| blob | 60826202d0381ecf4e57f20422cc4ab275607494 |
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 3.60:
6 * Support for "auxilliary data vector", a small amount of
7 writable storage. Currently only supported for EXTLINUX,
8 but the infrastructure is there for the other derivatives,
9 assuming a suitable storage location can be found.
10 * EXTLINUX: boot-once support (--once, --clear-once, and
11 --reset-adv).
12 * A command is now required to the EXTLINUX installer, i.e. at
13 least one of --install, --update, --once, --clear-once, or
14 --reset-adv.
16 Changes in 3.55:
17 * PXELINUX: as per RFC 5071, PXELINUX no longer requires the
18 use of the magic cookie option (208) for unencapsulated
19 options. Currently it does not require it for
20 vendor-encapsulated options (vendor-option-space) either,
21 but that MAY be reverted in the future if it causes
22 problems.
23 * Documentation text files moved to a common "doc" directory;
24 man pages from the Debian project added to the "man" directory.
26 Changes in 3.54:
27 * Add "menu separator", "menu indent", "menu disabled"
28 (see README.menu).
29 * vesamenu: fix handing of VESA modes with noncontiguous
30 memory buffers. In particular, Qemu/KVM sets up such a mode
31 when Cirrus Logic emulation is enabled (which is the
32 default.)
33 * Support for calling real mode functions using far calls,
34 with argument on the stack. This was implemented to support
35 the BIOS BBS specification, but subsequent experiments show
36 that the at least one of the most common BIOS cores, Award,
37 passes the presence check but doesn't actually implement the
38 functionality.
40 Changes in 3.53:
41 * Fix bugs related to the $PnP BIOS functionality on some
42 platforms.
43 * PXELINUX: Fix the "naked" version of :: (suppress prefix.)
44 * elf.c32: better error messages.
45 * Faster operation under Intel VT virtualization.
46 * PXELINUX: Fix DHCP bootfile option.
47 * mkdiskimage: Support more than 1024 cylinders.
48 * (Hopefully) fix installer on non-x86 platforms.
49 * Fix shuffle_and_boot_rm, used by linux.c32.
50 * Fix shuffle_and_boot_pm on 386/486.
51 * ISOLINUX (at least): fix bss memory overwrite hang.
52 * MBR: Fix booting from logical partitions.
53 * Code cleanups.
55 Changes in 3.52:
56 * Handle capitalized F-key commands in the menu system.
57 * Fix padding error when loading multiple ramdisks.
58 * Workaround for VMware crashing when trying to print a
59 message during early kernel boot (does not seem to work,
60 consider deleting.)
61 * chain.c32: add the ability to search for a specific MBR
62 signature at runtime.
63 * Fall back to the server identity option if the siaddr field
64 in the DHCP header isn't set. This seems to match the
65 behaviour of most PXE stacks.
66 * mkdiskimage: give the generated disk image an MBR signature.
67 * MEMDISK: Fix failures on some BIOSes.
68 * Simple menu system: new "MENU HIDDEN" option to not display
69 the menu unless the user presses a key.
70 * Simple menu system: support MD5-encrypted passwords (modern
71 Unix standard style, with "$1$" prefixes.)
72 * pcitest.c32: now functions as a full "lspci". Thanks to
73 Erwan Velu for this work.
74 * MEMDISK: Make EDD actually work.
75 * ISOLINUX: Fix for certain broken CD-ROM BIOSes which
76 randomly corrupted register FS.
77 * Simple menu system: fix memory overwrite bug that caused
78 some systems to lock up or behave weirdly.
79 * Fix building on 64-bit systems without a 32-bit libc installed.
81 Changes in 3.51:
82 * EXTLINUX: Fix failure to find the configuration file.
84 Changes in 3.50:
85 * New keywords allow the type of file to be specified in the
86 configuration file.
87 * It is now supported to load a different configuration file
88 with the CONFIG keyword.
89 * Fix API call 0x0019 (Read Disk.)
90 * MENU AUTOBOOT, MENU TABMSG, MENU PASSPROMPT allows
91 internationalization of menu messages.
92 * A new feature, TEXT HELP, allows the administrator to set
93 a multi-line help message for individual selections.
94 * Fix API call 0x0012 (Cleanup, shuffle and boot.)
95 * New API call "Cleanup, shuffle and boot to flat protected mode"
96 * New API call "Cleanup, shuffle and boot to real mode",
97 similar to API call 0x0012 but allows arbitrary register setting.
98 * Introduce a library interface for loading arbitrary binary
99 formats with relatively easily understood code. See
100 the elf.c32 module for an example on how to use it.
101 * New module "elf.c32", to load a protected-mode ELF kernel.
102 * MBR (old and new): Fix bug in CHS mode when LBA >
103 65535*sectors.
104 * vesamenu: fix decoding of palettized PNG images.
105 * Update the Linux kernel boot protocol.
106 * PXELINUX: Press Ctrl-N at the boot prompt to read out the
107 network info.
108 * Instead of the (non-existent) MAC, use the client identifier
109 for networks like Infiniband and Firewire/1394.
110 * Add a new INCLUDE command to the core syslinux parser.
111 * Allow binding help text to F11 and F12.
112 * F-key help now available in the simple menu system.
113 * Disabled the polling for ARP during idle. It is simply too
114 slow on some (broken!) PXE stacks.
115 * PXELINUX: also try to fetch the config file based on UUID.
116 * SYSLINUX/EXTLINUX: New RAID mode (-r) which calls the BIOS
117 to load the next device (typically the next drive) on boot
118 failure.
