| blob | 3b17d5b45ee230d470639438d9141de47a6cf451 |
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 3.40:
6 * New keywords allow the type of file to be specified in the
7 configuration file.
8 * It is now supported to load a different configuration file
9 with the CONFIG keyword.
10 * Fix API call 0x0019 (Read Disk.)
11 * MENU AUTOBOOT, MENU TABMSG, MENU PASSPROMPT allows
12 internationalization of menu messages.
14 Changes in 3.36:
15 * MEMDISK: Disable EDD by default on floppy disks. EDD can be
16 enabled with the "edd" option and disabled with "noedd".
17 This (hopefully) should make Ghost work again.
18 * SYSLINUX: "unix" installer now uses Linux ioctls instead of
19 using libfat.
20 * New MBR which can boot from logical partitions.
21 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in detecting special extensions which was
22 introduced in 3.35 :(
23 * PXELINUX: Unbreak chainbooting FreeBSD (and possibly others.)
25 Changes in 3.35:
26 * MEMDISK: New "safeint" mode.
27 * MEMDISK: Be more compliant with the PnP BIOS spec.
28 * MEMDISK: Turn on EDD support by default.
29 * MEMDISK: Try to work on some machines on which it would not
30 work when there was no floppy drive in the system.
31 * Simple menu system: fix serial console support (broken in
32 3.30).
33 * SYSLINUX: Support subdirectories. Like ISOLINUX, the
34 "current directory" is the directory in which syslinux.cfg
35 is found; this is searched for in the sequence
36 /boot/syslinux, /syslinux, /. As a side benefit, label names
37 like "linux-2.6.18" and "linux-2.6.19" are now supported.
39 To install ldlinux.sys in a subdirectory, pass the -d
40 directory option to the SYSLINUX installer.
42 This work was sponsored by slax.org (thanks, Tomas!)
43 * New API call: read disk.
44 * Invoke ONERROR on initrd load failure.
46 Changes in 3.31:
47 * The simple menu system (menu.c32 and vesamenu.c32) now
48 support loading more than one configuration file at a time,
49 using MENU INCLUDE or by specifying multiple filenames.
50 * The MENU COLOR statement can now control the shadowing mode.
52 Changes in 3.30:
53 * libcom32 extended to support graphics mode and graphical console.
54 * vesamenu.c32, new graphical version of the Simple
55 Menu System, see README.menu.
56 * New com32 modules by Erwan Velu do selection based on CPUID
57 or PCI devices present.
58 * RPM spec: add syslinux-tftpboot module; move syslinux by
59 default to the /usr/share/syslinux directory.
60 * RPM spec: extlinux is now a separate package.
62 Changes in 3.20:
63 * EXTLINUX: New options --install (-i) and --update (-U), to
64 make it clear if a boot loader should be installed or
65 updated. For now, defaults to --install for compatibility;
66 a future version will require one of these options.
67 * New library functions to load and place files in memory.
68 * mboot.c32 bug fixes.
69 * Remove 8 MB kernel size restriction.
70 * Add "klibc" target for building unix/syslinux and
71 extlinux/extlinux with klcc (klibc-1.4.27 or later.)
72 * PXELINUX: Fail (and eventually reboot) if no configuration
73 file was found.
74 * COM32 module by Erwan Velu to make decisions based on DMI
75 info.
76 * Fix issue where going back and forth between menus a lot
77 would cause a hang.
78 * ISOLINUX: Fix bug which made "cd boot sectors" not work.
80 Changes in 3.11:
81 * MEMDISK: Fix bug by which accessing the real floppy disk
82 as B: in MS-DOS was broken.
83 * Simple menu system: allow tweaking of the screen layout.
84 * Simple menu system: better command-line editing, correctly
85 handle command lines above 256 characters.
86 * PXELINUX: revert memory allocation change that caused
87 problems on some network cards.
88 * MEMDISK: Try work around a bug on some BIOSes when no
89 physical floppy disk is present in the system.
90 * Enable the 16550A FIFOs, if present, when doing serial
91 console.
92 * New "totaltimeout" command establishes a timeout without
93 regard for any user input.
94 * Simple menu system: timeout behaviour now more in line with
95 user expectations.
96 * Simple menu system: "ontimeout" should now work correctly.
98 Changes in 3.10:
99 * gcc 4.0.1 compilation fixes.
100 * Add support for querying the PCI BIOS in libcom32
101 (used by ethersel et al.)
102 * Fix PCI handing (ethersel etc) on several old chipsets (and
103 VMWare.)
104 * Try to deal with systems with broken EBIOS.
105 * New API call to do "localboot".
106 * New API call to query features.
107 * New API call to run kernel image, a lower-level call than
108 "run command". See comboot.doc.
109 * Fix for bug in EBIOS code discovered by Arwin Vosselman.
110 * NOESCAPE security fix.
111 * Comments are now recognized even without a space following #.
