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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 3.70:
6 * PXELINUX: Support enhanced capabilities when running on top
7 of gPXE (http://www.etherboot.org/). In particular, support
8 URL-style syntax for filenames, and any protocol that gPXE
9 supports (except, currently, iSCSI and AoE.) This feature
10 is currently highly experimental.
11 * Substantial infrastructure changes to support files whose
12 length aren't known at open time (typically network
13 connections.) Please note that the semantics of some of the
14 comboot APIs have changed slightly; please see doc/comboot.doc.
15 * PXELINUX: We no longer require a TFTP server which supports
16 the tsize option for all transfers.
17 * PXELINUX: EXTREMELY EXPERIMENTAL: Support running on top of
18 the gPXE "PXEXT" PXE API extensions included with gPXE
19 0.9.4(?) or higher. This allows booting over other
20 protocols than TFTP.
22 Changes in 3.62:
23 * Clean up garbage after "aborted." message.
24 * Clean up memdump.com filenames.
25 * Support SHA256 and SHA512 encrypted passwords.
26 * The shuffle library now can generate chained descriptors,
27 thus allowing pretty much arbitrarily complex memory maps.
28 * Handle command lines up to 2047 characters, the current
29 Linux kernel limit.
30 * vesamenu: support systems without linear framebuffer support
31 (sigh, what is this, 1993?) and 15-bit RGB modes.
32 * Move the label storage (for the command-line interface) to
33 high memory, removing the size limit and freeing up 64K of
34 low memory.
35 * Get rid of 4096-entry limit in the simple menu system.
36 * New hierarchial submenu support: see MENU BEGIN, MENU END,
37 MENU GOTO in doc/menu.txt.
38 * MENU QUIT allows creating a menu entry for returning to the
39 command line.
40 * ISOLINUX: Work around bug in certain Adaptec BIOSes,
41 patch by Bruce Robson.
42 * pngtopnm dependency removed from samples/ directory.
43 * Text documentation files (in doc/) renamed *.doc -> *.txt.
45 Changes in 3.61:
46 * EXTLINUX: fix crash when accessing an empty file.
47 * elf.c32: If a PHDR segment is present, load it.
48 * Fix SHA-1 and MD5 passwords.
49 * ISOLINUX: fix booting when mastered without
50 mkisofs -boot-info-table (broken since 3.50, sigh...)
51 * Handle BIOSes which emit multiple contiguous valid
52 memory regions in the e820 map.
54 Changes in 3.60:
55 * Support for "auxilliary data vector", a small amount of
56 writable storage. Currently only supported for EXTLINUX,
57 but the infrastructure is there for the other derivatives,
58 assuming a suitable storage location can be found.
59 * EXTLINUX: boot-once support (--once, --clear-once, and
60 --reset-adv).
61 * A command is now required to the EXTLINUX installer, i.e. at
62 least one of --install, --update, --once, --clear-once, or
63 --reset-adv.
65 Changes in 3.55:
66 * PXELINUX: as per RFC 5071, PXELINUX no longer requires the
67 use of the magic cookie option (208) for unencapsulated
68 options. Currently it does not require it for
69 vendor-encapsulated options (vendor-option-space) either,
70 but that MAY be reverted in the future if it causes
71 problems.
72 * Documentation text files moved to a common "doc" directory;
73 man pages from the Debian project added to the "man"
74 directory.
75 * Correct bug with self-overlapping memory areas when using
76 the shuffle interface.
78 Changes in 3.54:
79 * Add "menu separator", "menu indent", "menu disabled"
80 (see README.menu).
81 * vesamenu: fix handing of VESA modes with noncontiguous
82 memory buffers. In particular, Qemu/KVM sets up such a mode
83 when Cirrus Logic emulation is enabled (which is the
84 default.)
85 * Support for calling real mode functions using far calls,
86 with argument on the stack. This was implemented to support
87 the BIOS BBS specification, but subsequent experiments show
88 that the at least one of the most common BIOS cores, Award,
89 passes the presence check but doesn't actually implement the
90 functionality.
92 Changes in 3.53:
93 * Fix bugs related to the $PnP BIOS functionality on some
94 platforms.
95 * PXELINUX: Fix the "naked" version of :: (suppress prefix.)
96 * elf.c32: better error messages.
97 * Faster operation under Intel VT virtualization.
98 * PXELINUX: Fix DHCP bootfile option.
99 * mkdiskimage: Support more than 1024 cylinders.
100 * (Hopefully) fix installer on non-x86 platforms.
101 * Fix shuffle_and_boot_rm, used by linux.c32.
102 * Fix shuffle_and_boot_pm on 386/486.
103 * ISOLINUX (at least): fix bss memory overwrite hang.
104 * MBR: Fix booting from logical partitions.
105 * Code cleanups.
107 Changes in 3.52:
108 * Handle capitalized F-key commands in the menu system.
109 * Fix padding error when loading multiple ramdisks.
110 * Workaround for VMware crashing when trying to print a
111 message during early kernel boot (does not seem to work,
112 consider deleting.)
113 * chain.c32: add the ability to search for a specific MBR
114 signature at runtime.
115 * Fall back to the server identity option if the siaddr field
116 in the DHCP header isn't set. This seems to match the
117 behaviour of most PXE stacks.
118 * mkdiskimage: give the generated disk image an MBR signature.
119 * MEMDISK: Fix failures on some BIOSes.
120 * Simple menu system: new "MENU HIDDEN" option to not display
121 the menu unless the user presses a key.
122 * Simple menu system: support MD5-encrypted passwords (modern
123 Unix standard style, with "$1$" prefixes.)
124 * pcitest.c32: now functions as a full "lspci". Thanks to
125 Erwan Velu for this work.
126 * MEMDISK: Make EDD actually work.
127 * ISOLINUX: Fix for certain broken CD-ROM BIOSes which
128 randomly corrupted register FS.