120 Changes in 3.36:
121 * MEMDISK: Disable EDD by default on floppy disks. EDD can be
122 enabled with the "edd" option and disabled with "noedd".
123 This (hopefully) should make Ghost work again.
124 * SYSLINUX: "unix" installer now uses Linux ioctls instead of
125 using libfat.
126 * New MBR which can boot from logical partitions.
127 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in detecting special extensions which was
128 introduced in 3.35 :(
129 * PXELINUX: Unbreak chainbooting FreeBSD (and possibly others.)
131 Changes in 3.35:
132 * MEMDISK: New "safeint" mode.
133 * MEMDISK: Be more compliant with the PnP BIOS spec.
134 * MEMDISK: Turn on EDD support by default.
135 * MEMDISK: Try to work on some machines on which it would not
136 work when there was no floppy drive in the system.
137 * Simple menu system: fix serial console support (broken in
138 3.30).
139 * SYSLINUX: Support subdirectories. Like ISOLINUX, the
140 "current directory" is the directory in which syslinux.cfg
141 is found; this is searched for in the sequence
142 /boot/syslinux, /syslinux, /. As a side benefit, label names
143 like "linux-2.6.18" and "linux-2.6.19" are now supported.
145 To install ldlinux.sys in a subdirectory, pass the -d
146 directory option to the SYSLINUX installer.
148 This work was sponsored by slax.org (thanks, Tomas!)
149 * New API call: read disk.
150 * Invoke ONERROR on initrd load failure.
152 Changes in 3.31:
153 * The simple menu system (menu.c32 and vesamenu.c32) now
154 support loading more than one configuration file at a time,
155 using MENU INCLUDE or by specifying multiple filenames.
156 * The MENU COLOR statement can now control the shadowing mode.
158 Changes in 3.30:
159 * libcom32 extended to support graphics mode and graphical console.
160 * vesamenu.c32, new graphical version of the Simple
161 Menu System, see README.menu.
162 * New com32 modules by Erwan Velu do selection based on CPUID
163 or PCI devices present.
164 * RPM spec: add syslinux-tftpboot module; move syslinux by
165 default to the /usr/share/syslinux directory.
166 * RPM spec: extlinux is now a separate package.
168 Changes in 3.20:
169 * EXTLINUX: New options --install (-i) and --update (-U), to
170 make it clear if a boot loader should be installed or
171 updated. For now, defaults to --install for compatibility;
172 a future version will require one of these options.
173 * New library functions to load and place files in memory.
174 * mboot.c32 bug fixes.
175 * Remove 8 MB kernel size restriction.
176 * Add "klibc" target for building unix/syslinux and
177 extlinux/extlinux with klcc (klibc-1.4.27 or later.)
178 * PXELINUX: Fail (and eventually reboot) if no configuration
179 file was found.
180 * COM32 module by Erwan Velu to make decisions based on DMI
181 info.
182 * Fix issue where going back and forth between menus a lot
183 would cause a hang.
184 * ISOLINUX: Fix bug which made "cd boot sectors" not work.
186 Changes in 3.11:
187 * MEMDISK: Fix bug by which accessing the real floppy disk
188 as B: in MS-DOS was broken.
189 * Simple menu system: allow tweaking of the screen layout.
190 * Simple menu system: better command-line editing, correctly
191 handle command lines above 256 characters.
192 * PXELINUX: revert memory allocation change that caused
193 problems on some network cards.
194 * MEMDISK: Try work around a bug on some BIOSes when no
195 physical floppy disk is present in the system.
196 * Enable the 16550A FIFOs, if present, when doing serial
197 console.
198 * New "totaltimeout" command establishes a timeout without
199 regard for any user input.
200 * Simple menu system: timeout behaviour now more in line with
201 user expectations.
202 * Simple menu system: "ontimeout" should now work correctly.
204 Changes in 3.10:
205 * gcc 4.0.1 compilation fixes.
206 * Add support for querying the PCI BIOS in libcom32
207 (used by ethersel et al.)
208 * Fix PCI handing (ethersel etc) on several old chipsets (and
209 VMWare.)
210 * Try to deal with systems with broken EBIOS.
211 * New API call to do "localboot".
212 * New API call to query features.
213 * New API call to run kernel image, a lower-level call than
214 "run command". See comboot.doc.
215 * Fix for bug in EBIOS code discovered by Arwin Vosselman.
216 * NOESCAPE security fix.
217 * Comments are now recognized even without a space following #.
218 * Fix incorrect handling of mixes of entries with and without
219 MENU PASSWD.
220 * The idle API call now harmlessly returns failure if it is a
221 no-op. That way the caller can decide whether or not to
222 bother invoking it again.
223 * Temporarily disable the idle API call on PXELINUX, due to
224 some platforms on which the idle API call seems to hang; this
225 problem has not yet been debugged.
226 * MEMDISK: the handling of DOSEMU-headered images was broken;
227 fix it.
228 * EXTLINUX: symlinks are now supported.
229 * Simple menu system: N and P now work correctly as hotkeys.
230 * MEMDISK: more BIOS bug workarounds.
232 Changes in 3.09:
233 * gcc4 compilation fix.
234 * <BEL> (Ctrl-G) in message files now causes a beep.
235 * Reduce the command line to 511 characters; 1023 caused
236 memory overflows.
238 Changes in 3.08:
239 * SYSLINUX: Fix performance regression (-s mode always
240 enabled.)
241 * Add API function for idle loop.
242 * libutil: Add do_idle() function for idle loop, make
243 get_key() use it.
244 * libutil: Add SHA-1 and base64 functions.