112 * Fix incorrect handling of mixes of entries with and without
113 MENU PASSWD.
114 * The idle API call now harmlessly returns failure if it is a
115 no-op. That way the caller can decide whether or not to
116 bother invoking it again.
117 * Temporarily disable the idle API call on PXELINUX, due to
118 some platforms on which the idle API call seems to hang; this
119 problem has not yet been debugged.
120 * MEMDISK: the handling of DOSEMU-headered images was broken;
121 fix it.
122 * EXTLINUX: symlinks are now supported.
123 * Simple menu system: N and P now work correctly as hotkeys.
124 * MEMDISK: more BIOS bug workarounds.
126 Changes in 3.09:
127 * gcc4 compilation fix.
128 * <BEL> (Ctrl-G) in message files now causes a beep.
129 * Reduce the command line to 511 characters; 1023 caused
130 memory overflows.
132 Changes in 3.08:
133 * SYSLINUX: Fix performance regression (-s mode always
134 enabled.)
135 * Add API function for idle loop.
136 * libutil: Add do_idle() function for idle loop, make
137 get_key() use it.
138 * libutil: Add SHA-1 and base64 functions.
139 * Simple menu system: add password support.
140 * EXTLINUX: Sparse files now handled correctly.
141 * EXTLINUX: Large directories now handled correctly.
142 * ALL: At the prompt, Ctrl-X now forces text mode.
143 * Fix configuration file parsing error, that could cause
144 hangs.
145 * Rewritten advanced menuing system from Murali Ganapathy.
146 * MEMDISK: New "bigraw" mode to work around certain broken
147 BIOS flash programs.
148 * COM32 module to boot Multiboot systems, including Xen. See
149 com32/modules/mboot.doc.
150 * Max command line changed to 1023 characters. Note that the
151 kernel proper still can only handle 255 characters without
152 patching, and COM16 binaries can only handle 125 characters.
154 Changes in 3.07:
155 * Fix chainloading (chain.c32).
156 * Fix zlib build problem.
157 * Use a private copy of <linux/ext2_fs.h>.
159 Changes in 3.06:
160 * Fix typo that caused the ramdisk to load in the wrong place.
162 Changes in 3.05:
163 * New API function "shuffle and boot"; allows COM32 modules to
164 load or construct (almost) arbitrarily complex objects,
165 e.g. a kernel and its initrd/initramfs in pieces, and have
166 the API core reorganize memory for booting. (A library API
167 for this function will be introduced in a later version.)
168 * The initrd= option now supports multiple filenames separated
169 by commas. This is mostly useful for initramfs, which can
170 be composed of multiple separate cpio or cpio.gz archives.
171 (Note: all files except the last one are zero-padded to a 4K
172 page boundary. This should not affect initramfs.)
173 * EXTLINUX: Fix API function 000Ah (get derivative-specific
174 info).
175 * libcom32/ethersel: Support PCI Config Mechanism #2 on
176 machines still infested with that hideous old hack.
177 * SYSLINUX: Fix directory-parsing bug.
179 Changes in 3.02:
180 * SYSLINUX: The "unix" installer now sets the MS-DOS
181 attributes (hidden, system, readonly.)
182 * COM32 library: build the .lnx (test modules for running
183 under Linux) as architecture native modules, in case
184 i386 devel libraries aren't installed.
185 * EXTLINUX: Hack for systems which don't have BLKGETSIZE64
186 defined in the standard header files.
187 * Simple menu system: minor aestetic improvements, and try to
188 work better over a serial console (speed, and readability on
189 monochrome terminal emulators.)
190 * New CONSOLE directive to control output on the video console
191 (useful for dealing with some broken serial-forwarding
192 BIOSes.)
193 * New com32 module "ethersel" for searching for an Ethernet
194 card and selecting the proper version of Etherboot.
195 * EXTLINUX: Allow the user to override the detected geometry.
196 Add help.
198 Changes in 3.01:
199 * EXTLINUX, SYSLINUX: Fix compile errors on some systems.
200 * EXTLINUX: Default to zipdrive geometry (64 heads, 32
201 sectors) if no other geometry can be detected.
203 Changes in 3.00:
204 * SYSLINUX: Support FAT32 and EDD. As an unfortunate
205 consequence, LDLINUX.SYS is no longer an ordinary file; it
206 is block-mapped at install time, which means it can only be
207 written using the syslinux installers.
208 * SYSLINUX: Reorganize the source code for the installers;
209 each one of the installers (dos, win32, unix, mtools) is now
210 built in its own subdirectory. In particular, "mtools" is
211 the unprivileged installer which uses mtools; "unix" is the
212 privileged installer which uses system calls.
213 * SYSLINUX: Completely rewritten DOS installer in C.
214 * ALL: "label" statement information is now stored in a
215 compressed format, which means that a lot more labels are
216 permitted (500-1000 in a typical configuration, but depends
217 on the complexity.)
218 * EXTLINUX: New derivative, which boots from an ext2/ext3
219 filesystem.