129 * Simple menu system: fix memory overwrite bug that caused
130 some systems to lock up or behave weirdly.
131 * Fix building on 64-bit systems without a 32-bit libc installed.
133 Changes in 3.51:
134 * EXTLINUX: Fix failure to find the configuration file.
136 Changes in 3.50:
137 * New keywords allow the type of file to be specified in the
138 configuration file.
139 * It is now supported to load a different configuration file
140 with the CONFIG keyword.
141 * Fix API call 0x0019 (Read Disk.)
142 * MENU AUTOBOOT, MENU TABMSG, MENU PASSPROMPT allows
143 internationalization of menu messages.
144 * A new feature, TEXT HELP, allows the administrator to set
145 a multi-line help message for individual selections.
146 * Fix API call 0x0012 (Cleanup, shuffle and boot.)
147 * New API call "Cleanup, shuffle and boot to flat protected mode"
148 * New API call "Cleanup, shuffle and boot to real mode",
149 similar to API call 0x0012 but allows arbitrary register setting.
150 * Introduce a library interface for loading arbitrary binary
151 formats with relatively easily understood code. See
152 the elf.c32 module for an example on how to use it.
153 * New module "elf.c32", to load a protected-mode ELF kernel.
154 * MBR (old and new): Fix bug in CHS mode when LBA >
155 65535*sectors.
156 * vesamenu: fix decoding of palettized PNG images.
157 * Update the Linux kernel boot protocol.
158 * PXELINUX: Press Ctrl-N at the boot prompt to read out the
159 network info.
160 * Instead of the (non-existent) MAC, use the client identifier
161 for networks like Infiniband and Firewire/1394.
162 * Add a new INCLUDE command to the core syslinux parser.
163 * Allow binding help text to F11 and F12.
164 * F-key help now available in the simple menu system.
165 * Disabled the polling for ARP during idle. It is simply too
166 slow on some (broken!) PXE stacks.
167 * PXELINUX: also try to fetch the config file based on UUID.
168 * SYSLINUX/EXTLINUX: New RAID mode (-r) which calls the BIOS
169 to load the next device (typically the next drive) on boot
170 failure.
172 Changes in 3.36:
173 * MEMDISK: Disable EDD by default on floppy disks. EDD can be
174 enabled with the "edd" option and disabled with "noedd".
175 This (hopefully) should make Ghost work again.
176 * SYSLINUX: "unix" installer now uses Linux ioctls instead of
177 using libfat.
178 * New MBR which can boot from logical partitions.
179 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in detecting special extensions which was
180 introduced in 3.35 :(
181 * PXELINUX: Unbreak chainbooting FreeBSD (and possibly others.)
183 Changes in 3.35:
184 * MEMDISK: New "safeint" mode.
185 * MEMDISK: Be more compliant with the PnP BIOS spec.
186 * MEMDISK: Turn on EDD support by default.
187 * MEMDISK: Try to work on some machines on which it would not
188 work when there was no floppy drive in the system.
189 * Simple menu system: fix serial console support (broken in
190 3.30).
191 * SYSLINUX: Support subdirectories. Like ISOLINUX, the
192 "current directory" is the directory in which syslinux.cfg
193 is found; this is searched for in the sequence
194 /boot/syslinux, /syslinux, /. As a side benefit, label names
195 like "linux-2.6.18" and "linux-2.6.19" are now supported.
197 To install ldlinux.sys in a subdirectory, pass the -d
198 directory option to the SYSLINUX installer.
200 This work was sponsored by slax.org (thanks, Tomas!)
201 * New API call: read disk.
202 * Invoke ONERROR on initrd load failure.
204 Changes in 3.31:
205 * The simple menu system (menu.c32 and vesamenu.c32) now
206 support loading more than one configuration file at a time,
207 using MENU INCLUDE or by specifying multiple filenames.
208 * The MENU COLOR statement can now control the shadowing mode.
210 Changes in 3.30:
211 * libcom32 extended to support graphics mode and graphical console.
212 * vesamenu.c32, new graphical version of the Simple
213 Menu System, see README.menu.
214 * New com32 modules by Erwan Velu do selection based on CPUID
215 or PCI devices present.
216 * RPM spec: add syslinux-tftpboot module; move syslinux by
217 default to the /usr/share/syslinux directory.
218 * RPM spec: extlinux is now a separate package.
220 Changes in 3.20:
221 * EXTLINUX: New options --install (-i) and --update (-U), to
222 make it clear if a boot loader should be installed or
223 updated. For now, defaults to --install for compatibility;
224 a future version will require one of these options.
225 * New library functions to load and place files in memory.
226 * mboot.c32 bug fixes.
227 * Remove 8 MB kernel size restriction.
228 * Add "klibc" target for building unix/syslinux and
229 extlinux/extlinux with klcc (klibc-1.4.27 or later.)
230 * PXELINUX: Fail (and eventually reboot) if no configuration
231 file was found.
232 * COM32 module by Erwan Velu to make decisions based on DMI
233 info.
234 * Fix issue where going back and forth between menus a lot
235 would cause a hang.
236 * ISOLINUX: Fix bug which made "cd boot sectors" not work.
238 Changes in 3.11:
239 * MEMDISK: Fix bug by which accessing the real floppy disk
240 as B: in MS-DOS was broken.
241 * Simple menu system: allow tweaking of the screen layout.
242 * Simple menu system: better command-line editing, correctly
243 handle command lines above 256 characters.
244 * PXELINUX: revert memory allocation change that caused
245 problems on some network cards.
246 * MEMDISK: Try work around a bug on some BIOSes when no
247 physical floppy disk is present in the system.
248 * Enable the 16550A FIFOs, if present, when doing serial
249 console.
250 * New "totaltimeout" command establishes a timeout without
251 regard for any user input.
252 * Simple menu system: timeout behaviour now more in line with
253 user expectations.
254 * Simple menu system: "ontimeout" should now work correctly.