245 * Simple menu system: add password support.
246 * EXTLINUX: Sparse files now handled correctly.
247 * EXTLINUX: Large directories now handled correctly.
248 * ALL: At the prompt, Ctrl-X now forces text mode.
249 * Fix configuration file parsing error, that could cause
250 hangs.
251 * Rewritten advanced menuing system from Murali Ganapathy.
252 * MEMDISK: New "bigraw" mode to work around certain broken
253 BIOS flash programs.
254 * COM32 module to boot Multiboot systems, including Xen. See
255 com32/modules/mboot.doc.
256 * Max command line changed to 1023 characters. Note that the
257 kernel proper still can only handle 255 characters without
258 patching, and COM16 binaries can only handle 125 characters.
260 Changes in 3.07:
261 * Fix chainloading (chain.c32).
262 * Fix zlib build problem.
263 * Use a private copy of <linux/ext2_fs.h>.
265 Changes in 3.06:
266 * Fix typo that caused the ramdisk to load in the wrong place.
268 Changes in 3.05:
269 * New API function "shuffle and boot"; allows COM32 modules to
270 load or construct (almost) arbitrarily complex objects,
271 e.g. a kernel and its initrd/initramfs in pieces, and have
272 the API core reorganize memory for booting. (A library API
273 for this function will be introduced in a later version.)
274 * The initrd= option now supports multiple filenames separated
275 by commas. This is mostly useful for initramfs, which can
276 be composed of multiple separate cpio or cpio.gz archives.
277 (Note: all files except the last one are zero-padded to a 4K
278 page boundary. This should not affect initramfs.)
279 * EXTLINUX: Fix API function 000Ah (get derivative-specific
280 info).
281 * libcom32/ethersel: Support PCI Config Mechanism #2 on
282 machines still infested with that hideous old hack.
283 * SYSLINUX: Fix directory-parsing bug.
285 Changes in 3.02:
286 * SYSLINUX: The "unix" installer now sets the MS-DOS
287 attributes (hidden, system, readonly.)
288 * COM32 library: build the .lnx (test modules for running
289 under Linux) as architecture native modules, in case
290 i386 devel libraries aren't installed.
291 * EXTLINUX: Hack for systems which don't have BLKGETSIZE64
292 defined in the standard header files.
293 * Simple menu system: minor aestetic improvements, and try to
294 work better over a serial console (speed, and readability on
295 monochrome terminal emulators.)
296 * New CONSOLE directive to control output on the video console
297 (useful for dealing with some broken serial-forwarding
298 BIOSes.)
299 * New com32 module "ethersel" for searching for an Ethernet
300 card and selecting the proper version of Etherboot.
301 * EXTLINUX: Allow the user to override the detected geometry.
302 Add help.
304 Changes in 3.01:
305 * EXTLINUX, SYSLINUX: Fix compile errors on some systems.
306 * EXTLINUX: Default to zipdrive geometry (64 heads, 32
307 sectors) if no other geometry can be detected.
309 Changes in 3.00:
310 * SYSLINUX: Support FAT32 and EDD. As an unfortunate
311 consequence, LDLINUX.SYS is no longer an ordinary file; it
312 is block-mapped at install time, which means it can only be
313 written using the syslinux installers.
314 * SYSLINUX: Reorganize the source code for the installers;
315 each one of the installers (dos, win32, unix, mtools) is now
316 built in its own subdirectory. In particular, "mtools" is
317 the unprivileged installer which uses mtools; "unix" is the
318 privileged installer which uses system calls.
319 * SYSLINUX: Completely rewritten DOS installer in C.
320 * ALL: "label" statement information is now stored in a
321 compressed format, which means that a lot more labels are
322 permitted (500-1000 in a typical configuration, but depends
323 on the complexity.)
324 * EXTLINUX: New derivative, which boots from an ext2/ext3
325 filesystem.
326 * SYSLINUX: The DOS and Win32 installers can now optionally
327 write the boot sector to a file instead of the real boot
328 sector. This is not supported in the Linux installers,
329 however.
330 * ALL: New NOESCAPE command, disables the "hold down the Shift
331 key to display the prompt" behaviour.
332 * New simple menu system, as an alternative to the advanced
333 menu system already present. See README.menu for details.
334 * PXELINUX: Filenames can now be prefixed with an IP address
335 or DNS name plus :: (e.g. 192.0.2.1::filename or
336 server.domain.com::filename), which downloads a file from an
337 alternate TFTP server, or just a :: (e.g. ::filename), which
338 suppresses the common pathname prefix. See pxelinux.doc.
339 * SYSLINUX: Add an -m option to the DOS and Win32 installers
340 to write an MBR and -a to mark the partition SYSLINUX is
341 being installed on active.
342 * MEMDISK: Give a way to query the boot loader type while
343 running MEMDISK; see memdisk/memdisk.doc and
344 sample/mdiskchk.c.
345 * mkdiskimage: substantially improved mkdiskimage which, among
346 other things, can now be used to initialize USB keys as
347 zipdrives; see README.usbkey for more information.
349 Changes in 2.13:
350 * MEMDISK: Fix command-line parsing "brown paper bag" class
351 bug.
352 * MEMDISK: Add "raw" mode to support the DOS boot disk from
353 WinME/XP, which seems to deliberately crash the system
354 when someone uses the "INT 15h mover" highmem API.
355 * Make "make install" do something sane for the com32
356 development environment.
357 * In the spec file, create a separate -devel RPM for the com32
358 development environment.
360 Changes in 2.12:
361 * Simple C library, based on klibc, for writing COM32
362 programs.
