| blob | e4b16fc6c73bdcecc85487f4f47ef1b291ea19d8 |
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 3.20:
6 * EXTLINUX: New options --install (-i) and --update (-U), to
7 make it clear if a boot loader should be installed or
8 updated. For now, defaults to --install for compatibility;
9 a future version will require one of these options.
10 * New library functions to load and place files in memory.
11 * mboot.c32 bug fixes.
12 * Remove 8 MB kernel size restriction.
13 * Add "klibc" target for building unix/syslinux and
14 extlinux/extlinux with klcc (klibc-1.4.27 or later.)
15 * PXELINUX: Fail (and eventually reboot) if no configuration
16 file was found.
17 * COM32 module by Erwan Velu to make decisions based on DMI
18 info.
19 * Fix issue where going back and forth between menus a lot
20 would cause a hang.
21 * ISOLINUX: Fix bug which made "cd boot sectors" not work.
23 Changes in 3.11:
24 * MEMDISK: Fix bug by which accessing the real floppy disk
25 as B: in MS-DOS was broken.
26 * Simple menu system: allow tweaking of the screen layout.
27 * Simple menu system: better command-line editing, correctly
28 handle command lines above 256 characters.
29 * PXELINUX: revert memory allocation change that caused
30 problems on some network cards.
31 * MEMDISK: Try work around a bug on some BIOSes when no
32 physical floppy disk is present in the system.
33 * Enable the 16550A FIFOs, if present, when doing serial
34 console.
35 * New "totaltimeout" command establishes a timeout without
36 regard for any user input.
37 * Simple menu system: timeout behaviour now more in line with
38 user expectations.
39 * Simple menu system: "ontimeout" should now work correctly.
41 Changes in 3.10:
42 * gcc 4.0.1 compilation fixes.
43 * Add support for querying the PCI BIOS in libcom32
44 (used by ethersel et al.)
45 * Fix PCI handing (ethersel etc) on several old chipsets (and
46 VMWare.)
47 * Try to deal with systems with broken EBIOS.
48 * New API call to do "localboot".
49 * New API call to query features.
50 * New API call to run kernel image, a lower-level call than
51 "run command". See comboot.doc.
52 * Fix for bug in EBIOS code discovered by Arwin Vosselman.
53 * NOESCAPE security fix.
54 * Comments are now recognized even without a space following #.
55 * Fix incorrect handling of mixes of entries with and without
56 MENU PASSWD.
57 * The idle API call now harmlessly returns failure if it is a
58 no-op. That way the caller can decide whether or not to
59 bother invoking it again.
60 * Temporarily disable the idle API call on PXELINUX, due to
61 some platforms on which the idle API call seems to hang; this
62 problem has not yet been debugged.
63 * MEMDISK: the handling of DOSEMU-headered images was broken;
64 fix it.
65 * EXTLINUX: symlinks are now supported.
66 * Simple menu system: N and P now work correctly as hotkeys.
67 * MEMDISK: more BIOS bug workarounds.
69 Changes in 3.09:
70 * gcc4 compilation fix.
71 * <BEL> (Ctrl-G) in message files now causes a beep.
72 * Reduce the command line to 511 characters; 1023 caused
73 memory overflows.
75 Changes in 3.08:
76 * SYSLINUX: Fix performance regression (-s mode always
77 enabled.)
78 * Add API function for idle loop.
79 * libutil: Add do_idle() function for idle loop, make
80 get_key() use it.
81 * libutil: Add SHA-1 and base64 functions.
82 * Simple menu system: add password support.
83 * EXTLINUX: Sparse files now handled correctly.
84 * EXTLINUX: Large directories now handled correctly.
85 * ALL: At the prompt, Ctrl-X now forces text mode.
86 * Fix configuration file parsing error, that could cause
87 hangs.
88 * Rewritten advanced menuing system from Murali Ganapathy.
89 * MEMDISK: New "bigraw" mode to work around certain broken
90 BIOS flash programs.
91 * COM32 module to boot Multiboot systems, including Xen. See
92 com32/modules/mboot.doc.
93 * Max command line changed to 1023 characters. Note that the
94 kernel proper still can only handle 255 characters without
95 patching, and COM16 binaries can only handle 125 characters.
97 Changes in 3.07:
98 * Fix chainloading (chain.c32).
99 * Fix zlib build problem.
100 * Use a private copy of <linux/ext2_fs.h>.
102 Changes in 3.06:
103 * Fix typo that caused the ramdisk to load in the wrong place.