220 * SYSLINUX: The DOS and Win32 installers can now optionally
221 write the boot sector to a file instead of the real boot
222 sector. This is not supported in the Linux installers,
223 however.
224 * ALL: New NOESCAPE command, disables the "hold down the Shift
225 key to display the prompt" behaviour.
226 * New simple menu system, as an alternative to the advanced
227 menu system already present. See README.menu for details.
228 * PXELINUX: Filenames can now be prefixed with an IP address
229 or DNS name plus :: (e.g. 192.0.2.1::filename or
230 server.domain.com::filename), which downloads a file from an
231 alternate TFTP server, or just a :: (e.g. ::filename), which
232 suppresses the common pathname prefix. See pxelinux.doc.
233 * SYSLINUX: Add an -m option to the DOS and Win32 installers
234 to write an MBR and -a to mark the partition SYSLINUX is
235 being installed on active.
236 * MEMDISK: Give a way to query the boot loader type while
237 running MEMDISK; see memdisk/memdisk.doc and
238 sample/mdiskchk.c.
239 * mkdiskimage: substantially improved mkdiskimage which, among
240 other things, can now be used to initialize USB keys as
241 zipdrives; see README.usbkey for more information.
243 Changes in 2.13:
244 * MEMDISK: Fix command-line parsing "brown paper bag" class
245 bug.
246 * MEMDISK: Add "raw" mode to support the DOS boot disk from
247 WinME/XP, which seems to deliberately crash the system
248 when someone uses the "INT 15h mover" highmem API.
249 * Make "make install" do something sane for the com32
250 development environment.
251 * In the spec file, create a separate -devel RPM for the com32
252 development environment.
254 Changes in 2.12:
255 * Simple C library, based on klibc, for writing COM32
256 programs.
257 * Fix the handling of file length in loading of COM32
258 programs.
259 * MEMDISK: Work around a linker bug by rearranging the code to
260 not use the linker for the 16-bit code.
261 * SYSLINUX: If we're building on a machine without a Win32
262 (mingw) compiler, just skip building syslinux.exe.
263 * ISOLINUX: Support non-mkisofs mastering programs, at least
264 as long as the image is single-session. For best results,
265 ISOLINUX should be the only boot loader installed.
266 * MEMDISK: Allow the user to specify that the simulated disk
267 should be write-protected.
269 Changes in 2.11:
270 * ALL: Add an API call to get the configuration file name.
271 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in 2.10 that prevented it from working
272 correctly for a lot of people.
273 * SYSLINUX: In the installer, make mtools a bit less fussy.
274 * Make the menu system compile with newer gcc's.
276 Changes in 2.10:
277 * MEMDISK: Handle images compressed with zip as well as with
278 gzip. Some Windows-based image tools apparently generate
279 these kinds of images by default. Patch by Patrick
280 LoPresti.
281 * Major menu improvement from Murali Ganapathy.
282 * ISOLINUX: Wonderfully sick and brilliant workaround for
283 severe bugs in certain Award BIOSes; from Knut Petersen.
284 * SYSLINUX: Fix for the nomtools installed, from Frederic
285 Pasteleurs.
286 * PXELINUX: Fix handling of IP numbers in the ranges
287 100-109 and 200-209.
288 * ALL: New option "allowoptions" (defaults to 1), which
289 controls if options are allowed on the command line or not.
290 * SYSLINUX: Support building under klibc (see the klibc
291 distribution for details.)
293 Changes in 2.09:
294 * SYSLINUX: Remove residual setuid crap from
295 syslinux-nomtools.
296 * Handle video pages correctly when using the API functions.
297 * Handle compiling on an x86-64 platform correctly.
298 * Menu system from Murali Krishnan Ganapathy; see the menu
299 directory for information.
300 * COMBOOT: Allow COMBOOT programs to change screen text mode.
301 * COMBOOT: Correct the documentation of how to detect
302 SYSLINUX from COMBOOT!!!!
303 * COMBOOT: Fix "get key without echo" API function.
304 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug that affected the API open function.
305 * ALL: Improve the E820 memory parser, to work around some
306 buggy BIOSes.
308 Changes in 2.08:
309 * Add new configuration command "ontimeout" to allow timeout
310 to have a different action than just pressing Enter.
311 * Add new configuration command "onerror" to allow a custom
312 command to be executed in case the kernel image is not found.
313 * Fix bugs in the COMBOOT/COM32 command-line parsing. APPEND
314 now works with COMBOOT/COM32 images.
315 * PXELINUX: Poll for ARP requests while sitting at the
316 prompt. This makes some boot servers a lot less unhappy.
317 * PXELINUX: Actually free sockets when we get a failure
318 (including file not found.) This bug would cause us to run
319 out of sockets and thus "go deaf" after a while.
320 * MEMDISK: Add an API to query for the existence of MEMDISK.
321 * SYSLINUX: Fix loading boot sectors (.bs/.bss) from floppy
322 disk.
323 * .c32 is now one of the extensions searched for
324 automatically.
