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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.txt.
15 * PXELINUX: We no longer require a TFTP server which supports
16 the tsize option for all transfers.
17 * PXELINUX: Integrate with the gPXE source base; unified image
18 now included as "gpxelinux.0".
19 * The source tree has been restructured; files that were
20 previously in the root have moved into the core, dos, gpxe,
21 and utils directories.
22 * "make install", "make netinstall", and "make extbootinstall"
23 have been updated massively. "make install-all" now installs
24 all three.
25 * Change default dir for auxiliary files from
26 /usr/lib/syslinux to /usr/share/syslinux.
27 * SYSLINUX: VFAT long filename support.
28 * MEMDISK: Any image less than 4096K (4 MB) is treated as a
29 floppy disk. The geometry-guessing code will recognize all
30 common extended formats, but it is still possible some very
31 exotic formats need geometry specification. Large floppies
32 and very small harddisks still need explicit specification.
33 * chain.c32: option "swap" to support swapping of BIOS drive
34 numbers. This is necessary to boot certain operating systems
35 (DOS, Windows) from a secondary drive.
36 * chain.c32: option "file=" to support loading a boot file from
37 the SYSLINUX filesystem instead of loading the boot sector
38 from the drive.
39 * chain.c32: option "seg=" to control the load location.
40 * chain.c32: option "ntldr=" as a shorthand for "seg=0x2000
41 file="; use this to load one of WinNT's loaders:
43 chain.c32 hd0 1 ntldr=/MiniNT/setupldr.bin
45 Note that the file needs to be in the SYSLINUX filesystem.
46 * chain.32: options "freedos=" and "msdos="/"pcdos=" as
47 shorthands for "seg=0x60 file=" and "seg=0x70 file="
48 respectively; use this to load FreeDOS's kernel.sys, MS-DOS's
49 io.sys or PC-DOS's ibmbio.sys.
50 * Change to the A20 algorithm which *MIGHT* help systems that
51 have systems which freeze when Syslinux is used with USB
52 keyboards. Note that this has been hard do verify, so I
53 would greatly appreciate feedback on it.
54 * Complex menu system: unbreak menus which has unnamed
55 submenus, like complex.c.
56 * Fix newline on the serial port for some com32 modules.
58 Changes in 3.64:
59 * SYSLINUX/EXTLINUX: support "localboot" with the same feature
60 set as ISOLINUX.
61 * Add an experimental MBR for GPT partition tables.
62 * Use $(CC) when determining compile flags.
63 * chain.c32: fix booting from logical partitions (Sergey
64 Vlasov.)
66 Changes in 3.63:
67 * Fix errors in the PCI and DMI detection modules (Erwan Velu,
68 Sebastian Herbszt).
69 * Fix host dependencies and other issues in the build system.
70 * PXELINUX: Allow class E addresses as unicast.
71 * sdi.c32: module to load Microsoft System Deployment Images.
72 For additional information, please see:
73 http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms838543.aspx
74 * EXTLINUX: Correct reading directories with deleted entries.
75 * Shuffle library: correct the handling of certain geometries
76 (an upward move with source material blocking the move); as
77 required by sdi.c32 but theoretically possible for other
78 formats as well.
79 * Add "make netinstall" to install /tftpboot.
80 * Fix some documentation files that didn't get moved/renamed.
82 Changes in 3.62:
83 * Clean up garbage after "aborted." message.
84 * Clean up memdump.com filenames.
85 * Support SHA256 and SHA512 encrypted passwords.
86 * The shuffle library now can generate chained descriptors,
87 thus allowing pretty much arbitrarily complex memory maps.
88 * Handle command lines up to 2047 characters, the current
89 Linux kernel limit.
90 * vesamenu: support systems without linear framebuffer support
91 (sigh, what is this, 1993?) and 15-bit RGB modes.
92 * Move the label storage (for the command-line interface) to
93 high memory, removing the size limit and freeing up 64K of
94 low memory.
95 * Get rid of 4096-entry limit in the simple menu system.
96 * New hierarchial submenu support: see MENU BEGIN, MENU END,
97 MENU GOTO in doc/menu.txt.
98 * MENU QUIT allows creating a menu entry for returning to the
99 command line.
100 * ISOLINUX: Work around bug in certain Adaptec BIOSes,
101 patch by Bruce Robson.
102 * pngtopnm dependency removed from samples/ directory.
103 * Text documentation files (in doc/) renamed *.doc -> *.txt.
105 Changes in 3.61:
106 * EXTLINUX: fix crash when accessing an empty file.
107 * elf.c32: If a PHDR segment is present, load it.