105 Changes in 3.05:
106 * New API function "shuffle and boot"; allows COM32 modules to
107 load or construct (almost) arbitrarily complex objects,
108 e.g. a kernel and its initrd/initramfs in pieces, and have
109 the API core reorganize memory for booting. (A library API
110 for this function will be introduced in a later version.)
111 * The initrd= option now supports multiple filenames separated
112 by commas. This is mostly useful for initramfs, which can
113 be composed of multiple separate cpio or cpio.gz archives.
114 (Note: all files except the last one are zero-padded to a 4K
115 page boundary. This should not affect initramfs.)
116 * EXTLINUX: Fix API function 000Ah (get derivative-specific
117 info).
118 * libcom32/ethersel: Support PCI Config Mechanism #2 on
119 machines still infested with that hideous old hack.
120 * SYSLINUX: Fix directory-parsing bug.
122 Changes in 3.02:
123 * SYSLINUX: The "unix" installer now sets the MS-DOS
124 attributes (hidden, system, readonly.)
125 * COM32 library: build the .lnx (test modules for running
126 under Linux) as architecture native modules, in case
127 i386 devel libraries aren't installed.
128 * EXTLINUX: Hack for systems which don't have BLKGETSIZE64
129 defined in the standard header files.
130 * Simple menu system: minor aestetic improvements, and try to
131 work better over a serial console (speed, and readability on
132 monochrome terminal emulators.)
133 * New CONSOLE directive to control output on the video console
134 (useful for dealing with some broken serial-forwarding
135 BIOSes.)
136 * New com32 module "ethersel" for searching for an Ethernet
137 card and selecting the proper version of Etherboot.
138 * EXTLINUX: Allow the user to override the detected geometry.
139 Add help.
141 Changes in 3.01:
142 * EXTLINUX, SYSLINUX: Fix compile errors on some systems.
143 * EXTLINUX: Default to zipdrive geometry (64 heads, 32
144 sectors) if no other geometry can be detected.
146 Changes in 3.00:
147 * SYSLINUX: Support FAT32 and EDD. As an unfortunate
148 consequence, LDLINUX.SYS is no longer an ordinary file; it
149 is block-mapped at install time, which means it can only be
150 written using the syslinux installers.
151 * SYSLINUX: Reorganize the source code for the installers;
152 each one of the installers (dos, win32, unix, mtools) is now
153 built in its own subdirectory. In particular, "mtools" is
154 the unprivileged installer which uses mtools; "unix" is the
155 privileged installer which uses system calls.
156 * SYSLINUX: Completely rewritten DOS installer in C.
157 * ALL: "label" statement information is now stored in a
158 compressed format, which means that a lot more labels are
159 permitted (500-1000 in a typical configuration, but depends
160 on the complexity.)
161 * EXTLINUX: New derivative, which boots from an ext2/ext3
162 filesystem.
163 * SYSLINUX: The DOS and Win32 installers can now optionally
164 write the boot sector to a file instead of the real boot
165 sector. This is not supported in the Linux installers,
166 however.
167 * ALL: New NOESCAPE command, disables the "hold down the Shift
168 key to display the prompt" behaviour.
169 * New simple menu system, as an alternative to the advanced
170 menu system already present. See README.menu for details.
171 * PXELINUX: Filenames can now be prefixed with an IP address
172 or DNS name plus :: (e.g. 192.0.2.1::filename or
173 server.domain.com::filename), which downloads a file from an
174 alternate TFTP server, or just a :: (e.g. ::filename), which
175 suppresses the common pathname prefix. See pxelinux.doc.
176 * SYSLINUX: Add an -m option to the DOS and Win32 installers
177 to write an MBR and -a to mark the partition SYSLINUX is
178 being installed on active.
179 * MEMDISK: Give a way to query the boot loader type while
180 running MEMDISK; see memdisk/memdisk.doc and
181 sample/mdiskchk.c.
182 * mkdiskimage: substantially improved mkdiskimage which, among
183 other things, can now be used to initialize USB keys as
184 zipdrives; see README.usbkey for more information.
186 Changes in 2.13:
187 * MEMDISK: Fix command-line parsing "brown paper bag" class
188 bug.
189 * MEMDISK: Add "raw" mode to support the DOS boot disk from
190 WinME/XP, which seems to deliberately crash the system
191 when someone uses the "INT 15h mover" highmem API.
192 * Make "make install" do something sane for the com32
193 development environment.
194 * In the spec file, create a separate -devel RPM for the com32
195 development environment.
197 Changes in 2.12:
198 * Simple C library, based on klibc, for writing COM32
199 programs.
200 * Fix the handling of file length in loading of COM32
201 programs.
202 * MEMDISK: Work around a linker bug by rearranging the code to
203 not use the linker for the 16-bit code.