256 Changes in 3.10:
257 * gcc 4.0.1 compilation fixes.
258 * Add support for querying the PCI BIOS in libcom32
259 (used by ethersel et al.)
260 * Fix PCI handing (ethersel etc) on several old chipsets (and
261 VMWare.)
262 * Try to deal with systems with broken EBIOS.
263 * New API call to do "localboot".
264 * New API call to query features.
265 * New API call to run kernel image, a lower-level call than
266 "run command". See comboot.doc.
267 * Fix for bug in EBIOS code discovered by Arwin Vosselman.
268 * NOESCAPE security fix.
269 * Comments are now recognized even without a space following #.
270 * Fix incorrect handling of mixes of entries with and without
271 MENU PASSWD.
272 * The idle API call now harmlessly returns failure if it is a
273 no-op. That way the caller can decide whether or not to
274 bother invoking it again.
275 * Temporarily disable the idle API call on PXELINUX, due to
276 some platforms on which the idle API call seems to hang; this
277 problem has not yet been debugged.
278 * MEMDISK: the handling of DOSEMU-headered images was broken;
279 fix it.
280 * EXTLINUX: symlinks are now supported.
281 * Simple menu system: N and P now work correctly as hotkeys.
282 * MEMDISK: more BIOS bug workarounds.
284 Changes in 3.09:
285 * gcc4 compilation fix.
286 * <BEL> (Ctrl-G) in message files now causes a beep.
287 * Reduce the command line to 511 characters; 1023 caused
288 memory overflows.
290 Changes in 3.08:
291 * SYSLINUX: Fix performance regression (-s mode always
292 enabled.)
293 * Add API function for idle loop.
294 * libutil: Add do_idle() function for idle loop, make
295 get_key() use it.
296 * libutil: Add SHA-1 and base64 functions.
297 * Simple menu system: add password support.
298 * EXTLINUX: Sparse files now handled correctly.
299 * EXTLINUX: Large directories now handled correctly.
300 * ALL: At the prompt, Ctrl-X now forces text mode.
301 * Fix configuration file parsing error, that could cause
302 hangs.
303 * Rewritten advanced menuing system from Murali Ganapathy.
304 * MEMDISK: New "bigraw" mode to work around certain broken
305 BIOS flash programs.
306 * COM32 module to boot Multiboot systems, including Xen. See
307 com32/modules/mboot.doc.
308 * Max command line changed to 1023 characters. Note that the
309 kernel proper still can only handle 255 characters without
310 patching, and COM16 binaries can only handle 125 characters.
312 Changes in 3.07:
313 * Fix chainloading (chain.c32).
314 * Fix zlib build problem.
315 * Use a private copy of <linux/ext2_fs.h>.
317 Changes in 3.06:
318 * Fix typo that caused the ramdisk to load in the wrong place.
320 Changes in 3.05:
321 * New API function "shuffle and boot"; allows COM32 modules to
322 load or construct (almost) arbitrarily complex objects,
323 e.g. a kernel and its initrd/initramfs in pieces, and have
324 the API core reorganize memory for booting. (A library API
325 for this function will be introduced in a later version.)
326 * The initrd= option now supports multiple filenames separated
327 by commas. This is mostly useful for initramfs, which can
328 be composed of multiple separate cpio or cpio.gz archives.
329 (Note: all files except the last one are zero-padded to a 4K
330 page boundary. This should not affect initramfs.)
331 * EXTLINUX: Fix API function 000Ah (get derivative-specific
332 info).
333 * libcom32/ethersel: Support PCI Config Mechanism #2 on
334 machines still infested with that hideous old hack.
335 * SYSLINUX: Fix directory-parsing bug.
337 Changes in 3.02:
338 * SYSLINUX: The "unix" installer now sets the MS-DOS
339 attributes (hidden, system, readonly.)
340 * COM32 library: build the .lnx (test modules for running
341 under Linux) as architecture native modules, in case
342 i386 devel libraries aren't installed.
343 * EXTLINUX: Hack for systems which don't have BLKGETSIZE64
344 defined in the standard header files.
345 * Simple menu system: minor aestetic improvements, and try to
346 work better over a serial console (speed, and readability on
347 monochrome terminal emulators.)
348 * New CONSOLE directive to control output on the video console
349 (useful for dealing with some broken serial-forwarding
350 BIOSes.)
351 * New com32 module "ethersel" for searching for an Ethernet
352 card and selecting the proper version of Etherboot.
353 * EXTLINUX: Allow the user to override the detected geometry.
354 Add help.
356 Changes in 3.01:
357 * EXTLINUX, SYSLINUX: Fix compile errors on some systems.
358 * EXTLINUX: Default to zipdrive geometry (64 heads, 32
359 sectors) if no other geometry can be detected.
361 Changes in 3.00:
362 * SYSLINUX: Support FAT32 and EDD. As an unfortunate
363 consequence, LDLINUX.SYS is no longer an ordinary file; it
364 is block-mapped at install time, which means it can only be
365 written using the syslinux installers.
366 * SYSLINUX: Reorganize the source code for the installers;
367 each one of the installers (dos, win32, unix, mtools) is now
368 built in its own subdirectory. In particular, "mtools" is
369 the unprivileged installer which uses mtools; "unix" is the
370 privileged installer which uses system calls.
371 * SYSLINUX: Completely rewritten DOS installer in C.
372 * ALL: "label" statement information is now stored in a
373 compressed format, which means that a lot more labels are
374 permitted (500-1000 in a typical configuration, but depends
375 on the complexity.)
376 * EXTLINUX: New derivative, which boots from an ext2/ext3
377 filesystem.
378 * SYSLINUX: The DOS and Win32 installers can now optionally
379 write the boot sector to a file instead of the real boot
380 sector. This is not supported in the Linux installers,
381 however.
382 * ALL: New NOESCAPE command, disables the "hold down the Shift
383 key to display the prompt" behaviour.