325 * PXELINUX: RFBG.exe seems to randomly overwrite memory
326 location 0x5700. Thus, don't use it!
327 * PXELINUX: Change pathname length max from 63 to 127; change
328 max vkernels from 128 to 64.
329 * Support Ctrl-U -> kill entire command line input.
330 * The "samples" directory contains a (barely at all tested)
331 chain loading example, chain.c32, which may be used to
332 chainload local floppy disks and hard disks. Use with
333 "chain fdN" or "chain hdN [partition]"; N = 0 for the first
334 drive of each type.
336 Changes in 2.07:
337 * MEMDISK: Workaround for BIOSes which go into a snit when
338 they get a RESET command for the floppy system when there is
339 no floppy in the system.
340 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend 2", which passes the hardware
341 address of the boot interface to the kernel as a
342 command-line option.
343 * mkdiskimage: fix the generation of the end limit.
344 * PXELINUX: Fix multiple bugs in chainloading of other NBPs.
345 * MEMDISK: Fix bug that would occationally cause "ran out of
346 input data" when using compressed disk images.
347 * SYSLINUX: Updates for the win32 installer (from Lars Munch.)
348 * PXELINUX: PXELINUX-specific options are now recognized both
349 in a vendor-option-space (a.k.a. type 43 encapsulated) as
350 well as in a site-option-space (unencapsulated.)
351 * COM32: Don't crash when DS != 0.
352 * COMBOOT/COM32: Make file reading work correctly. Thanks to
353 Phung Chi Kien for submitting a test program.
355 Changes in 2.06:
356 * ALL: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
357 boot failure, depending on the length of the kernel.
358 * ISOLINUX: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
359 boot failure, depending on the length of directories.
360 * SYSLINUX: Win32 installer now flushes buffers.
361 * ppmtolss16: Be fully compliant with the PNM spec;
362 actually process comments in the header and odd
363 alignments of the various parameters, as well as
364 "plain" (not raw) files and PBM and PGM files.
365 * PXELINUX: Lower the default MTU to 1472 in order to deal
366 with systems with slightly nonstandard MTUs, and PXE
367 stacks which don't defragment correctly. Unfortunately this
368 is very hard to test dynamically.
370 Changes in 2.05:
371 * PXELINUX: Add a default query based on the hardware address
372 of the boot device. This is in lower case hexadecimal form
373 separated by dashes and including the hardware type, for
374 example, the Ethernet (type 1) address 88:99:AA:BB:CC:DD
375 would query the file pxelinux.cfg/01-88-99-aa-bb-cc-dd.
376 * PXELINUX: Fix bug involving non-IP-based config file names.
377 * SYSLINUX: New installer for WinNT-based systems, from Lars
378 Munch.
379 * MEMDISK: Fix handling of memory region overlap when
380 decompressing. Thanks to Mikhail Kupchik for identifying
381 the problem.
383 Changes in 2.04:
384 * ALL: Reclaim even more low memory by observing that
385 comboot_seg == real_mode_seg is perfectly fine, and by the
386 fact that the 1000h segment managed to get unused in all
387 derivatives...
388 * PXELINUX: Attempt to negotiate full Ethernet-sized blocks
389 (1468 bytes) using the blksize option.
390 * SYSLINUX: Resurrect the old no-mtools version of the
391 installer, although as a root-only tool. Some distributors
392 have indicated that they need a small standalone installer.
393 * MEMDISK: Fix a memory offset computation error when
394 installing compressed disks which generally would cause
395 1 MB of memory to be wasted.
396 * MEMDISK: Fix installing the E820 memory map. Calling
397 INT 15h AX=0E820h with MEMDISK 2.03 loaded would give a
398 completely corrupt memory map.
399 * SYSLINUX: Make libsyslinux a dynamic library, so that it can
400 be updated separately from client programs. The whole idea,
401 after all, is to enable alternate programs to become
402 syslinux installers.
403 * Include an rpm spec file in the distribution, so rpmbuild
404 -ta works.
406 Changes in 2.03:
407 * Actually support comment lines in the configuration file.
408 * PXELINUX: Try to resolve some problems with stack switches.
409 * PXELINUX: Handle PXE stacks with broken routing.
410 With these workarounds, the remote install PXE boot floppy
411 (rbfg.exe) from Argon Technologies should work correctly.
412 * Fix problems with Perl scripts in UTF-8 locales.
413 * You probably need NASM 0.98.34 or later to compile this
414 version. 0.98.36 is recommended.
415 * MEMDISK: Now supports gzip compressed images.
417 Changes in 2.02:
418 * SYSLINUX: Security flaws have been found in the SYSLINUX
419 installer when running setuid root. Rewrite the SYSLINUX
420 installer so it uses mtools instead. It therefore now
421 requires mtools (specifically mcopy and mattrib) to exist on
422 your system, but it will not require root privileges and
423 SHOULD NOT be setuid.
425 Changes in 2.01:
426 * MEMDISK: Fix memory sizing bug when the ramdisk crosses the
427 16 MB boundary.