204 * SYSLINUX: If we're building on a machine without a Win32
205 (mingw) compiler, just skip building syslinux.exe.
206 * ISOLINUX: Support non-mkisofs mastering programs, at least
207 as long as the image is single-session. For best results,
208 ISOLINUX should be the only boot loader installed.
209 * MEMDISK: Allow the user to specify that the simulated disk
210 should be write-protected.
212 Changes in 2.11:
213 * ALL: Add an API call to get the configuration file name.
214 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in 2.10 that prevented it from working
215 correctly for a lot of people.
216 * SYSLINUX: In the installer, make mtools a bit less fussy.
217 * Make the menu system compile with newer gcc's.
219 Changes in 2.10:
220 * MEMDISK: Handle images compressed with zip as well as with
221 gzip. Some Windows-based image tools apparently generate
222 these kinds of images by default. Patch by Patrick
223 LoPresti.
224 * Major menu improvement from Murali Ganapathy.
225 * ISOLINUX: Wonderfully sick and brilliant workaround for
226 severe bugs in certain Award BIOSes; from Knut Petersen.
227 * SYSLINUX: Fix for the nomtools installed, from Frederic
228 Pasteleurs.
229 * PXELINUX: Fix handling of IP numbers in the ranges
230 100-109 and 200-209.
231 * ALL: New option "allowoptions" (defaults to 1), which
232 controls if options are allowed on the command line or not.
233 * SYSLINUX: Support building under klibc (see the klibc
234 distribution for details.)
236 Changes in 2.09:
237 * SYSLINUX: Remove residual setuid crap from
238 syslinux-nomtools.
239 * Handle video pages correctly when using the API functions.
240 * Handle compiling on an x86-64 platform correctly.
241 * Menu system from Murali Krishnan Ganapathy; see the menu
242 directory for information.
243 * COMBOOT: Allow COMBOOT programs to change screen text mode.
244 * COMBOOT: Correct the documentation of how to detect
245 SYSLINUX from COMBOOT!!!!
246 * COMBOOT: Fix "get key without echo" API function.
247 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug that affected the API open function.
248 * ALL: Improve the E820 memory parser, to work around some
249 buggy BIOSes.
251 Changes in 2.08:
252 * Add new configuration command "ontimeout" to allow timeout
253 to have a different action than just pressing Enter.
254 * Add new configuration command "onerror" to allow a custom
255 command to be executed in case the kernel image is not found.
256 * Fix bugs in the COMBOOT/COM32 command-line parsing. APPEND
257 now works with COMBOOT/COM32 images.
258 * PXELINUX: Poll for ARP requests while sitting at the
259 prompt. This makes some boot servers a lot less unhappy.
260 * PXELINUX: Actually free sockets when we get a failure
261 (including file not found.) This bug would cause us to run
262 out of sockets and thus "go deaf" after a while.
263 * MEMDISK: Add an API to query for the existence of MEMDISK.
264 * SYSLINUX: Fix loading boot sectors (.bs/.bss) from floppy
265 disk.
266 * .c32 is now one of the extensions searched for
267 automatically.
268 * PXELINUX: RFBG.exe seems to randomly overwrite memory
269 location 0x5700. Thus, don't use it!
270 * PXELINUX: Change pathname length max from 63 to 127; change
271 max vkernels from 128 to 64.
272 * Support Ctrl-U -> kill entire command line input.
273 * The "samples" directory contains a (barely at all tested)
274 chain loading example, chain.c32, which may be used to
275 chainload local floppy disks and hard disks. Use with
276 "chain fdN" or "chain hdN [partition]"; N = 0 for the first
277 drive of each type.
279 Changes in 2.07:
280 * MEMDISK: Workaround for BIOSes which go into a snit when
281 they get a RESET command for the floppy system when there is
282 no floppy in the system.
283 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend 2", which passes the hardware
284 address of the boot interface to the kernel as a
285 command-line option.
286 * mkdiskimage: fix the generation of the end limit.
287 * PXELINUX: Fix multiple bugs in chainloading of other NBPs.
288 * MEMDISK: Fix bug that would occationally cause "ran out of
289 input data" when using compressed disk images.
290 * SYSLINUX: Updates for the win32 installer (from Lars Munch.)
291 * PXELINUX: PXELINUX-specific options are now recognized both
292 in a vendor-option-space (a.k.a. type 43 encapsulated) as
293 well as in a site-option-space (unencapsulated.)
294 * COM32: Don't crash when DS != 0.
295 * COMBOOT/COM32: Make file reading work correctly. Thanks to
296 Phung Chi Kien for submitting a test program.
298 Changes in 2.06:
299 * ALL: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
300 boot failure, depending on the length of the kernel.