384 * New simple menu system, as an alternative to the advanced
385 menu system already present. See README.menu for details.
386 * PXELINUX: Filenames can now be prefixed with an IP address
387 or DNS name plus :: (e.g. 192.0.2.1::filename or
388 server.domain.com::filename), which downloads a file from an
389 alternate TFTP server, or just a :: (e.g. ::filename), which
390 suppresses the common pathname prefix. See pxelinux.doc.
391 * SYSLINUX: Add an -m option to the DOS and Win32 installers
392 to write an MBR and -a to mark the partition SYSLINUX is
393 being installed on active.
394 * MEMDISK: Give a way to query the boot loader type while
395 running MEMDISK; see memdisk/memdisk.doc and
396 sample/mdiskchk.c.
397 * mkdiskimage: substantially improved mkdiskimage which, among
398 other things, can now be used to initialize USB keys as
399 zipdrives; see README.usbkey for more information.
401 Changes in 2.13:
402 * MEMDISK: Fix command-line parsing "brown paper bag" class
403 bug.
404 * MEMDISK: Add "raw" mode to support the DOS boot disk from
405 WinME/XP, which seems to deliberately crash the system
406 when someone uses the "INT 15h mover" highmem API.
407 * Make "make install" do something sane for the com32
408 development environment.
409 * In the spec file, create a separate -devel RPM for the com32
410 development environment.
412 Changes in 2.12:
413 * Simple C library, based on klibc, for writing COM32
414 programs.
415 * Fix the handling of file length in loading of COM32
416 programs.
417 * MEMDISK: Work around a linker bug by rearranging the code to
418 not use the linker for the 16-bit code.
419 * SYSLINUX: If we're building on a machine without a Win32
420 (mingw) compiler, just skip building syslinux.exe.
421 * ISOLINUX: Support non-mkisofs mastering programs, at least
422 as long as the image is single-session. For best results,
423 ISOLINUX should be the only boot loader installed.
424 * MEMDISK: Allow the user to specify that the simulated disk
425 should be write-protected.
427 Changes in 2.11:
428 * ALL: Add an API call to get the configuration file name.
429 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in 2.10 that prevented it from working
430 correctly for a lot of people.
431 * SYSLINUX: In the installer, make mtools a bit less fussy.
432 * Make the menu system compile with newer gcc's.
434 Changes in 2.10:
435 * MEMDISK: Handle images compressed with zip as well as with
436 gzip. Some Windows-based image tools apparently generate
437 these kinds of images by default. Patch by Patrick
438 LoPresti.
439 * Major menu improvement from Murali Ganapathy.
440 * ISOLINUX: Wonderfully sick and brilliant workaround for
441 severe bugs in certain Award BIOSes; from Knut Petersen.
442 * SYSLINUX: Fix for the nomtools installed, from Frederic
443 Pasteleurs.
444 * PXELINUX: Fix handling of IP numbers in the ranges
445 100-109 and 200-209.
446 * ALL: New option "allowoptions" (defaults to 1), which
447 controls if options are allowed on the command line or not.
448 * SYSLINUX: Support building under klibc (see the klibc
449 distribution for details.)
451 Changes in 2.09:
452 * SYSLINUX: Remove residual setuid crap from
453 syslinux-nomtools.
454 * Handle video pages correctly when using the API functions.
455 * Handle compiling on an x86-64 platform correctly.
456 * Menu system from Murali Krishnan Ganapathy; see the menu
457 directory for information.
458 * COMBOOT: Allow COMBOOT programs to change screen text mode.
459 * COMBOOT: Correct the documentation of how to detect
460 SYSLINUX from COMBOOT!!!!
461 * COMBOOT: Fix "get key without echo" API function.
462 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug that affected the API open function.
463 * ALL: Improve the E820 memory parser, to work around some
464 buggy BIOSes.
466 Changes in 2.08:
467 * Add new configuration command "ontimeout" to allow timeout
468 to have a different action than just pressing Enter.
469 * Add new configuration command "onerror" to allow a custom
470 command to be executed in case the kernel image is not found.
471 * Fix bugs in the COMBOOT/COM32 command-line parsing. APPEND
472 now works with COMBOOT/COM32 images.
473 * PXELINUX: Poll for ARP requests while sitting at the
474 prompt. This makes some boot servers a lot less unhappy.
475 * PXELINUX: Actually free sockets when we get a failure
476 (including file not found.) This bug would cause us to run
477 out of sockets and thus "go deaf" after a while.
478 * MEMDISK: Add an API to query for the existence of MEMDISK.
479 * SYSLINUX: Fix loading boot sectors (.bs/.bss) from floppy
480 disk.
481 * .c32 is now one of the extensions searched for
482 automatically.
483 * PXELINUX: RFBG.exe seems to randomly overwrite memory
484 location 0x5700. Thus, don't use it!
485 * PXELINUX: Change pathname length max from 63 to 127; change
486 max vkernels from 128 to 64.
487 * Support Ctrl-U -> kill entire command line input.
488 * The "samples" directory contains a (barely at all tested)
489 chain loading example, chain.c32, which may be used to
490 chainload local floppy disks and hard disks. Use with
491 "chain fdN" or "chain hdN [partition]"; N = 0 for the first
492 drive of each type.
494 Changes in 2.07:
495 * MEMDISK: Workaround for BIOSes which go into a snit when
496 they get a RESET command for the floppy system when there is
497 no floppy in the system.
498 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend 2", which passes the hardware
499 address of the boot interface to the kernel as a
500 command-line option.
501 * mkdiskimage: fix the generation of the end limit.
502 * PXELINUX: Fix multiple bugs in chainloading of other NBPs.
503 * MEMDISK: Fix bug that would occationally cause "ran out of
504 input data" when using compressed disk images.
505 * SYSLINUX: Updates for the win32 installer (from Lars Munch.)