428 * MEMDISK: Add a "pause" option to stop immediately before
429 booting, to read off the messages.
430 * MEMDISK: Support disk images with DOSEMU headers.
431 * Update the mkdiskimage script to handle newer mtools
432 versions, and be able to generate disk images with DOSEMU
433 headers (controlled by the -d option).
434 * Fix the COM32 sample program.
435 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix some COMBOOT API calls.
436 * PXELINUX: Doc fix.
437 * Build SYSLINUX into a small library for encapsulation into
438 other programs (however, please keep in mind this is a GPL'd
439 library.)
440 * SYSLINUX: Make installer work with "owner" in /etc/fstab.
441 * SYSLINUX: Fix issue with working on nonpartitioned hard disk
442 devices. THIS CONFIGURATION IS NOT RECOMMENDED.
444 Changes in 2.00:
445 * ALL: Add support for "COM32" (32-bit COMBOOT) images.
446 * ALL: Add an API for COMBOOT/COM32 images. See comboot.doc
447 for details. There is a C development environment for
448 COM32 being created; it should be ready at some point in
449 the future.
450 * Fix mbr.asm so that it actually works.
451 * SYSLINUX: The syslinux installer *SHOULD* now be safe to
452 run setuid root.
453 * PXELINUX: Fix bug where PXELINUX would override random
454 chunks of the UNDI code segment! Thanks to Kevin Tran for
455 finding this bug.
456 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug related to slashes in pathnames.
457 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug in handling initrds over 128 MB.
458 * ALL: Make the <Ctrl-V> key print out the version; this is
459 to help debugging.
460 * Add a small script, mkdiskimage, to create a DOS-formatted
461 hard disk image using mtools. This may be useful in
462 conjunction with MEMDISK.
463 * ISOLINUX: Search for a /boot/isolinux directory as well as
464 /isolinux.
465 * ALL: Fix a bug related to very long configuration files.
466 * PXELINUX: Work around a NASM bug which would result in no
467 delay before reset if an error occurs.
469 Changes in 1.76:
470 * ISOLINUX: Remove code no longer used which caused hangs on
471 some Toshiba laptops.
473 Changes in 1.75:
474 * ALL: NASM 0.98.32 or later is now required to build
475 SYSLINUX from sources.
476 * SYSLINUX: put back in the workaround for the BIOS floppy
477 table. This seems to be a requirement for "extended" floppy
478 formats to work correctly.
479 * SYSLINUX: No longer warn if one is trying to boot on a 286
480 or older. The above BIOS workaround no longer fits if the
481 requirement to use only 8086-compatible code in the early
482 boot is maintained. It made sense in 1994, but in 2002 a
483 286 or older is a museum object.
484 * SYSLINUX: Use a downright bizarre, stateful algorithm to try
485 to guess the maximum transfer size. I am *hoping* this will
486 cut down on the number of systems for which -s is required
487 to work at any acceptable speed.
488 * ISOLINUX: Add a few more workarounds for various broken El
489 Torito BIOSes.
490 * Make sure .depend files aren't accidentally packed...
491 * ALL: Fix bugs in the extension-detect code; this caused
492 files like COMBOOT images and CD boot sectors to be
493 mis-identified as Linux kernels and rejected.
494 * ALL: Fix the return from COMBOOT.
495 * ALL: Do some of the early groundwork for supporting DOS
496 system calls in COMBOOT.
497 * Get rid of unnecessary "near" directives, making the code
498 bigger.
499 * PXELINUX: Put the PXE stack back in the init state before
500 invoking a chain-loaded NBP.
501 * PXELINUX: Actually found the combination of calls that
502 allows some (most?) PXE 2+ stacks to be unloaded from memory
503 properly.
504 * PXELINUX: Add "keeppxe" command-line option to disable
505 the standard unloading of the PXE stack.
507 Changes in 1.74:
508 * SYSLINUX: fix bug that would cause valid kernel images to be
509 labelled "invalid".
511 Changes in 1.73:
512 * Work on removing gratuitous differences between modules.
513 * Break up the source in common and module-specific files.
514 * PXELINUX: Allow chaining of other PXE NBPs.
515 * ISOLINUX: Allow loading "CD-ROM boot sectors".
516 * ALL: generalize the definition of a boot sector/NBP.
518 Changes in 1.72:
519 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix bugs in the new core code.
521 Changes in 1.71:
522 * Fix a "brown paper bag" class bug in the new core code.
524 Changes in 1.70:
525 * Major code restructuring.
526 * Relax the conventional memory limits somewhat.
527 * MEMDISK: Set up the "version number string" pointer in the
528 header correctly.
529 * SYSLINUX: Fix, again, "the bug that won't die": the use of
530 the offset parameter with the SYSLINUX installer.
531 * SYSLINUX: Fix possible superblock corruption problem in the
532 SYSLINUX installer.
534 Changes in 1.67:
535 * Handle bug in the location of initrd.