301 * ISOLINUX: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
302 boot failure, depending on the length of directories.
303 * SYSLINUX: Win32 installer now flushes buffers.
304 * ppmtolss16: Be fully compliant with the PNM spec;
305 actually process comments in the header and odd
306 alignments of the various parameters, as well as
307 "plain" (not raw) files and PBM and PGM files.
308 * PXELINUX: Lower the default MTU to 1472 in order to deal
309 with systems with slightly nonstandard MTUs, and PXE
310 stacks which don't defragment correctly. Unfortunately this
311 is very hard to test dynamically.
313 Changes in 2.05:
314 * PXELINUX: Add a default query based on the hardware address
315 of the boot device. This is in lower case hexadecimal form
316 separated by dashes and including the hardware type, for
317 example, the Ethernet (type 1) address 88:99:AA:BB:CC:DD
318 would query the file pxelinux.cfg/01-88-99-aa-bb-cc-dd.
319 * PXELINUX: Fix bug involving non-IP-based config file names.
320 * SYSLINUX: New installer for WinNT-based systems, from Lars
321 Munch.
322 * MEMDISK: Fix handling of memory region overlap when
323 decompressing. Thanks to Mikhail Kupchik for identifying
324 the problem.
326 Changes in 2.04:
327 * ALL: Reclaim even more low memory by observing that
328 comboot_seg == real_mode_seg is perfectly fine, and by the
329 fact that the 1000h segment managed to get unused in all
330 derivatives...
331 * PXELINUX: Attempt to negotiate full Ethernet-sized blocks
332 (1468 bytes) using the blksize option.
333 * SYSLINUX: Resurrect the old no-mtools version of the
334 installer, although as a root-only tool. Some distributors
335 have indicated that they need a small standalone installer.
336 * MEMDISK: Fix a memory offset computation error when
337 installing compressed disks which generally would cause
338 1 MB of memory to be wasted.
339 * MEMDISK: Fix installing the E820 memory map. Calling
340 INT 15h AX=0E820h with MEMDISK 2.03 loaded would give a
341 completely corrupt memory map.
342 * SYSLINUX: Make libsyslinux a dynamic library, so that it can
343 be updated separately from client programs. The whole idea,
344 after all, is to enable alternate programs to become
345 syslinux installers.
346 * Include an rpm spec file in the distribution, so rpmbuild
347 -ta works.
349 Changes in 2.03:
350 * Actually support comment lines in the configuration file.
351 * PXELINUX: Try to resolve some problems with stack switches.
352 * PXELINUX: Handle PXE stacks with broken routing.
353 With these workarounds, the remote install PXE boot floppy
354 (rbfg.exe) from Argon Technologies should work correctly.
355 * Fix problems with Perl scripts in UTF-8 locales.
356 * You probably need NASM 0.98.34 or later to compile this
357 version. 0.98.36 is recommended.
358 * MEMDISK: Now supports gzip compressed images.
360 Changes in 2.02:
361 * SYSLINUX: Security flaws have been found in the SYSLINUX
362 installer when running setuid root. Rewrite the SYSLINUX
363 installer so it uses mtools instead. It therefore now
364 requires mtools (specifically mcopy and mattrib) to exist on
365 your system, but it will not require root privileges and
366 SHOULD NOT be setuid.
368 Changes in 2.01:
369 * MEMDISK: Fix memory sizing bug when the ramdisk crosses the
370 16 MB boundary.
371 * MEMDISK: Add a "pause" option to stop immediately before
372 booting, to read off the messages.
373 * MEMDISK: Support disk images with DOSEMU headers.
374 * Update the mkdiskimage script to handle newer mtools
375 versions, and be able to generate disk images with DOSEMU
376 headers (controlled by the -d option).
377 * Fix the COM32 sample program.
378 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix some COMBOOT API calls.
379 * PXELINUX: Doc fix.
380 * Build SYSLINUX into a small library for encapsulation into
381 other programs (however, please keep in mind this is a GPL'd
382 library.)
383 * SYSLINUX: Make installer work with "owner" in /etc/fstab.
384 * SYSLINUX: Fix issue with working on nonpartitioned hard disk
385 devices. THIS CONFIGURATION IS NOT RECOMMENDED.
387 Changes in 2.00:
388 * ALL: Add support for "COM32" (32-bit COMBOOT) images.
389 * ALL: Add an API for COMBOOT/COM32 images. See comboot.doc
390 for details. There is a C development environment for
391 COM32 being created; it should be ready at some point in
392 the future.
393 * Fix mbr.asm so that it actually works.