108 * Fix SHA-1 and MD5 passwords.
109 * ISOLINUX: fix booting when mastered without
110 mkisofs -boot-info-table (broken since 3.50, sigh...)
111 * Handle BIOSes which emit multiple contiguous valid
112 memory regions in the e820 map.
114 Changes in 3.60:
115 * Support for "auxilliary data vector", a small amount of
116 writable storage. Currently only supported for EXTLINUX,
117 but the infrastructure is there for the other derivatives,
118 assuming a suitable storage location can be found.
119 * EXTLINUX: boot-once support (--once, --clear-once, and
120 --reset-adv).
121 * A command is now required to the EXTLINUX installer, i.e. at
122 least one of --install, --update, --once, --clear-once, or
123 --reset-adv.
125 Changes in 3.55:
126 * PXELINUX: as per RFC 5071, PXELINUX no longer requires the
127 use of the magic cookie option (208) for unencapsulated
128 options. Currently it does not require it for
129 vendor-encapsulated options (vendor-option-space) either,
130 but that MAY be reverted in the future if it causes
131 problems.
132 * Documentation text files moved to a common "doc" directory;
133 man pages from the Debian project added to the "man"
134 directory.
135 * Correct bug with self-overlapping memory areas when using
136 the shuffle interface.
138 Changes in 3.54:
139 * Add "menu separator", "menu indent", "menu disabled"
140 (see README.menu).
141 * vesamenu: fix handing of VESA modes with noncontiguous
142 memory buffers. In particular, Qemu/KVM sets up such a mode
143 when Cirrus Logic emulation is enabled (which is the
144 default.)
145 * Support for calling real mode functions using far calls,
146 with argument on the stack. This was implemented to support
147 the BIOS BBS specification, but subsequent experiments show
148 that the at least one of the most common BIOS cores, Award,
149 passes the presence check but doesn't actually implement the
150 functionality.
152 Changes in 3.53:
153 * Fix bugs related to the $PnP BIOS functionality on some
154 platforms.
155 * PXELINUX: Fix the "naked" version of :: (suppress prefix.)
156 * elf.c32: better error messages.
157 * Faster operation under Intel VT virtualization.
158 * PXELINUX: Fix DHCP bootfile option.
159 * mkdiskimage: Support more than 1024 cylinders.
160 * (Hopefully) fix installer on non-x86 platforms.
161 * Fix shuffle_and_boot_rm, used by linux.c32.
162 * Fix shuffle_and_boot_pm on 386/486.
163 * ISOLINUX (at least): fix bss memory overwrite hang.
164 * MBR: Fix booting from logical partitions.
165 * Code cleanups.
167 Changes in 3.52:
168 * Handle capitalized F-key commands in the menu system.
169 * Fix padding error when loading multiple ramdisks.
170 * Workaround for VMware crashing when trying to print a
171 message during early kernel boot (does not seem to work,
172 consider deleting.)
173 * chain.c32: add the ability to search for a specific MBR
174 signature at runtime.
175 * Fall back to the server identity option if the siaddr field
176 in the DHCP header isn't set. This seems to match the
177 behaviour of most PXE stacks.
178 * mkdiskimage: give the generated disk image an MBR signature.
179 * MEMDISK: Fix failures on some BIOSes.
180 * Simple menu system: new "MENU HIDDEN" option to not display
181 the menu unless the user presses a key.
182 * Simple menu system: support MD5-encrypted passwords (modern
183 Unix standard style, with "$1$" prefixes.)
184 * pcitest.c32: now functions as a full "lspci". Thanks to
185 Erwan Velu for this work.
186 * MEMDISK: Make EDD actually work.
187 * ISOLINUX: Fix for certain broken CD-ROM BIOSes which
188 randomly corrupted register FS.
189 * Simple menu system: fix memory overwrite bug that caused
190 some systems to lock up or behave weirdly.
191 * Fix building on 64-bit systems without a 32-bit libc installed.
193 Changes in 3.51:
194 * EXTLINUX: Fix failure to find the configuration file.
196 Changes in 3.50:
197 * New keywords allow the type of file to be specified in the
198 configuration file.
199 * It is now supported to load a different configuration file
200 with the CONFIG keyword.
201 * Fix API call 0x0019 (Read Disk.)
202 * MENU AUTOBOOT, MENU TABMSG, MENU PASSPROMPT allows
203 internationalization of menu messages.
204 * A new feature, TEXT HELP, allows the administrator to set
205 a multi-line help message for individual selections.
206 * Fix API call 0x0012 (Cleanup, shuffle and boot.)