363 * Fix the handling of file length in loading of COM32
364 programs.
365 * MEMDISK: Work around a linker bug by rearranging the code to
366 not use the linker for the 16-bit code.
367 * SYSLINUX: If we're building on a machine without a Win32
368 (mingw) compiler, just skip building syslinux.exe.
369 * ISOLINUX: Support non-mkisofs mastering programs, at least
370 as long as the image is single-session. For best results,
371 ISOLINUX should be the only boot loader installed.
372 * MEMDISK: Allow the user to specify that the simulated disk
373 should be write-protected.
375 Changes in 2.11:
376 * ALL: Add an API call to get the configuration file name.
377 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in 2.10 that prevented it from working
378 correctly for a lot of people.
379 * SYSLINUX: In the installer, make mtools a bit less fussy.
380 * Make the menu system compile with newer gcc's.
382 Changes in 2.10:
383 * MEMDISK: Handle images compressed with zip as well as with
384 gzip. Some Windows-based image tools apparently generate
385 these kinds of images by default. Patch by Patrick
386 LoPresti.
387 * Major menu improvement from Murali Ganapathy.
388 * ISOLINUX: Wonderfully sick and brilliant workaround for
389 severe bugs in certain Award BIOSes; from Knut Petersen.
390 * SYSLINUX: Fix for the nomtools installed, from Frederic
391 Pasteleurs.
392 * PXELINUX: Fix handling of IP numbers in the ranges
393 100-109 and 200-209.
394 * ALL: New option "allowoptions" (defaults to 1), which
395 controls if options are allowed on the command line or not.
396 * SYSLINUX: Support building under klibc (see the klibc
397 distribution for details.)
399 Changes in 2.09:
400 * SYSLINUX: Remove residual setuid crap from
401 syslinux-nomtools.
402 * Handle video pages correctly when using the API functions.
403 * Handle compiling on an x86-64 platform correctly.
404 * Menu system from Murali Krishnan Ganapathy; see the menu
405 directory for information.
406 * COMBOOT: Allow COMBOOT programs to change screen text mode.
407 * COMBOOT: Correct the documentation of how to detect
408 SYSLINUX from COMBOOT!!!!
409 * COMBOOT: Fix "get key without echo" API function.
410 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug that affected the API open function.
411 * ALL: Improve the E820 memory parser, to work around some
412 buggy BIOSes.
414 Changes in 2.08:
415 * Add new configuration command "ontimeout" to allow timeout
416 to have a different action than just pressing Enter.
417 * Add new configuration command "onerror" to allow a custom
418 command to be executed in case the kernel image is not found.
419 * Fix bugs in the COMBOOT/COM32 command-line parsing. APPEND
420 now works with COMBOOT/COM32 images.
421 * PXELINUX: Poll for ARP requests while sitting at the
422 prompt. This makes some boot servers a lot less unhappy.
423 * PXELINUX: Actually free sockets when we get a failure
424 (including file not found.) This bug would cause us to run
425 out of sockets and thus "go deaf" after a while.
426 * MEMDISK: Add an API to query for the existence of MEMDISK.
427 * SYSLINUX: Fix loading boot sectors (.bs/.bss) from floppy
428 disk.
429 * .c32 is now one of the extensions searched for
430 automatically.
431 * PXELINUX: RFBG.exe seems to randomly overwrite memory
432 location 0x5700. Thus, don't use it!
433 * PXELINUX: Change pathname length max from 63 to 127; change
434 max vkernels from 128 to 64.
435 * Support Ctrl-U -> kill entire command line input.
436 * The "samples" directory contains a (barely at all tested)
437 chain loading example, chain.c32, which may be used to
438 chainload local floppy disks and hard disks. Use with
439 "chain fdN" or "chain hdN [partition]"; N = 0 for the first
440 drive of each type.
442 Changes in 2.07:
443 * MEMDISK: Workaround for BIOSes which go into a snit when
444 they get a RESET command for the floppy system when there is
445 no floppy in the system.
446 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend 2", which passes the hardware
447 address of the boot interface to the kernel as a
448 command-line option.
449 * mkdiskimage: fix the generation of the end limit.
450 * PXELINUX: Fix multiple bugs in chainloading of other NBPs.
451 * MEMDISK: Fix bug that would occationally cause "ran out of
452 input data" when using compressed disk images.
453 * SYSLINUX: Updates for the win32 installer (from Lars Munch.)
454 * PXELINUX: PXELINUX-specific options are now recognized both
455 in a vendor-option-space (a.k.a. type 43 encapsulated) as
456 well as in a site-option-space (unencapsulated.)
457 * COM32: Don't crash when DS != 0.
458 * COMBOOT/COM32: Make file reading work correctly. Thanks to
459 Phung Chi Kien for submitting a test program.
461 Changes in 2.06:
462 * ALL: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
463 boot failure, depending on the length of the kernel.
464 * ISOLINUX: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
465 boot failure, depending on the length of directories.
466 * SYSLINUX: Win32 installer now flushes buffers.
467 * ppmtolss16: Be fully compliant with the PNM spec;
468 actually process comments in the header and odd
469 alignments of the various parameters, as well as
470 "plain" (not raw) files and PBM and PGM files.
471 * PXELINUX: Lower the default MTU to 1472 in order to deal
472 with systems with slightly nonstandard MTUs, and PXE
473 stacks which don't defragment correctly. Unfortunately this
474 is very hard to test dynamically.