394 * SYSLINUX: The syslinux installer *SHOULD* now be safe to
395 run setuid root.
396 * PXELINUX: Fix bug where PXELINUX would override random
397 chunks of the UNDI code segment! Thanks to Kevin Tran for
398 finding this bug.
399 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug related to slashes in pathnames.
400 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug in handling initrds over 128 MB.
401 * ALL: Make the <Ctrl-V> key print out the version; this is
402 to help debugging.
403 * Add a small script, mkdiskimage, to create a DOS-formatted
404 hard disk image using mtools. This may be useful in
405 conjunction with MEMDISK.
406 * ISOLINUX: Search for a /boot/isolinux directory as well as
407 /isolinux.
408 * ALL: Fix a bug related to very long configuration files.
409 * PXELINUX: Work around a NASM bug which would result in no
410 delay before reset if an error occurs.
412 Changes in 1.76:
413 * ISOLINUX: Remove code no longer used which caused hangs on
414 some Toshiba laptops.
416 Changes in 1.75:
417 * ALL: NASM 0.98.32 or later is now required to build
418 SYSLINUX from sources.
419 * SYSLINUX: put back in the workaround for the BIOS floppy
420 table. This seems to be a requirement for "extended" floppy
421 formats to work correctly.
422 * SYSLINUX: No longer warn if one is trying to boot on a 286
423 or older. The above BIOS workaround no longer fits if the
424 requirement to use only 8086-compatible code in the early
425 boot is maintained. It made sense in 1994, but in 2002 a
426 286 or older is a museum object.
427 * SYSLINUX: Use a downright bizarre, stateful algorithm to try
428 to guess the maximum transfer size. I am *hoping* this will
429 cut down on the number of systems for which -s is required
430 to work at any acceptable speed.
431 * ISOLINUX: Add a few more workarounds for various broken El
432 Torito BIOSes.
433 * Make sure .depend files aren't accidentally packed...
434 * ALL: Fix bugs in the extension-detect code; this caused
435 files like COMBOOT images and CD boot sectors to be
436 mis-identified as Linux kernels and rejected.
437 * ALL: Fix the return from COMBOOT.
438 * ALL: Do some of the early groundwork for supporting DOS
439 system calls in COMBOOT.
440 * Get rid of unnecessary "near" directives, making the code
441 bigger.
442 * PXELINUX: Put the PXE stack back in the init state before
443 invoking a chain-loaded NBP.
444 * PXELINUX: Actually found the combination of calls that
445 allows some (most?) PXE 2+ stacks to be unloaded from memory
446 properly.
447 * PXELINUX: Add "keeppxe" command-line option to disable
448 the standard unloading of the PXE stack.
450 Changes in 1.74:
451 * SYSLINUX: fix bug that would cause valid kernel images to be
452 labelled "invalid".
454 Changes in 1.73:
455 * Work on removing gratuitous differences between modules.
456 * Break up the source in common and module-specific files.
457 * PXELINUX: Allow chaining of other PXE NBPs.
458 * ISOLINUX: Allow loading "CD-ROM boot sectors".
459 * ALL: generalize the definition of a boot sector/NBP.
461 Changes in 1.72:
462 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix bugs in the new core code.
464 Changes in 1.71:
465 * Fix a "brown paper bag" class bug in the new core code.
467 Changes in 1.70:
468 * Major code restructuring.
469 * Relax the conventional memory limits somewhat.
470 * MEMDISK: Set up the "version number string" pointer in the
471 header correctly.
472 * SYSLINUX: Fix, again, "the bug that won't die": the use of
473 the offset parameter with the SYSLINUX installer.
474 * SYSLINUX: Fix possible superblock corruption problem in the
475 SYSLINUX installer.
477 Changes in 1.67:
478 * Handle bug in the location of initrd.
480 Changes in 1.66:
481 * MEMDISK: Make compile with newer versions of gcc.
483 Changes in 1.65:
484 * ISOLINUX: Support booting disk image files (to boot DOS or
485 other non-Linux operating systems), *IF* the BIOS works
486 correctly; unfortunately many BIOSes apparently don't.
487 * Support Linux boot protocol version 2.03 (explicitly
488 specify the initrd address limit.)
489 * Handle small "pseudo-kernels"; images that use the Linux
490 kernel boot protocols but are less than 64K in size.
491 * MEMDISK: New subsystem; this is a driver which allows
492 legacy OSes to boot using an in-memory simulated disk.
493 See memdisk/memdisk.doc for more info.
494 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Correctly handle files larger than 65535
495 blocks (32 MB for PXELINUX, 128 MB for ISOLINUX.)
