0-derived clients, which aren't so generous as to
673 allow booting with only "PXEClient" specified.
675 Changes in 1.47:
676 * PXELINUX: RFC 1123 states that a TFTP implementation MUST
677 use adaptive timeout, "at least an exponential backoff of
678 retransmission timeout is necessary." Implement a very
679 simple exponential backoff for retransmits.
680 * PXELINUX: Updated documentation, including pointer to new
681 TFTP server.
682 * PXELINUX: When sending ERROR due to bad OACK, use the proper
683 destination port number (why are TFTP port numbers so odd?)
684 * PXELINUX: If the boot dies in the middle somewhere,
685 eventually give up and reset the machine (unattended
686 operation.)
688 Changes in 1.46:
689 * New program PXELINUX to do network booting using a
690 PXE-compliant (Pre-Execution Environment) network booting
691 PROM. See pxelinux.doc for details.
693 Changes in 1.45:
694 * Serial console support. See syslinux.doc for details.
696 Changes in 1.44:
697 * Change HIGHMEM_MAX to 38000000h to (hopefully) avoid the
698 kernel stepping on it; 3f000000h was apparently a higher
699 limit than the kernel used!
701 Changes in 1.43:
702 * Add sys2ansi.pl script to display the contents of a
703 colorized SYSLINUX file.
704 * Changed the io_delay once again, after a report that the
705 old delay port causes hangs on some systems.
707 Changes in 1.42:
708 * Frob the "fast A20 gate" port as well as the keyboard
709 controller; will this help systems with problems?
710 * Be even more paranoid about A20, unfortunately even this
711 seems to be not paranoid enough... what I don't understand
712 is that if there is hardware out there *this broken*, how
713 can it run Linux at all? Report an error message rather
714 than hang forever if A20 is stuck.
715 * Include some intermediate files in the distribution, plus
716 provide a "make installer" target for distributors to relink
717 the install programs only. I would prefer the syslinux boot
718 loader proper to be "binary clean" for debuggablity -- use
719 "make clean ; make installer" to rebuild the installers only.
721 Changes in 1.41:
722 * Don't get confused by directories, volume labels, or VFAT
723 long names.
724 * Use INT 15h, AX=0E801h to query memory size before trying
725 INT 15h, AH=88h. This not only provides more headroom
726 between the kernel and the initrd on large-memory machines,
727 but it appears some recent BIOSes actually have started
728 returning garbage for the AH=88h (older) call.
729 * Trust high memory beyond the 15 MB mark if the user has
730 specified it, or if obtained with INT 15h, AH=0E801h (with
731 no memory holes above 1 MB.)
733 Changes in 1.40:
734 * Increase A20M delay and put in a test to avoid problems on
735 certain IBM Thinkpads (thanks to Donnie Barnes of RedHat
736 for vital info on this one.)
737 * Support COMBOOT style boot command images.
738 * Support chain loading (foreign operating systems, e.g. DOS).
739 * Include a new "copybs" DOS utility to copy a boot sector to
740 a file (under Linux, use "dd".)
741 * Fix the DOS installer to work for disks over 32 MB.
742 * SYSLINUX should now handle disks with more than 65536 tracks.
744 Changes in 1.37:
745 * Fix a bug that caused "label" statements in syslinux.cfg to
746 not be handled properly.
747 * Updated the documentation. Among other things, we now allow
748 up to 128 "label" statements.
750 Changes in 1.36:
751 * Fix for booting old (pre-initrd) kernels.
752 * It seems at least some versions of OS/2 doesn't set up all
753 the fields in the superblock correctly. Account for that.
754 * Fix bug that caused boot failure when using the mem= option.
756 Changes in 1.35:
757 * Loading from partitions now should work properly. (Actually
758 tested, this time. You should even be able to dd a floppy
759 to a partition and boot from it.)
760 * Removed large workaround code for an alleged ancient BIOS
761 bug I have never actually seen. The -s option should work
762 on those machines, anyway.
763 * Support for simple keyboard remappings, same as used by
764 LILO (once again to support localization.) The program
765 keytab-lilo.pl from the LILO distribution included to
766 generate such maps.
767 * Added a "safe, slow and stupid" (-s) option to the
768 installers. This option will lobotomize the boot sector to
769 hopefully work on even very buggy BIOSes.
771 Changes in 1.34:
772 * Ability to load a VGA font on bootup (for localized Linux
773 distributions.)
775 Changes in 1.33:
776 * Bug fix in the Linux installer.
777 * Added a workaround for a bug in certain AMI/Intel BIOSes
778 when booting from CD-ROM.
779 * Documentation changes.
781 Changes in 1.32:
782 * FAT16 filesystems are now supported.
784 Changes in 1.31:
785 * Now compiles under Linux, using NASM, rather than using
786 Turbo Assembler under DOS. See http://www.cryogen.com/Nasm
787 for information about NASM.
788 * Linux-hosted SYSLINUX installer, as well as a
789 rewritten DOS installer (now is written in assembler, so we
790 don't need Turbo C.)
792 Changes in 1.30:
793 * Added support for loading bzImage and initrd loading, and made
794 SYSLINUX new-setup-code aware (SYSLINUX 1.30 id=0x31).
795 * Added LILO-style kernel labels; see the LABEL and IMPLICIT
796 keywords in README file.
797 * Added support for colorization of intro and help screens.
798 * The vga= option is now handled correctly.
799 * Massive rewrite of large chunks of the code in order to
800 support the first two new features.
802 Changes in 1.20:
803 * Added simple online help at the "boot:" prompt.
804 * Removed 2880K image as I no longer have access to such a
805 floppy drive. (Donations accepted!!)
806 * Decided to distribute the source in a subdirectory rather
807 than in a nested zipfile.
809 Changes in 1.11:
810 * Removed a sanity check which would cause booting to fail on
811 Phoenix BIOS version 4.03. Apparently this BIOS is buggy.
813 Changes in 1.10:
814 * Added configuration file SYSLINUX.CFG. This file contains all
815 configurable options, and can be edited from any OS which can
816 access an MS-DOS filesystem; there is no longer a need to run
817 SYSLINUX.EXE except to write the boot sector.
818 * Default command line now given by "default" line in config
819 file.
820 * LINUXMSG.TXT and BOOTMSG.TXT hard-coded file names replaced by
821 "display" and "prompt" lines in config file.
822 * LILO-style option appending now supported ("append" line in
823 config file).
824 * Prompt timeout is now supported ("timeout" line in config
825 file). The timeout is cancelled when anything is typed on the
826 command line.
827 * Pressing <ESC> or <Ctrl-C> at the Loading... stage now aborts
828 the kernel loading in progress and returns the user to the
829 boot: prompt.
830 * The installer now automatically sets the READONLY flag on
831 LDLINUX.SYS.
832 * Added 2880K disk image.
834 Changes in 1.03:
835 * Fixed bug that would prevent booting from double-density
836 floppies and other DOS filesystems with multiple sectors per
837 cluster.
838 * Added 720K disk image.
839 * Changed default kernel name on disk images to LINUX.
841 Changes in 1.02:
842 * Fixed bug that would garble the command line on recent kernels
843 with more than 4 sectors of setup code (this wasn't really a
844 *bug*; rather, a kernel change broke the code. Unfortunately
845 the Linux boot interface is still sorely undocumented).
846 * Added BOOTMSG.TXT file support (message file which does not
847 force display of the boot prompt).
849 Changes in 1.01:
850 * Fixed bug on some (most?) 386 BIOSes would require two boot
851 attempts.