476 Changes in 2.05:
477 * PXELINUX: Add a default query based on the hardware address
478 of the boot device. This is in lower case hexadecimal form
479 separated by dashes and including the hardware type, for
480 example, the Ethernet (type 1) address 88:99:AA:BB:CC:DD
481 would query the file pxelinux.cfg/01-88-99-aa-bb-cc-dd.
482 * PXELINUX: Fix bug involving non-IP-based config file names.
483 * SYSLINUX: New installer for WinNT-based systems, from Lars
484 Munch.
485 * MEMDISK: Fix handling of memory region overlap when
486 decompressing. Thanks to Mikhail Kupchik for identifying
487 the problem.
489 Changes in 2.04:
490 * ALL: Reclaim even more low memory by observing that
491 comboot_seg == real_mode_seg is perfectly fine, and by the
492 fact that the 1000h segment managed to get unused in all
493 derivatives...
494 * PXELINUX: Attempt to negotiate full Ethernet-sized blocks
495 (1468 bytes) using the blksize option.
496 * SYSLINUX: Resurrect the old no-mtools version of the
497 installer, although as a root-only tool. Some distributors
498 have indicated that they need a small standalone installer.
499 * MEMDISK: Fix a memory offset computation error when
500 installing compressed disks which generally would cause
501 1 MB of memory to be wasted.
502 * MEMDISK: Fix installing the E820 memory map. Calling
503 INT 15h AX=0E820h with MEMDISK 2.03 loaded would give a
504 completely corrupt memory map.
505 * SYSLINUX: Make libsyslinux a dynamic library, so that it can
506 be updated separately from client programs. The whole idea,
507 after all, is to enable alternate programs to become
508 syslinux installers.
509 * Include an rpm spec file in the distribution, so rpmbuild
510 -ta works.
512 Changes in 2.03:
513 * Actually support comment lines in the configuration file.
514 * PXELINUX: Try to resolve some problems with stack switches.
515 * PXELINUX: Handle PXE stacks with broken routing.
516 With these workarounds, the remote install PXE boot floppy
517 (rbfg.exe) from Argon Technologies should work correctly.
518 * Fix problems with Perl scripts in UTF-8 locales.
519 * You probably need NASM 0.98.34 or later to compile this
520 version. 0.98.36 is recommended.
521 * MEMDISK: Now supports gzip compressed images.
523 Changes in 2.02:
524 * SYSLINUX: Security flaws have been found in the SYSLINUX
525 installer when running setuid root. Rewrite the SYSLINUX
526 installer so it uses mtools instead. It therefore now
527 requires mtools (specifically mcopy and mattrib) to exist on
528 your system, but it will not require root privileges and
529 SHOULD NOT be setuid.
531 Changes in 2.01:
532 * MEMDISK: Fix memory sizing bug when the ramdisk crosses the
533 16 MB boundary.
534 * MEMDISK: Add a "pause" option to stop immediately before
535 booting, to read off the messages.
536 * MEMDISK: Support disk images with DOSEMU headers.
537 * Update the mkdiskimage script to handle newer mtools
538 versions, and be able to generate disk images with DOSEMU
539 headers (controlled by the -d option).
540 * Fix the COM32 sample program.
541 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix some COMBOOT API calls.
542 * PXELINUX: Doc fix.
543 * Build SYSLINUX into a small library for encapsulation into
544 other programs (however, please keep in mind this is a GPL'd
545 library.)
546 * SYSLINUX: Make installer work with "owner" in /etc/fstab.
547 * SYSLINUX: Fix issue with working on nonpartitioned hard disk
548 devices. THIS CONFIGURATION IS NOT RECOMMENDED.
550 Changes in 2.00:
551 * ALL: Add support for "COM32" (32-bit COMBOOT) images.
552 * ALL: Add an API for COMBOOT/COM32 images. See comboot.doc
553 for details. There is a C development environment for
554 COM32 being created; it should be ready at some point in
555 the future.
556 * Fix mbr.asm so that it actually works.
557 * SYSLINUX: The syslinux installer *SHOULD* now be safe to
558 run setuid root.
559 * PXELINUX: Fix bug where PXELINUX would override random
560 chunks of the UNDI code segment! Thanks to Kevin Tran for
561 finding this bug.
562 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug related to slashes in pathnames.
563 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug in handling initrds over 128 MB.
564 * ALL: Make the <Ctrl-V> key print out the version; this is
565 to help debugging.
566 * Add a small script, mkdiskimage, to create a DOS-formatted
567 hard disk image using mtools. This may be useful in
568 conjunction with MEMDISK.
569 * ISOLINUX: Search for a /boot/isolinux directory as well as
570 /isolinux.
571 * ALL: Fix a bug related to very long configuration files.
572 * PXELINUX: Work around a NASM bug which would result in no
573 delay before reset if an error occurs.
575 Changes in 1.76:
576 * ISOLINUX: Remove code no longer used which caused hangs on
577 some Toshiba laptops.
579 Changes in 1.75:
580 * ALL: NASM 0.98.32 or later is now required to build
581 SYSLINUX from sources.
582 * SYSLINUX: put back in the workaround for the BIOS floppy
583 table. This seems to be a requirement for "extended" floppy
584 formats to work correctly.
585 * SYSLINUX: No longer warn if one is trying to boot on a 286
586 or older. The above BIOS workaround no longer fits if the
587 requirement to use only 8086-compatible code in the early
588 boot is maintained. It made sense in 1994, but in 2002 a
589 286 or older is a museum object.
590 * SYSLINUX: Use a downright bizarre, stateful algorithm to try
591 to guess the maximum transfer size. I am *hoping* this will
592 cut down on the number of systems for which -s is required
593 to work at any acceptable speed.