496 * PXELINUX: Make a best-effort attempt at freeing all memory
497 claimed. From the looks of it, it will fail on most PXE
498 stacks.
500 Changes in 1.64:
501 * Limited support for hardware flow control when using a
502 serial port console.
503 * Support specifying the serial port I/O address explicitly.
504 * Make DOS installer hopefully behave more nicely when used on
505 recent Windows versions.
506 * Fix returning to text mode when a font has been specified.
507 * Attempt to detect missing serial port hardware and disable
508 the serial port if there is nothing there.
510 Changes in 1.63:
511 * Make the ppmtolss16 program handle color conversion more
512 correctly.
513 * Clean up "make install" target, honour INSTALLROOT if it
514 exists.
515 * SYSLINUX: Fix stack-smash bug identified by Steffen
516 Winterfeldt.
517 * Hopefully fix return-to-text-mode on some graphics cards.
518 * ISOLINUX: Bug workaround for Award BIOS 4.51, and perhaps
519 other buggy BIOSes as well.
521 Changes in 1.62:
522 * PXELINUX: Allow the DHCP server to override the
523 configuration file name and pathname prefix, using
524 "site-specific" DHCP options.
525 * PXELINUX: Documentation fixes.
526 * PXELINUX: Fix the "ipappend" option; the last two values
527 were reversed vs. what the kernel expected.
528 * Introduce a way to return to text mode once we are already
529 in graphics mode. This may be useful for F-key help
530 screens.
531 * Fix several bugs in the way return to text mode was handled.
533 Changes in 1.61:
534 * ISOLINUX: Support full pathname searches. Max length for a
535 pathname is 255 characters. As a result, only 64 "label"
536 statements are supported in ISOLINUX.
537 * PXELINUX: Max filename length extended to 63 characters.
539 Changes in 1.60:
540 * Add support for graphical splash screens.
541 * Add mode control characters, which allows you to control
542 message display output depending on output mode (text,
543 graphics, or serial port.)
544 * ISOLINUX: New program, which boots Linux from a CD-ROM
545 without using floppy emulation mode. See isolinux.doc for
546 more details.
547 * PXELINUX: Don't search for boot sector file types, since
548 they don't work anyway.
549 * SYSLINUX: Document the LOCK command for Win9x, and the error
550 dialog box for WinNT/2K.
552 Changes in 1.54:
553 * PXELINUX: Fix code for finding !PXE from PXENV+. This was
554 due to a spec bug; match the most recent spec since that
555 seems to be what implementations actually do.
556 * SYSLINUX: Add some smarts to the boot sector, which
557 hopefully should reduce the number of systems which require
558 stupid mode ("syslinux -s").
559 * PXELINUX: Document further some of the pathologies with old
560 PXE stacks.
561 * When specifying a "default" command line, no longer
562 automatically appent "auto". See the "DEFAULT" command in
563 syslinux.doc for more information.
564 * PXELINUX: Clean up the allocation of local socket numbers.
566 Changes in 1.53:
567 * PXELINUX: Rename pxelinux.bin to pxelinux.0, to match what
568 most PXE servers seem to expect.
569 * PXELINUX: Update the DHCP/boot server setup documentation.
570 * PXELINUX: Support new "localboot" option for "label"
571 sections.
572 * PXELINUX: More robust parsing of DHCP/boot server packets.
573 * PXELINUX: Include a small utility program "gethostip" to
574 compute hexadecimal IP addresses.
576 Changes in 1.52:
577 * PXELINUX: Fix bugs introduced by new A20 code. (SYSLINUX
578 has also been changed for code consistency reasons, but I'm
579 pretty sure the changes are don't care on SYSLINUX.)
580 * Documentation updates.
581 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend" option to generate an ip= option to
582 the kernel.
584 Changes in 1.51:
585 * PXELINUX: Not all PXE stacks fill in the IP address for a
586 type 3 cached info query. Use a type 2 cached info query
587 for this information (only.)
588 * Yet another attempt at A20 coding. Now support BIOS call
589 15:2401 as well, and handle machines which always have A20
590 on separately.
591 * Support memory detection using INT 15h, AX=0E820h. BIOS
592 manufacturers have apparently gotten sloppy about keeping
593 INT 15h, AX=0E801h working properly.
594 * Don't issue <CR><LF> onto the serial port when we're doing
595 screen wraparound.
597 Changes in 1.50:
598 * Yet another A20-code update. It seems some "legacy-free"
599 machines and embedded gear simply don't have a KBC to talk
600 to, and that waiting for one will wait forever. Sigh.