506 * PXELINUX: PXELINUX-specific options are now recognized both
507 in a vendor-option-space (a.k.a. type 43 encapsulated) as
508 well as in a site-option-space (unencapsulated.)
509 * COM32: Don't crash when DS != 0.
510 * COMBOOT/COM32: Make file reading work correctly. Thanks to
511 Phung Chi Kien for submitting a test program.
513 Changes in 2.06:
514 * ALL: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
515 boot failure, depending on the length of the kernel.
516 * ISOLINUX: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
517 boot failure, depending on the length of directories.
518 * SYSLINUX: Win32 installer now flushes buffers.
519 * ppmtolss16: Be fully compliant with the PNM spec;
520 actually process comments in the header and odd
521 alignments of the various parameters, as well as
522 "plain" (not raw) files and PBM and PGM files.
523 * PXELINUX: Lower the default MTU to 1472 in order to deal
524 with systems with slightly nonstandard MTUs, and PXE
525 stacks which don't defragment correctly. Unfortunately this
526 is very hard to test dynamically.
528 Changes in 2.05:
529 * PXELINUX: Add a default query based on the hardware address
530 of the boot device. This is in lower case hexadecimal form
531 separated by dashes and including the hardware type, for
532 example, the Ethernet (type 1) address 88:99:AA:BB:CC:DD
533 would query the file pxelinux.cfg/01-88-99-aa-bb-cc-dd.
534 * PXELINUX: Fix bug involving non-IP-based config file names.
535 * SYSLINUX: New installer for WinNT-based systems, from Lars
536 Munch.
537 * MEMDISK: Fix handling of memory region overlap when
538 decompressing. Thanks to Mikhail Kupchik for identifying
539 the problem.
541 Changes in 2.04:
542 * ALL: Reclaim even more low memory by observing that
543 comboot_seg == real_mode_seg is perfectly fine, and by the
544 fact that the 1000h segment managed to get unused in all
545 derivatives...
546 * PXELINUX: Attempt to negotiate full Ethernet-sized blocks
547 (1468 bytes) using the blksize option.
548 * SYSLINUX: Resurrect the old no-mtools version of the
549 installer, although as a root-only tool. Some distributors
550 have indicated that they need a small standalone installer.
551 * MEMDISK: Fix a memory offset computation error when
552 installing compressed disks which generally would cause
553 1 MB of memory to be wasted.
554 * MEMDISK: Fix installing the E820 memory map. Calling
555 INT 15h AX=0E820h with MEMDISK 2.03 loaded would give a
556 completely corrupt memory map.
557 * SYSLINUX: Make libsyslinux a dynamic library, so that it can
558 be updated separately from client programs. The whole idea,
559 after all, is to enable alternate programs to become
560 syslinux installers.
561 * Include an rpm spec file in the distribution, so rpmbuild
562 -ta works.
564 Changes in 2.03:
565 * Actually support comment lines in the configuration file.
566 * PXELINUX: Try to resolve some problems with stack switches.
567 * PXELINUX: Handle PXE stacks with broken routing.
568 With these workarounds, the remote install PXE boot floppy
569 (rbfg.exe) from Argon Technologies should work correctly.
570 * Fix problems with Perl scripts in UTF-8 locales.
571 * You probably need NASM 0.98.34 or later to compile this
572 version. 0.98.36 is recommended.
573 * MEMDISK: Now supports gzip compressed images.
575 Changes in 2.02:
576 * SYSLINUX: Security flaws have been found in the SYSLINUX
577 installer when running setuid root. Rewrite the SYSLINUX
578 installer so it uses mtools instead. It therefore now
579 requires mtools (specifically mcopy and mattrib) to exist on
580 your system, but it will not require root privileges and
581 SHOULD NOT be setuid.
583 Changes in 2.01:
584 * MEMDISK: Fix memory sizing bug when the ramdisk crosses the
585 16 MB boundary.
586 * MEMDISK: Add a "pause" option to stop immediately before
587 booting, to read off the messages.
588 * MEMDISK: Support disk images with DOSEMU headers.
589 * Update the mkdiskimage script to handle newer mtools
590 versions, and be able to generate disk images with DOSEMU
591 headers (controlled by the -d option).
592 * Fix the COM32 sample program.
593 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix some COMBOOT API calls.
594 * PXELINUX: Doc fix.
595 * Build SYSLINUX into a small library for encapsulation into
596 other programs (however, please keep in mind this is a GPL'd
597 library.)
598 * SYSLINUX: Make installer work with "owner" in /etc/fstab.
599 * SYSLINUX: Fix issue with working on nonpartitioned hard disk
600 devices. THIS CONFIGURATION IS NOT RECOMMENDED.
602 Changes in 2.00:
603 * ALL: Add support for "COM32" (32-bit COMBOOT) images.
604 * ALL: Add an API for COMBOOT/COM32 images. See comboot.doc
605 for details. There is a C development environment for
606 COM32 being created; it should be ready at some point in
607 the future.
608 * Fix mbr.asm so that it actually works.
609 * SYSLINUX: The syslinux installer *SHOULD* now be safe to
610 run setuid root.
611 * PXELINUX: Fix bug where PXELINUX would override random
612 chunks of the UNDI code segment! Thanks to Kevin Tran for
613 finding this bug.
614 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug related to slashes in pathnames.
615 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug in handling initrds over 128 MB.
616 * ALL: Make the <Ctrl-V> key print out the version; this is
617 to help debugging.
618 * Add a small script, mkdiskimage, to create a DOS-formatted
619 hard disk image using mtools. This may be useful in
620 conjunction with MEMDISK.
621 * ISOLINUX: Search for a /boot/isolinux directory as well as
622 /isolinux.
623 * ALL: Fix a bug related to very long configuration files.
624 * PXELINUX: Work around a NASM bug which would result in no
625 delay before reset if an error occurs.
