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