602 Changes in 1.49:
603 * SYSLINUX: Implement a hack for BIOS drivers which hog significant
604 chunks of low memory during boot. (Note: PXELINUX already
605 had this modification. SYSLINUX does still require that the
606 low 512K is available; PXELINUX requires 384K. Machines
607 with a physical memory hole in the low 640K cannot boot
608 Linux no matter what.) Depending what the reason is for the
609 memory hole, a new kernel (2.4.0-test3-pre3 or later) may be
610 required.
611 * SYSLINUX: Default installer binary now compiled against
612 glibc 2.1. If this is inappropriate for your system and you
613 still want to use the offical version of SYSLINUX, please
614 follow the instructions in "distrib.doc" to rebuild the
615 installer.
616 * SYSLINUX: Linux installer program now supports -o <offset>
617 option which does a loopback mount with the
618 -o loop,offset=<> option. Useful to run SYSLINUX on an
619 individual partition of a whole-harddisk image.
620 * Include the source code to a Master Boot Record (MBR)
621 functionally equivalent to the one installed DOS except it
622 includes EBIOS support, and should be resistant to geometry
623 changes. The MBR code is public domain.
624 * PXELINUX: Fix "double p" bug: if the tftp prefix was null,
625 all filenames would get a "p" preprended, e.g.
626 "ppxelinux.cfg" and "pvmlinux".
628 Changes in 1.48:
629 * PXELINUX: Workaround for PXE ROMs based on the Intel PXE PDK
630 3.0 build 071 and earlier: missing !PXE structure pointer.
631 * PXELINUX: Handle larger BOOTP/DHCP packages.
632 * PXELINUX: The command line passing was broken; fix.
633 * PXELINUX: Make COMBOOT images work.
634 * PXELINUX: Documentation on how to make booting work using
635 the PDK 3.0-derived clients, which aren't so generous as to
636 allow booting with only "PXEClient" specified.
638 Changes in 1.47:
639 * PXELINUX: RFC 1123 states that a TFTP implementation MUST
640 use adaptive timeout, "at least an exponential backoff of
641 retransmission timeout is necessary." Implement a very
642 simple exponential backoff for retransmits.
643 * PXELINUX: Updated documentation, including pointer to new
644 TFTP server.
645 * PXELINUX: When sending ERROR due to bad OACK, use the proper
646 destination port number (why are TFTP port numbers so odd?)
647 * PXELINUX: If the boot dies in the middle somewhere,
648 eventually give up and reset the machine (unattended
649 operation.)
651 Changes in 1.46:
652 * New program PXELINUX to do network booting using a
653 PXE-compliant (Pre-Execution Environment) network booting
654 PROM. See pxelinux.doc for details.
656 Changes in 1.45:
657 * Serial console support. See syslinux.doc for details.
659 Changes in 1.44:
660 * Change HIGHMEM_MAX to 38000000h to (hopefully) avoid the
661 kernel stepping on it; 3f000000h was apparently a higher
662 limit than the kernel used!
664 Changes in 1.43:
665 * Add sys2ansi.pl script to display the contents of a
666 colorized SYSLINUX file.
667 * Changed the io_delay once again, after a report that the
668 old delay port causes hangs on some systems.
670 Changes in 1.42:
671 * Frob the "fast A20 gate" port as well as the keyboard
672 controller; will this help systems with problems?
673 * Be even more paranoid about A20, unfortunately even this
674 seems to be not paranoid enough... what I don't understand
675 is that if there is hardware out there *this broken*, how
676 can it run Linux at all? Report an error message rather
677 than hang forever if A20 is stuck.
678 * Include some intermediate files in the distribution, plus
679 provide a "make installer" target for distributors to relink
680 the install programs only. I would prefer the syslinux boot
681 loader proper to be "binary clean" for debuggablity -- use
682 "make clean ; make installer" to rebuild the installers only.
684 Changes in 1.41:
685 * Don't get confused by directories, volume labels, or VFAT
686 long names.
687 * Use INT 15h, AX=0E801h to query memory size before trying
688 INT 15h, AH=88h. This not only provides more headroom
689 between the kernel and the initrd on large-memory machines,
690 but it appears some recent BIOSes actually have started
691 returning garbage for the AH=88h (older) call.
692 * Trust high memory beyond the 15 MB mark if the user has
693 specified it, or if obtained with INT 15h, AH=0E801h (with
694 no memory holes above 1 MB.)
696 Changes in 1.40:
697 * Increase A20M delay and put in a test to avoid problems on
698 certain IBM Thinkpads (thanks to Donnie Barnes of RedHat
699 for vital info on this one.)
700 * Support COMBOOT style boot command images.
701 * Support chain loading (foreign operating systems, e.g. DOS).