627 Changes in 1.76:
628 * ISOLINUX: Remove code no longer used which caused hangs on
629 some Toshiba laptops.
631 Changes in 1.75:
632 * ALL: NASM 0.98.32 or later is now required to build
633 SYSLINUX from sources.
634 * SYSLINUX: put back in the workaround for the BIOS floppy
635 table. This seems to be a requirement for "extended" floppy
636 formats to work correctly.
637 * SYSLINUX: No longer warn if one is trying to boot on a 286
638 or older. The above BIOS workaround no longer fits if the
639 requirement to use only 8086-compatible code in the early
640 boot is maintained. It made sense in 1994, but in 2002 a
641 286 or older is a museum object.
642 * SYSLINUX: Use a downright bizarre, stateful algorithm to try
643 to guess the maximum transfer size. I am *hoping* this will
644 cut down on the number of systems for which -s is required
645 to work at any acceptable speed.
646 * ISOLINUX: Add a few more workarounds for various broken El
647 Torito BIOSes.
648 * Make sure .depend files aren't accidentally packed...
649 * ALL: Fix bugs in the extension-detect code; this caused
650 files like COMBOOT images and CD boot sectors to be
651 mis-identified as Linux kernels and rejected.
652 * ALL: Fix the return from COMBOOT.
653 * ALL: Do some of the early groundwork for supporting DOS
654 system calls in COMBOOT.
655 * Get rid of unnecessary "near" directives, making the code
656 bigger.
657 * PXELINUX: Put the PXE stack back in the init state before
658 invoking a chain-loaded NBP.
659 * PXELINUX: Actually found the combination of calls that
660 allows some (most?) PXE 2+ stacks to be unloaded from memory
661 properly.
662 * PXELINUX: Add "keeppxe" command-line option to disable
663 the standard unloading of the PXE stack.
665 Changes in 1.74:
666 * SYSLINUX: fix bug that would cause valid kernel images to be
667 labelled "invalid".
669 Changes in 1.73:
670 * Work on removing gratuitous differences between modules.
671 * Break up the source in common and module-specific files.
672 * PXELINUX: Allow chaining of other PXE NBPs.
673 * ISOLINUX: Allow loading "CD-ROM boot sectors".
674 * ALL: generalize the definition of a boot sector/NBP.
676 Changes in 1.72:
677 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix bugs in the new core code.
679 Changes in 1.71:
680 * Fix a "brown paper bag" class bug in the new core code.
682 Changes in 1.70:
683 * Major code restructuring.
684 * Relax the conventional memory limits somewhat.
685 * MEMDISK: Set up the "version number string" pointer in the
686 header correctly.
687 * SYSLINUX: Fix, again, "the bug that won't die": the use of
688 the offset parameter with the SYSLINUX installer.
689 * SYSLINUX: Fix possible superblock corruption problem in the
690 SYSLINUX installer.
692 Changes in 1.67:
693 * Handle bug in the location of initrd.
695 Changes in 1.66:
696 * MEMDISK: Make compile with newer versions of gcc.
698 Changes in 1.65:
699 * ISOLINUX: Support booting disk image files (to boot DOS or
700 other non-Linux operating systems), *IF* the BIOS works
701 correctly; unfortunately many BIOSes apparently don't.
702 * Support Linux boot protocol version 2.03 (explicitly
703 specify the initrd address limit.)
704 * Handle small "pseudo-kernels"; images that use the Linux
705 kernel boot protocols but are less than 64K in size.
706 * MEMDISK: New subsystem; this is a driver which allows
707 legacy OSes to boot using an in-memory simulated disk.
708 See memdisk/memdisk.doc for more info.
709 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Correctly handle files larger than 65535
710 blocks (32 MB for PXELINUX, 128 MB for ISOLINUX.)
711 * PXELINUX: Make a best-effort attempt at freeing all memory
712 claimed. From the looks of it, it will fail on most PXE
713 stacks.
715 Changes in 1.64:
716 * Limited support for hardware flow control when using a
717 serial port console.
718 * Support specifying the serial port I/O address explicitly.
719 * Make DOS installer hopefully behave more nicely when used on
720 recent Windows versions.
721 * Fix returning to text mode when a font has been specified.
722 * Attempt to detect missing serial port hardware and disable
723 the serial port if there is nothing there.
725 Changes in 1.63:
726 * Make the ppmtolss16 program handle color conversion more
727 correctly.
728 * Clean up "make install" target, honour INSTALLROOT if it
729 exists.
730 * SYSLINUX: Fix stack-smash bug identified by Steffen
731 Winterfeldt.
732 * Hopefully fix return-to-text-mode on some graphics cards.
733 * ISOLINUX: Bug workaround for Award BIOS 4.51, and perhaps
734 other buggy BIOSes as well.
736 Changes in 1.62:
737 * PXELINUX: Allow the DHCP server to override the
738 configuration file name and pathname prefix, using
739 "site-specific" DHCP options.
740 * PXELINUX: Documentation fixes.
741 * PXELINUX: Fix the "ipappend" option; the last two values
742 were reversed vs. what the kernel expected.
743 * Introduce a way to return to text mode once we are already
744 in graphics mode. This may be useful for F-key help
745 screens.
746 * Fix several bugs in the way return to text mode was handled.
748 Changes in 1.61:
749 * ISOLINUX: Support full pathname searches. Max length for a
750 pathname is 255 characters. As a result, only 64 "label"
751 statements are supported in ISOLINUX.
752 * PXELINUX: Max filename length extended to 63 characters.
754 Changes in 1.60:
755 * Add support for graphical splash screens.
756 * Add mode control characters, which allows you to control
757 message display output depending on output mode (text,
758 graphics, or serial port.)
759 * ISOLINUX: New program, which boots Linux from a CD-ROM
760 without using floppy emulation mode. See isolinux.doc for
761 more details.
762 * PXELINUX: Don't search for boot sector file types, since
763 they don't work anyway.