594 * ISOLINUX: Add a few more workarounds for various broken El
595 Torito BIOSes.
596 * Make sure .depend files aren't accidentally packed...
597 * ALL: Fix bugs in the extension-detect code; this caused
598 files like COMBOOT images and CD boot sectors to be
599 mis-identified as Linux kernels and rejected.
600 * ALL: Fix the return from COMBOOT.
601 * ALL: Do some of the early groundwork for supporting DOS
602 system calls in COMBOOT.
603 * Get rid of unnecessary "near" directives, making the code
604 bigger.
605 * PXELINUX: Put the PXE stack back in the init state before
606 invoking a chain-loaded NBP.
607 * PXELINUX: Actually found the combination of calls that
608 allows some (most?) PXE 2+ stacks to be unloaded from memory
609 properly.
610 * PXELINUX: Add "keeppxe" command-line option to disable
611 the standard unloading of the PXE stack.
613 Changes in 1.74:
614 * SYSLINUX: fix bug that would cause valid kernel images to be
615 labelled "invalid".
617 Changes in 1.73:
618 * Work on removing gratuitous differences between modules.
619 * Break up the source in common and module-specific files.
620 * PXELINUX: Allow chaining of other PXE NBPs.
621 * ISOLINUX: Allow loading "CD-ROM boot sectors".
622 * ALL: generalize the definition of a boot sector/NBP.
624 Changes in 1.72:
625 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix bugs in the new core code.
627 Changes in 1.71:
628 * Fix a "brown paper bag" class bug in the new core code.
630 Changes in 1.70:
631 * Major code restructuring.
632 * Relax the conventional memory limits somewhat.
633 * MEMDISK: Set up the "version number string" pointer in the
634 header correctly.
635 * SYSLINUX: Fix, again, "the bug that won't die": the use of
636 the offset parameter with the SYSLINUX installer.
637 * SYSLINUX: Fix possible superblock corruption problem in the
638 SYSLINUX installer.
640 Changes in 1.67:
641 * Handle bug in the location of initrd.
643 Changes in 1.66:
644 * MEMDISK: Make compile with newer versions of gcc.
646 Changes in 1.65:
647 * ISOLINUX: Support booting disk image files (to boot DOS or
648 other non-Linux operating systems), *IF* the BIOS works
649 correctly; unfortunately many BIOSes apparently don't.
650 * Support Linux boot protocol version 2.03 (explicitly
651 specify the initrd address limit.)
652 * Handle small "pseudo-kernels"; images that use the Linux
653 kernel boot protocols but are less than 64K in size.
654 * MEMDISK: New subsystem; this is a driver which allows
655 legacy OSes to boot using an in-memory simulated disk.
656 See memdisk/memdisk.doc for more info.
657 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Correctly handle files larger than 65535
658 blocks (32 MB for PXELINUX, 128 MB for ISOLINUX.)
659 * PXELINUX: Make a best-effort attempt at freeing all memory
660 claimed. From the looks of it, it will fail on most PXE
661 stacks.
663 Changes in 1.64:
664 * Limited support for hardware flow control when using a
665 serial port console.
666 * Support specifying the serial port I/O address explicitly.
667 * Make DOS installer hopefully behave more nicely when used on
668 recent Windows versions.
669 * Fix returning to text mode when a font has been specified.
670 * Attempt to detect missing serial port hardware and disable
671 the serial port if there is nothing there.
673 Changes in 1.63:
674 * Make the ppmtolss16 program handle color conversion more
675 correctly.
676 * Clean up "make install" target, honour INSTALLROOT if it
677 exists.
678 * SYSLINUX: Fix stack-smash bug identified by Steffen
679 Winterfeldt.
680 * Hopefully fix return-to-text-mode on some graphics cards.
681 * ISOLINUX: Bug workaround for Award BIOS 4.51, and perhaps
682 other buggy BIOSes as well.
684 Changes in 1.62:
685 * PXELINUX: Allow the DHCP server to override the
686 configuration file name and pathname prefix, using
687 "site-specific" DHCP options.
688 * PXELINUX: Documentation fixes.
689 * PXELINUX: Fix the "ipappend" option; the last two values
690 were reversed vs. what the kernel expected.
691 * Introduce a way to return to text mode once we are already
692 in graphics mode. This may be useful for F-key help
693 screens.
694 * Fix several bugs in the way return to text mode was handled.
696 Changes in 1.61:
697 * ISOLINUX: Support full pathname searches. Max length for a
698 pathname is 255 characters. As a result, only 64 "label"
699 statements are supported in ISOLINUX.
700 * PXELINUX: Max filename length extended to 63 characters.
702 Changes in 1.60:
703 * Add support for graphical splash screens.
704 * Add mode control characters, which allows you to control
705 message display output depending on output mode (text,
706 graphics, or serial port.)
707 * ISOLINUX: New program, which boots Linux from a CD-ROM
708 without using floppy emulation mode. See isolinux.doc for
709 more details.
710 * PXELINUX: Don't search for boot sector file types, since
711 they don't work anyway.
712 * SYSLINUX: Document the LOCK command for Win9x, and the error
713 dialog box for WinNT/2K.
715 Changes in 1.54:
716 * PXELINUX: Fix code for finding !PXE from PXENV+. This was
717 due to a spec bug; match the most recent spec since that
718 seems to be what implementations actually do.
719 * SYSLINUX: Add some smarts to the boot sector, which
720 hopefully should reduce the number of systems which require
721 stupid mode ("syslinux -s").