702 * Include a new "copybs" DOS utility to copy a boot sector to
703 a file (under Linux, use "dd".)
704 * Fix the DOS installer to work for disks over 32 MB.
705 * SYSLINUX should now handle disks with more than 65536 tracks.
707 Changes in 1.37:
708 * Fix a bug that caused "label" statements in syslinux.cfg to
709 not be handled properly.
710 * Updated the documentation. Among other things, we now allow
711 up to 128 "label" statements.
713 Changes in 1.36:
714 * Fix for booting old (pre-initrd) kernels.
715 * It seems at least some versions of OS/2 doesn't set up all
716 the fields in the superblock correctly. Account for that.
717 * Fix bug that caused boot failure when using the mem= option.
719 Changes in 1.35:
720 * Loading from partitions now should work properly. (Actually
721 tested, this time. You should even be able to dd a floppy
722 to a partition and boot from it.)
723 * Removed large workaround code for an alleged ancient BIOS
724 bug I have never actually seen. The -s option should work
725 on those machines, anyway.
726 * Support for simple keyboard remappings, same as used by
727 LILO (once again to support localization.) The program
728 keytab-lilo.pl from the LILO distribution included to
729 generate such maps.
730 * Added a "safe, slow and stupid" (-s) option to the
731 installers. This option will lobotomize the boot sector to
732 hopefully work on even very buggy BIOSes.
734 Changes in 1.34:
735 * Ability to load a VGA font on bootup (for localized Linux
736 distributions.)
738 Changes in 1.33:
739 * Bug fix in the Linux installer.
740 * Added a workaround for a bug in certain AMI/Intel BIOSes
741 when booting from CD-ROM.
742 * Documentation changes.
744 Changes in 1.32:
745 * FAT16 filesystems are now supported.
747 Changes in 1.31:
748 * Now compiles under Linux, using NASM, rather than using
749 Turbo Assembler under DOS. See http://www.cryogen.com/Nasm
750 for information about NASM.
751 * Linux-hosted SYSLINUX installer, as well as a
752 rewritten DOS installer (now is written in assembler, so we
753 don't need Turbo C.)
755 Changes in 1.30:
756 * Added support for loading bzImage and initrd loading, and made
757 SYSLINUX new-setup-code aware (SYSLINUX 1.30 id=0x31).
758 * Added LILO-style kernel labels; see the LABEL and IMPLICIT
759 keywords in README file.
760 * Added support for colorization of intro and help screens.
761 * The vga= option is now handled correctly.
762 * Massive rewrite of large chunks of the code in order to
763 support the first two new features.
765 Changes in 1.20:
766 * Added simple online help at the "boot:" prompt.
767 * Removed 2880K image as I no longer have access to such a
768 floppy drive. (Donations accepted!!)
769 * Decided to distribute the source in a subdirectory rather
770 than in a nested zipfile.
772 Changes in 1.11:
773 * Removed a sanity check which would cause booting to fail on
774 Phoenix BIOS version 4.03. Apparently this BIOS is buggy.
776 Changes in 1.10:
777 * Added configuration file SYSLINUX.CFG. This file contains all
778 configurable options, and can be edited from any OS which can
779 access an MS-DOS filesystem; there is no longer a need to run
780 SYSLINUX.EXE except to write the boot sector.
781 * Default command line now given by "default" line in config
782 file.
783 * LINUXMSG.TXT and BOOTMSG.TXT hard-coded file names replaced by
784 "display" and "prompt" lines in config file.
785 * LILO-style option appending now supported ("append" line in
786 config file).
787 * Prompt timeout is now supported ("timeout" line in config
788 file). The timeout is cancelled when anything is typed on the
789 command line.
790 * Pressing <ESC> or <Ctrl-C> at the Loading... stage now aborts
791 the kernel loading in progress and returns the user to the
792 boot: prompt.
793 * The installer now automatically sets the READONLY flag on
794 LDLINUX.SYS.
795 * Added 2880K disk image.
797 Changes in 1.03:
798 * Fixed bug that would prevent booting from double-density
799 floppies and other DOS filesystems with multiple sectors per
800 cluster.
801 * Added 720K disk image.
802 * Changed default kernel name on disk images to LINUX.
804 Changes in 1.02:
805 * Fixed bug that would garble the command line on recent kernels
806 with more than 4 sectors of setup code (this wasn't really a
807 *bug*; rather, a kernel change broke the code. Unfortunately
808 the Linux boot interface is still sorely undocumented).
809 * Added BOOTMSG.TXT file support (message file which does not
810 force display of the boot prompt).
812 Changes in 1.01:
813 * Fixed bug on some (most?) 386 BIOSes would require two boot
814 attempts.