764 * SYSLINUX: Document the LOCK command for Win9x, and the error
765 dialog box for WinNT/2K.
767 Changes in 1.54:
768 * PXELINUX: Fix code for finding !PXE from PXENV+. This was
769 due to a spec bug; match the most recent spec since that
770 seems to be what implementations actually do.
771 * SYSLINUX: Add some smarts to the boot sector, which
772 hopefully should reduce the number of systems which require
773 stupid mode ("syslinux -s").
774 * PXELINUX: Document further some of the pathologies with old
775 PXE stacks.
776 * When specifying a "default" command line, no longer
777 automatically appent "auto". See the "DEFAULT" command in
778 syslinux.doc for more information.
779 * PXELINUX: Clean up the allocation of local socket numbers.
781 Changes in 1.53:
782 * PXELINUX: Rename pxelinux.bin to pxelinux.0, to match what
783 most PXE servers seem to expect.
784 * PXELINUX: Update the DHCP/boot server setup documentation.
785 * PXELINUX: Support new "localboot" option for "label"
786 sections.
787 * PXELINUX: More robust parsing of DHCP/boot server packets.
788 * PXELINUX: Include a small utility program "gethostip" to
789 compute hexadecimal IP addresses.
791 Changes in 1.52:
792 * PXELINUX: Fix bugs introduced by new A20 code. (SYSLINUX
793 has also been changed for code consistency reasons, but I'm
794 pretty sure the changes are don't care on SYSLINUX.)
795 * Documentation updates.
796 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend" option to generate an ip= option to
797 the kernel.
799 Changes in 1.51:
800 * PXELINUX: Not all PXE stacks fill in the IP address for a
801 type 3 cached info query. Use a type 2 cached info query
802 for this information (only.)
803 * Yet another attempt at A20 coding. Now support BIOS call
804 15:2401 as well, and handle machines which always have A20
805 on separately.
806 * Support memory detection using INT 15h, AX=0E820h. BIOS
807 manufacturers have apparently gotten sloppy about keeping
808 INT 15h, AX=0E801h working properly.
809 * Don't issue <CR><LF> onto the serial port when we're doing
810 screen wraparound.
812 Changes in 1.50:
813 * Yet another A20-code update. It seems some "legacy-free"
814 machines and embedded gear simply don't have a KBC to talk
815 to, and that waiting for one will wait forever. Sigh.
817 Changes in 1.49:
818 * SYSLINUX: Implement a hack for BIOS drivers which hog significant
819 chunks of low memory during boot. (Note: PXELINUX already
820 had this modification. SYSLINUX does still require that the
821 low 512K is available; PXELINUX requires 384K. Machines
822 with a physical memory hole in the low 640K cannot boot
823 Linux no matter what.) Depending what the reason is for the
824 memory hole, a new kernel (2.4.0-test3-pre3 or later) may be
825 required.
826 * SYSLINUX: Default installer binary now compiled against
827 glibc 2.1. If this is inappropriate for your system and you
828 still want to use the offical version of SYSLINUX, please
829 follow the instructions in "distrib.doc" to rebuild the
830 installer.
831 * SYSLINUX: Linux installer program now supports -o <offset>
832 option which does a loopback mount with the
833 -o loop,offset=<> option. Useful to run SYSLINUX on an
834 individual partition of a whole-harddisk image.
835 * Include the source code to a Master Boot Record (MBR)
836 functionally equivalent to the one installed DOS except it
837 includes EBIOS support, and should be resistant to geometry
838 changes. The MBR code is public domain.
839 * PXELINUX: Fix "double p" bug: if the tftp prefix was null,
840 all filenames would get a "p" preprended, e.g.
841 "ppxelinux.cfg" and "pvmlinux".
843 Changes in 1.48:
844 * PXELINUX: Workaround for PXE ROMs based on the Intel PXE PDK
845 3.0 build 071 and earlier: missing !PXE structure pointer.
846 * PXELINUX: Handle larger BOOTP/DHCP packages.
847 * PXELINUX: The command line passing was broken; fix.
848 * PXELINUX: Make COMBOOT images work.
849 * PXELINUX: Documentation on how to make booting work using
850 the PDK 3.0-derived clients, which aren't so generous as to
851 allow booting with only "PXEClient" specified.
853 Changes in 1.47:
854 * PXELINUX: RFC 1123 states that a TFTP implementation MUST
855 use adaptive timeout, "at least an exponential backoff of
856 retransmission timeout is necessary." Implement a very
857 simple exponential backoff for retransmits.
858 * PXELINUX: Updated documentation, including pointer to new
859 TFTP server.
860 * PXELINUX: When sending ERROR due to bad OACK, use the proper
861 destination port number (why are TFTP port numbers so odd?)
862 * PXELINUX: If the boot dies in the middle somewhere,
863 eventually give up and reset the machine (unattended
864 operation.)
866 Changes in 1.46:
867 * New program PXELINUX to do network booting using a
868 PXE-compliant (Pre-Execution Environment) network booting
869 PROM. See pxelinux.doc for details.
871 Changes in 1.45:
872 * Serial console support. See syslinux.doc for details.
874 Changes in 1.44:
875 * Change HIGHMEM_MAX to 38000000h to (hopefully) avoid the
876 kernel stepping on it; 3f000000h was apparently a higher
877 limit than the kernel used!
879 Changes in 1.43:
880 * Add sys2ansi.pl script to display the contents of a
881 colorized SYSLINUX file.
882 * Changed the io_delay once again, after a report that the
883 old delay port causes hangs on some systems.
885 Changes in 1.42:
886 * Frob the "fast A20 gate" port as well as the keyboard
887 controller; will this help systems with problems?
888 * Be even more paranoid about A20, unfortunately even this
889 seems to be not paranoid enough... what I don't understand
890 is that if there is hardware out there *this broken*, how
891 can it run Linux at all? Report an error message rather
892 than hang forever if A20 is stuck.