722 * PXELINUX: Document further some of the pathologies with old
723 PXE stacks.
724 * When specifying a "default" command line, no longer
725 automatically appent "auto". See the "DEFAULT" command in
726 syslinux.doc for more information.
727 * PXELINUX: Clean up the allocation of local socket numbers.
729 Changes in 1.53:
730 * PXELINUX: Rename pxelinux.bin to pxelinux.0, to match what
731 most PXE servers seem to expect.
732 * PXELINUX: Update the DHCP/boot server setup documentation.
733 * PXELINUX: Support new "localboot" option for "label"
734 sections.
735 * PXELINUX: More robust parsing of DHCP/boot server packets.
736 * PXELINUX: Include a small utility program "gethostip" to
737 compute hexadecimal IP addresses.
739 Changes in 1.52:
740 * PXELINUX: Fix bugs introduced by new A20 code. (SYSLINUX
741 has also been changed for code consistency reasons, but I'm
742 pretty sure the changes are don't care on SYSLINUX.)
743 * Documentation updates.
744 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend" option to generate an ip= option to
745 the kernel.
747 Changes in 1.51:
748 * PXELINUX: Not all PXE stacks fill in the IP address for a
749 type 3 cached info query. Use a type 2 cached info query
750 for this information (only.)
751 * Yet another attempt at A20 coding. Now support BIOS call
752 15:2401 as well, and handle machines which always have A20
753 on separately.
754 * Support memory detection using INT 15h, AX=0E820h. BIOS
755 manufacturers have apparently gotten sloppy about keeping
756 INT 15h, AX=0E801h working properly.
757 * Don't issue <CR><LF> onto the serial port when we're doing
758 screen wraparound.
760 Changes in 1.50:
761 * Yet another A20-code update. It seems some "legacy-free"
762 machines and embedded gear simply don't have a KBC to talk
763 to, and that waiting for one will wait forever. Sigh.
765 Changes in 1.49:
766 * SYSLINUX: Implement a hack for BIOS drivers which hog significant
767 chunks of low memory during boot. (Note: PXELINUX already
768 had this modification. SYSLINUX does still require that the
769 low 512K is available; PXELINUX requires 384K. Machines
770 with a physical memory hole in the low 640K cannot boot
771 Linux no matter what.) Depending what the reason is for the
772 memory hole, a new kernel (2.4.0-test3-pre3 or later) may be
773 required.
774 * SYSLINUX: Default installer binary now compiled against
775 glibc 2.1. If this is inappropriate for your system and you
776 still want to use the offical version of SYSLINUX, please
777 follow the instructions in "distrib.doc" to rebuild the
778 installer.
779 * SYSLINUX: Linux installer program now supports -o <offset>
780 option which does a loopback mount with the
781 -o loop,offset=<> option. Useful to run SYSLINUX on an
782 individual partition of a whole-harddisk image.
783 * Include the source code to a Master Boot Record (MBR)
784 functionally equivalent to the one installed DOS except it
785 includes EBIOS support, and should be resistant to geometry
786 changes. The MBR code is public domain.
787 * PXELINUX: Fix "double p" bug: if the tftp prefix was null,
788 all filenames would get a "p" preprended, e.g.
789 "ppxelinux.cfg" and "pvmlinux".
791 Changes in 1.48:
792 * PXELINUX: Workaround for PXE ROMs based on the Intel PXE PDK
793 3.0 build 071 and earlier: missing !PXE structure pointer.
794 * PXELINUX: Handle larger BOOTP/DHCP packages.
795 * PXELINUX: The command line passing was broken; fix.
796 * PXELINUX: Make COMBOOT images work.
797 * PXELINUX: Documentation on how to make booting work using
798 the PDK 3.0-derived clients, which aren't so generous as to
799 allow booting with only "PXEClient" specified.
801 Changes in 1.47:
802 * PXELINUX: RFC 1123 states that a TFTP implementation MUST
803 use adaptive timeout, "at least an exponential backoff of
804 retransmission timeout is necessary." Implement a very
805 simple exponential backoff for retransmits.
806 * PXELINUX: Updated documentation, including pointer to new
807 TFTP server.
808 * PXELINUX: When sending ERROR due to bad OACK, use the proper
809 destination port number (why are TFTP port numbers so odd?)
810 * PXELINUX: If the boot dies in the middle somewhere,
811 eventually give up and reset the machine (unattended
812 operation.)
814 Changes in 1.46:
815 * New program PXELINUX to do network booting using a
816 PXE-compliant (Pre-Execution Environment) network booting
817 PROM. See pxelinux.doc for details.
819 Changes in 1.45:
820 * Serial console support. See syslinux.doc for details.
822 Changes in 1.44:
823 * Change HIGHMEM_MAX to 38000000h to (hopefully) avoid the
824 kernel stepping on it; 3f000000h was apparently a higher
825 limit than the kernel used!
827 Changes in 1.43:
828 * Add sys2ansi.pl script to display the contents of a
829 colorized SYSLINUX file.
830 * Changed the io_delay once again, after a report that the
831 old delay port causes hangs on some systems.
833 Changes in 1.42:
834 * Frob the "fast A20 gate" port as well as the keyboard
835 controller; will this help systems with problems?
836 * Be even more paranoid about A20, unfortunately even this
837 seems to be not paranoid enough... what I don't understand
838 is that if there is hardware out there *this broken*, how
839 can it run Linux at all? Report an error message rather
840 than hang forever if A20 is stuck.
841 * Include some intermediate files in the distribution, plus
842 provide a "make installer" target for distributors to relink
843 the install programs only. I would prefer the syslinux boot
844 loader proper to be "binary clean" for debuggablity -- use
845 "make clean ; make installer" to rebuild the installers only.