537 Changes in 1.66:
538 * MEMDISK: Make compile with newer versions of gcc.
540 Changes in 1.65:
541 * ISOLINUX: Support booting disk image files (to boot DOS or
542 other non-Linux operating systems), *IF* the BIOS works
543 correctly; unfortunately many BIOSes apparently don't.
544 * Support Linux boot protocol version 2.03 (explicitly
545 specify the initrd address limit.)
546 * Handle small "pseudo-kernels"; images that use the Linux
547 kernel boot protocols but are less than 64K in size.
548 * MEMDISK: New subsystem; this is a driver which allows
549 legacy OSes to boot using an in-memory simulated disk.
550 See memdisk/memdisk.doc for more info.
551 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Correctly handle files larger than 65535
552 blocks (32 MB for PXELINUX, 128 MB for ISOLINUX.)
553 * PXELINUX: Make a best-effort attempt at freeing all memory
554 claimed. From the looks of it, it will fail on most PXE
555 stacks.
557 Changes in 1.64:
558 * Limited support for hardware flow control when using a
559 serial port console.
560 * Support specifying the serial port I/O address explicitly.
561 * Make DOS installer hopefully behave more nicely when used on
562 recent Windows versions.
563 * Fix returning to text mode when a font has been specified.
564 * Attempt to detect missing serial port hardware and disable
565 the serial port if there is nothing there.
567 Changes in 1.63:
568 * Make the ppmtolss16 program handle color conversion more
569 correctly.
570 * Clean up "make install" target, honour INSTALLROOT if it
571 exists.
572 * SYSLINUX: Fix stack-smash bug identified by Steffen
573 Winterfeldt.
574 * Hopefully fix return-to-text-mode on some graphics cards.
575 * ISOLINUX: Bug workaround for Award BIOS 4.51, and perhaps
576 other buggy BIOSes as well.
578 Changes in 1.62:
579 * PXELINUX: Allow the DHCP server to override the
580 configuration file name and pathname prefix, using
581 "site-specific" DHCP options.
582 * PXELINUX: Documentation fixes.
583 * PXELINUX: Fix the "ipappend" option; the last two values
584 were reversed vs. what the kernel expected.
585 * Introduce a way to return to text mode once we are already
586 in graphics mode. This may be useful for F-key help
587 screens.
588 * Fix several bugs in the way return to text mode was handled.
590 Changes in 1.61:
591 * ISOLINUX: Support full pathname searches. Max length for a
592 pathname is 255 characters. As a result, only 64 "label"
593 statements are supported in ISOLINUX.
594 * PXELINUX: Max filename length extended to 63 characters.
596 Changes in 1.60:
597 * Add support for graphical splash screens.
598 * Add mode control characters, which allows you to control
599 message display output depending on output mode (text,
600 graphics, or serial port.)
601 * ISOLINUX: New program, which boots Linux from a CD-ROM
602 without using floppy emulation mode. See isolinux.doc for
603 more details.
604 * PXELINUX: Don't search for boot sector file types, since
605 they don't work anyway.
606 * SYSLINUX: Document the LOCK command for Win9x, and the error
607 dialog box for WinNT/2K.
609 Changes in 1.54:
610 * PXELINUX: Fix code for finding !PXE from PXENV+. This was
611 due to a spec bug; match the most recent spec since that
612 seems to be what implementations actually do.
613 * SYSLINUX: Add some smarts to the boot sector, which
614 hopefully should reduce the number of systems which require
615 stupid mode ("syslinux -s").
616 * PXELINUX: Document further some of the pathologies with old
617 PXE stacks.
618 * When specifying a "default" command line, no longer
619 automatically appent "auto". See the "DEFAULT" command in
620 syslinux.doc for more information.
621 * PXELINUX: Clean up the allocation of local socket numbers.
623 Changes in 1.53:
624 * PXELINUX: Rename pxelinux.bin to pxelinux.0, to match what
625 most PXE servers seem to expect.
626 * PXELINUX: Update the DHCP/boot server setup documentation.
627 * PXELINUX: Support new "localboot" option for "label"
628 sections.
629 * PXELINUX: More robust parsing of DHCP/boot server packets.
630 * PXELINUX: Include a small utility program "gethostip" to
631 compute hexadecimal IP addresses.
633 Changes in 1.52:
634 * PXELINUX: Fix bugs introduced by new A20 code. (SYSLINUX
635 has also been changed for code consistency reasons, but I'm
636 pretty sure the changes are don't care on SYSLINUX.)
637 * Documentation updates.
638 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend" option to generate an ip= option to
639 the kernel.
641 Changes in 1.51:
642 * PXELINUX: Not all PXE stacks fill in the IP address for a
643 type 3 cached info query. Use a type 2 cached info query
644 for this information (only.)
645 * Yet another attempt at A20 coding. Now support BIOS call
646 15:2401 as well, and handle machines which always have A20
647 on separately.