893 * Include some intermediate files in the distribution, plus
894 provide a "make installer" target for distributors to relink
895 the install programs only. I would prefer the syslinux boot
896 loader proper to be "binary clean" for debuggablity -- use
897 "make clean ; make installer" to rebuild the installers only.
899 Changes in 1.41:
900 * Don't get confused by directories, volume labels, or VFAT
901 long names.
902 * Use INT 15h, AX=0E801h to query memory size before trying
903 INT 15h, AH=88h. This not only provides more headroom
904 between the kernel and the initrd on large-memory machines,
905 but it appears some recent BIOSes actually have started
906 returning garbage for the AH=88h (older) call.
907 * Trust high memory beyond the 15 MB mark if the user has
908 specified it, or if obtained with INT 15h, AH=0E801h (with
909 no memory holes above 1 MB.)
911 Changes in 1.40:
912 * Increase A20M delay and put in a test to avoid problems on
913 certain IBM Thinkpads (thanks to Donnie Barnes of RedHat
914 for vital info on this one.)
915 * Support COMBOOT style boot command images.
916 * Support chain loading (foreign operating systems, e.g. DOS).
917 * Include a new "copybs" DOS utility to copy a boot sector to
918 a file (under Linux, use "dd".)
919 * Fix the DOS installer to work for disks over 32 MB.
920 * SYSLINUX should now handle disks with more than 65536 tracks.
922 Changes in 1.37:
923 * Fix a bug that caused "label" statements in syslinux.cfg to
924 not be handled properly.
925 * Updated the documentation. Among other things, we now allow
926 up to 128 "label" statements.
928 Changes in 1.36:
929 * Fix for booting old (pre-initrd) kernels.
930 * It seems at least some versions of OS/2 doesn't set up all
931 the fields in the superblock correctly. Account for that.
932 * Fix bug that caused boot failure when using the mem= option.
934 Changes in 1.35:
935 * Loading from partitions now should work properly. (Actually
936 tested, this time. You should even be able to dd a floppy
937 to a partition and boot from it.)
938 * Removed large workaround code for an alleged ancient BIOS
939 bug I have never actually seen. The -s option should work
940 on those machines, anyway.
941 * Support for simple keyboard remappings, same as used by
942 LILO (once again to support localization.) The program
943 keytab-lilo.pl from the LILO distribution included to
944 generate such maps.
945 * Added a "safe, slow and stupid" (-s) option to the
946 installers. This option will lobotomize the boot sector to
947 hopefully work on even very buggy BIOSes.
949 Changes in 1.34:
950 * Ability to load a VGA font on bootup (for localized Linux
951 distributions.)
953 Changes in 1.33:
954 * Bug fix in the Linux installer.
955 * Added a workaround for a bug in certain AMI/Intel BIOSes
956 when booting from CD-ROM.
957 * Documentation changes.
959 Changes in 1.32:
960 * FAT16 filesystems are now supported.
962 Changes in 1.31:
963 * Now compiles under Linux, using NASM, rather than using
964 Turbo Assembler under DOS. See http://www.cryogen.com/Nasm
965 for information about NASM.
966 * Linux-hosted SYSLINUX installer, as well as a
967 rewritten DOS installer (now is written in assembler, so we
968 don't need Turbo C.)
970 Changes in 1.30:
971 * Added support for loading bzImage and initrd loading, and made
972 SYSLINUX new-setup-code aware (SYSLINUX 1.30 id=0x31).
973 * Added LILO-style kernel labels; see the LABEL and IMPLICIT
974 keywords in README file.
975 * Added support for colorization of intro and help screens.
976 * The vga= option is now handled correctly.
977 * Massive rewrite of large chunks of the code in order to
978 support the first two new features.
980 Changes in 1.20:
981 * Added simple online help at the "boot:" prompt.
982 * Removed 2880K image as I no longer have access to such a
983 floppy drive. (Donations accepted!!)
984 * Decided to distribute the source in a subdirectory rather
985 than in a nested zipfile.
987 Changes in 1.11:
988 * Removed a sanity check which would cause booting to fail on
989 Phoenix BIOS version 4.03. Apparently this BIOS is buggy.
991 Changes in 1.10:
992 * Added configuration file SYSLINUX.CFG. This file contains all
993 configurable options, and can be edited from any OS which can
994 access an MS-DOS filesystem; there is no longer a need to run
995 SYSLINUX.EXE except to write the boot sector.
996 * Default command line now given by "default" line in config
997 file.
998 * LINUXMSG.TXT and BOOTMSG.TXT hard-coded file names replaced by
999 "display" and "prompt" lines in config file.
1000 * LILO-style option appending now supported ("append" line in
1001 config file).
1002 * Prompt timeout is now supported ("timeout" line in config
1003 file). The timeout is cancelled when anything is typed on the
1004 command line.
1005 * Pressing <ESC> or <Ctrl-C> at the Loading... stage now aborts
1006 the kernel loading in progress and returns the user to the
1007 boot: prompt.
1008 * The installer now automatically sets the READONLY flag on
1009 LDLINUX.SYS.
1010 * Added 2880K disk image.
1012 Changes in 1.03:
1013 * Fixed bug that would prevent booting from double-density
1014 floppies and other DOS filesystems with multiple sectors per
1015 cluster.
1016 * Added 720K disk image.
1017 * Changed default kernel name on disk images to LINUX.
1019 Changes in 1.02:
1020 * Fixed bug that would garble the command line on recent kernels
1021 with more than 4 sectors of setup code (this wasn't really a
1022 *bug*; rather, a kernel change broke the code. Unfortunately
1023 the Linux boot interface is still sorely undocumented).
1024 * Added BOOTMSG.TXT file support (message file which does not
1025 force display of the boot prompt).
1027 Changes in 1.01:
1028 * Fixed bug on some (most?) 386 BIOSes would require two boot
1029 attempts.