847 Changes in 1.41:
848 * Don't get confused by directories, volume labels, or VFAT
849 long names.
850 * Use INT 15h, AX=0E801h to query memory size before trying
851 INT 15h, AH=88h. This not only provides more headroom
852 between the kernel and the initrd on large-memory machines,
853 but it appears some recent BIOSes actually have started
854 returning garbage for the AH=88h (older) call.
855 * Trust high memory beyond the 15 MB mark if the user has
856 specified it, or if obtained with INT 15h, AH=0E801h (with
857 no memory holes above 1 MB.)
859 Changes in 1.40:
860 * Increase A20M delay and put in a test to avoid problems on
861 certain IBM Thinkpads (thanks to Donnie Barnes of RedHat
862 for vital info on this one.)
863 * Support COMBOOT style boot command images.
864 * Support chain loading (foreign operating systems, e.g. DOS).
865 * Include a new "copybs" DOS utility to copy a boot sector to
866 a file (under Linux, use "dd".)
867 * Fix the DOS installer to work for disks over 32 MB.
868 * SYSLINUX should now handle disks with more than 65536 tracks.
870 Changes in 1.37:
871 * Fix a bug that caused "label" statements in syslinux.cfg to
872 not be handled properly.
873 * Updated the documentation. Among other things, we now allow
874 up to 128 "label" statements.
876 Changes in 1.36:
877 * Fix for booting old (pre-initrd) kernels.
878 * It seems at least some versions of OS/2 doesn't set up all
879 the fields in the superblock correctly. Account for that.
880 * Fix bug that caused boot failure when using the mem= option.
882 Changes in 1.35:
883 * Loading from partitions now should work properly. (Actually
884 tested, this time. You should even be able to dd a floppy
885 to a partition and boot from it.)
886 * Removed large workaround code for an alleged ancient BIOS
887 bug I have never actually seen. The -s option should work
888 on those machines, anyway.
889 * Support for simple keyboard remappings, same as used by
890 LILO (once again to support localization.) The program
891 keytab-lilo.pl from the LILO distribution included to
892 generate such maps.
893 * Added a "safe, slow and stupid" (-s) option to the
894 installers. This option will lobotomize the boot sector to
895 hopefully work on even very buggy BIOSes.
897 Changes in 1.34:
898 * Ability to load a VGA font on bootup (for localized Linux
899 distributions.)
901 Changes in 1.33:
902 * Bug fix in the Linux installer.
903 * Added a workaround for a bug in certain AMI/Intel BIOSes
904 when booting from CD-ROM.
905 * Documentation changes.
907 Changes in 1.32:
908 * FAT16 filesystems are now supported.
910 Changes in 1.31:
911 * Now compiles under Linux, using NASM, rather than using
912 Turbo Assembler under DOS. See http://www.cryogen.com/Nasm
913 for information about NASM.
914 * Linux-hosted SYSLINUX installer, as well as a
915 rewritten DOS installer (now is written in assembler, so we
916 don't need Turbo C.)
918 Changes in 1.30:
919 * Added support for loading bzImage and initrd loading, and made
920 SYSLINUX new-setup-code aware (SYSLINUX 1.30 id=0x31).
921 * Added LILO-style kernel labels; see the LABEL and IMPLICIT
922 keywords in README file.
923 * Added support for colorization of intro and help screens.
924 * The vga= option is now handled correctly.
925 * Massive rewrite of large chunks of the code in order to
926 support the first two new features.
928 Changes in 1.20:
929 * Added simple online help at the "boot:" prompt.
930 * Removed 2880K image as I no longer have access to such a
931 floppy drive. (Donations accepted!!)
932 * Decided to distribute the source in a subdirectory rather
933 than in a nested zipfile.
935 Changes in 1.11:
936 * Removed a sanity check which would cause booting to fail on
937 Phoenix BIOS version 4.03. Apparently this BIOS is buggy.
939 Changes in 1.10:
940 * Added configuration file SYSLINUX.CFG. This file contains all
941 configurable options, and can be edited from any OS which can
942 access an MS-DOS filesystem; there is no longer a need to run
943 SYSLINUX.EXE except to write the boot sector.
944 * Default command line now given by "default" line in config
945 file.
946 * LINUXMSG.TXT and BOOTMSG.TXT hard-coded file names replaced by
947 "display" and "prompt" lines in config file.
948 * LILO-style option appending now supported ("append" line in
949 config file).
950 * Prompt timeout is now supported ("timeout" line in config
951 file). The timeout is cancelled when anything is typed on the
952 command line.
953 * Pressing <ESC> or <Ctrl-C> at the Loading... stage now aborts
954 the kernel loading in progress and returns the user to the
955 boot: prompt.
956 * The installer now automatically sets the READONLY flag on
957 LDLINUX.SYS.
958 * Added 2880K disk image.
960 Changes in 1.03:
961 * Fixed bug that would prevent booting from double-density
962 floppies and other DOS filesystems with multiple sectors per
963 cluster.
964 * Added 720K disk image.
965 * Changed default kernel name on disk images to LINUX.
967 Changes in 1.02:
968 * Fixed bug that would garble the command line on recent kernels
969 with more than 4 sectors of setup code (this wasn't really a
970 *bug*; rather, a kernel change broke the code. Unfortunately
971 the Linux boot interface is still sorely undocumented).
972 * Added BOOTMSG.TXT file support (message file which does not
973 force display of the boot prompt).
975 Changes in 1.01:
976 * Fixed bug on some (most?) 386 BIOSes would require two boot
977 attempts.