648 * Support memory detection using INT 15h, AX=0E820h. BIOS
649 manufacturers have apparently gotten sloppy about keeping
650 INT 15h, AX=0E801h working properly.
651 * Don't issue <CR><LF> onto the serial port when we're doing
652 screen wraparound.
654 Changes in 1.50:
655 * Yet another A20-code update. It seems some "legacy-free"
656 machines and embedded gear simply don't have a KBC to talk
657 to, and that waiting for one will wait forever. Sigh.
659 Changes in 1.49:
660 * SYSLINUX: Implement a hack for BIOS drivers which hog significant
661 chunks of low memory during boot. (Note: PXELINUX already
662 had this modification. SYSLINUX does still require that the
663 low 512K is available; PXELINUX requires 384K. Machines
664 with a physical memory hole in the low 640K cannot boot
665 Linux no matter what.) Depending what the reason is for the
666 memory hole, a new kernel (2.4.0-test3-pre3 or later) may be
667 required.
668 * SYSLINUX: Default installer binary now compiled against
669 glibc 2.1. If this is inappropriate for your system and you
670 still want to use the offical version of SYSLINUX, please
671 follow the instructions in "distrib.doc" to rebuild the
672 installer.
673 * SYSLINUX: Linux installer program now supports -o <offset>
674 option which does a loopback mount with the
675 -o loop,offset=<> option. Useful to run SYSLINUX on an
676 individual partition of a whole-harddisk image.
677 * Include the source code to a Master Boot Record (MBR)
678 functionally equivalent to the one installed DOS except it
679 includes EBIOS support, and should be resistant to geometry
680 changes. The MBR code is public domain.
681 * PXELINUX: Fix "double p" bug: if the tftp prefix was null,
682 all filenames would get a "p" preprended, e.g.
683 "ppxelinux.cfg" and "pvmlinux".
685 Changes in 1.48:
686 * PXELINUX: Workaround for PXE ROMs based on the Intel PXE PDK
687 3.0 build 071 and earlier: missing !PXE structure pointer.
688 * PXELINUX: Handle larger BOOTP/DHCP packages.
689 * PXELINUX: The command line passing was broken; fix.
690 * PXELINUX: Make COMBOOT images work.
691 * PXELINUX: Documentation on how to make booting work using
692 the PDK 3.0-derived clients, which aren't so generous as to
693 allow booting with only "PXEClient" specified.
695 Changes in 1.47:
696 * PXELINUX: RFC 1123 states that a TFTP implementation MUST
697 use adaptive timeout, "at least an exponential backoff of
698 retransmission timeout is necessary." Implement a very
699 simple exponential backoff for retransmits.
700 * PXELINUX: Updated documentation, including pointer to new
701 TFTP server.
702 * PXELINUX: When sending ERROR due to bad OACK, use the proper
703 destination port number (why are TFTP port numbers so odd?)
704 * PXELINUX: If the boot dies in the middle somewhere,
705 eventually give up and reset the machine (unattended
706 operation.)
708 Changes in 1.46:
709 * New program PXELINUX to do network booting using a
710 PXE-compliant (Pre-Execution Environment) network booting
711 PROM. See pxelinux.doc for details.
713 Changes in 1.45:
714 * Serial console support. See syslinux.doc for details.
716 Changes in 1.44:
717 * Change HIGHMEM_MAX to 38000000h to (hopefully) avoid the
718 kernel stepping on it; 3f000000h was apparently a higher
719 limit than the kernel used!
721 Changes in 1.43:
722 * Add sys2ansi.pl script to display the contents of a
723 colorized SYSLINUX file.
724 * Changed the io_delay once again, after a report that the
725 old delay port causes hangs on some systems.
727 Changes in 1.42:
728 * Frob the "fast A20 gate" port as well as the keyboard
729 controller; will this help systems with problems?
730 * Be even more paranoid about A20, unfortunately even this
731 seems to be not paranoid enough... what I don't understand
732 is that if there is hardware out there *this broken*, how
733 can it run Linux at all? Report an error message rather
734 than hang forever if A20 is stuck.
735 * Include some intermediate files in the distribution, plus
736 provide a "make installer" target for distributors to relink
737 the install programs only. I would prefer the syslinux boot
738 loader proper to be "binary clean" for debuggablity -- use
739 "make clean ; make installer" to rebuild the installers only.
741 Changes in 1.41:
742 * Don't get confused by directories, volume labels, or VFAT
743 long names.
744 * Use INT 15h, AX=0E801h to query memory size before trying
745 INT 15h, AH=88h. This not only provides more headroom
746 between the kernel and the initrd on large-memory machines,
747 but it appears some recent BIOSes actually have started
748 returning garbage for the AH=88h (older) call.
749 * Trust high memory beyond the 15 MB mark if the user has
750 specified it, or if obtained with INT 15h, AH=0E801h (with
751 no memory holes above 1 MB.)
753 Changes in 1.40:
754 * Increase A20M delay and put in a test to avoid problems on
755 certain IBM Thinkpads (thanks to Donnie Barnes of RedHat
756 for vital info on this one.)
757 * Support COMBOOT style boot command images.
758 * Support chain loading (foreign operating systems, e.g. DOS).
759 * Include a new "copybs" DOS utility to copy a boot sector to
760 a file (under Linux, use "dd".)
761 * Fix the DOS installer to work for disks over 32 MB.
762 * SYSLINUX should now handle disks with more than 65536 tracks.
764 Changes in 1.37:
765 * Fix a bug that caused "label" statements in syslinux.cfg to
766 not be handled properly.
767 * Updated the documentation. Among other things, we now allow
768 up to 128 "label" statements.
770 Changes in 1.36:
771 * Fix for booting old (pre-initrd) kernels.
772 * It seems at least some versions of OS/2 doesn't set up all
773 the fields in the superblock correctly. Account for that.
774 * Fix bug that caused boot failure when using the mem= option.
776 Changes in 1.35:
777 * Loading from partitions now should work properly. (Actually
778 tested, this time. You should even be able to dd a floppy
779 to a partition and boot from it.)
780 * Removed large workaround code for an alleged ancient BIOS
781 bug I have never actually seen. The -s option should work
782 on those machines, anyway.
783 * Support for simple keyboard remappings, same as used by
784 LILO (once again to support localization.) The program
785 keytab-lilo.pl from the LILO distribution included to
786 generate such maps.
787 * Added a "safe, slow and stupid" (-s) option to the
788 installers. This option will lobotomize the boot sector to
789 hopefully work on even very buggy BIOSes.
791 Changes in 1.34:
792 * Ability to load a VGA font on bootup (for localized Linux
793 distributions.)
795 Changes in 1.33:
796 * Bug fix in the Linux installer.
797 * Added a workaround for a bug in certain AMI/Intel BIOSes
798 when booting from CD-ROM.
799 * Documentation changes.
801 Changes in 1.32:
802 * FAT16 filesystems are now supported.
804 Changes in 1.31:
805 * Now compiles under Linux, using NASM, rather than using
806 Turbo Assembler under DOS. See http://www.cryogen.com/Nasm
807 for information about NASM.
808 * Linux-hosted SYSLINUX installer, as well as a
809 rewritten DOS installer (now is written in assembler, so we
810 don't need Turbo C.)
812 Changes in 1.30:
813 * Added support for loading bzImage and initrd loading, and made
814 SYSLINUX new-setup-code aware (SYSLINUX 1.30 id=0x31).
815 * Added LILO-style kernel labels; see the LABEL and IMPLICIT
816 keywords in README file.
817 * Added support for colorization of intro and help screens.
818 * The vga= option is now handled correctly.
819 * Massive rewrite of large chunks of the code in order to
820 support the first two new features.
822 Changes in 1.20:
823 * Added simple online help at the "boot:" prompt.
824 * Removed 2880K image as I no longer have access to such a
825 floppy drive. (Donations accepted!!)
826 * Decided to distribute the source in a subdirectory rather
827 than in a nested zipfile.
829 Changes in 1.11:
830 * Removed a sanity check which would cause booting to fail on
831 Phoenix BIOS version 4.03. Apparently this BIOS is buggy.
833 Changes in 1.10:
834 * Added configuration file SYSLINUX.CFG. This file contains all
835 configurable options, and can be edited from any OS which can
836 access an MS-DOS filesystem; there is no longer a need to run
837 SYSLINUX.EXE except to write the boot sector.
838 * Default command line now given by "default" line in config
839 file.
840 * LINUXMSG.TXT and BOOTMSG.TXT hard-coded file names replaced by
841 "display" and "prompt" lines in config file.
842 * LILO-style option appending now supported ("append" line in
843 config file).
844 * Prompt timeout is now supported ("timeout" line in config
845 file). The timeout is cancelled when anything is typed on the
846 command line.
847 * Pressing <ESC> or <Ctrl-C> at the Loading... stage now aborts
848 the kernel loading in progress and returns the user to the
849 boot: prompt.
850 * The installer now automatically sets the READONLY flag on
851 LDLINUX.SYS.
852 * Added 2880K disk image.
854 Changes in 1.03:
855 * Fixed bug that would prevent booting from double-density
856 floppies and other DOS filesystems with multiple sectors per
857 cluster.
858 * Added 720K disk image.
859 * Changed default kernel name on disk images to LINUX.
861 Changes in 1.02:
862 * Fixed bug that would garble the command line on recent kernels
863 with more than 4 sectors of setup code (this wasn't really a
864 *bug*; rather, a kernel change broke the code. Unfortunately
865 the Linux boot interface is still sorely undocumented).
866 * Added BOOTMSG.TXT file support (message file which does not
867 force display of the boot prompt).
869 Changes in 1.01:
870 * Fixed bug on some (most?) 386 BIOSes would require two boot
871 attempts.