207 * New API call "Cleanup, shuffle and boot to flat protected mode"
208 * New API call "Cleanup, shuffle and boot to real mode",
209 similar to API call 0x0012 but allows arbitrary register setting.
210 * Introduce a library interface for loading arbitrary binary
211 formats with relatively easily understood code. See
212 the elf.c32 module for an example on how to use it.
213 * New module "elf.c32", to load a protected-mode ELF kernel.
214 * MBR (old and new): Fix bug in CHS mode when LBA >
215 65535*sectors.
216 * vesamenu: fix decoding of palettized PNG images.
217 * Update the Linux kernel boot protocol.
218 * PXELINUX: Press Ctrl-N at the boot prompt to read out the
219 network info.
220 * Instead of the (non-existent) MAC, use the client identifier
221 for networks like Infiniband and Firewire/1394.
222 * Add a new INCLUDE command to the core syslinux parser.
223 * Allow binding help text to F11 and F12.
224 * F-key help now available in the simple menu system.
225 * Disabled the polling for ARP during idle. It is simply too
226 slow on some (broken!) PXE stacks.
227 * PXELINUX: also try to fetch the config file based on UUID.
228 * SYSLINUX/EXTLINUX: New RAID mode (-r) which calls the BIOS
229 to load the next device (typically the next drive) on boot
230 failure.
232 Changes in 3.36:
233 * MEMDISK: Disable EDD by default on floppy disks. EDD can be
234 enabled with the "edd" option and disabled with "noedd".
235 This (hopefully) should make Ghost work again.
236 * SYSLINUX: "unix" installer now uses Linux ioctls instead of
237 using libfat.
238 * New MBR which can boot from logical partitions.
239 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in detecting special extensions which was
240 introduced in 3.35 :(
241 * PXELINUX: Unbreak chainbooting FreeBSD (and possibly others.)
243 Changes in 3.35:
244 * MEMDISK: New "safeint" mode.
245 * MEMDISK: Be more compliant with the PnP BIOS spec.
246 * MEMDISK: Turn on EDD support by default.
247 * MEMDISK: Try to work on some machines on which it would not
248 work when there was no floppy drive in the system.
249 * Simple menu system: fix serial console support (broken in
250 3.30).
251 * SYSLINUX: Support subdirectories. Like ISOLINUX, the
252 "current directory" is the directory in which syslinux.cfg
253 is found; this is searched for in the sequence
254 /boot/syslinux, /syslinux, /. As a side benefit, label names
255 like "linux-2.6.18" and "linux-2.6.19" are now supported.
257 To install ldlinux.sys in a subdirectory, pass the -d
258 directory option to the SYSLINUX installer.
260 This work was sponsored by slax.org (thanks, Tomas!)
261 * New API call: read disk.
262 * Invoke ONERROR on initrd load failure.
264 Changes in 3.31:
265 * The simple menu system (menu.c32 and vesamenu.c32) now
266 support loading more than one configuration file at a time,
267 using MENU INCLUDE or by specifying multiple filenames.
268 * The MENU COLOR statement can now control the shadowing mode.
270 Changes in 3.30:
271 * libcom32 extended to support graphics mode and graphical console.
272 * vesamenu.c32, new graphical version of the Simple
273 Menu System, see README.menu.
274 * New com32 modules by Erwan Velu do selection based on CPUID
275 or PCI devices present.
276 * RPM spec: add syslinux-tftpboot module; move syslinux by
277 default to the /usr/share/syslinux directory.
278 * RPM spec: extlinux is now a separate package.
280 Changes in 3.20:
281 * EXTLINUX: New options --install (-i) and --update (-U), to
282 make it clear if a boot loader should be installed or
283 updated. For now, defaults to --install for compatibility;
284 a future version will require one of these options.
285 * New library functions to load and place files in memory.
286 * mboot.c32 bug fixes.
287 * Remove 8 MB kernel size restriction.
288 * Add "klibc" target for building unix/syslinux and
289 extlinux/extlinux with klcc (klibc-1.4.27 or later.)
290 * PXELINUX: Fail (and eventually reboot) if no configuration
291 file was found.
292 * COM32 module by Erwan Velu to make decisions based on DMI
293 info.
294 * Fix issue where going back and forth between menus a lot
295 would cause a hang.
296 * ISOLINUX: Fix bug which made "cd boot sectors" not work.
298 Changes in 3.11:
299 * MEMDISK: Fix bug by which accessing the real floppy disk
300 as B: in MS-DOS was broken.
301 * Simple menu system: allow tweaking of the screen layout.
302 * Simple menu system: better command-line editing, correctly
303 handle command lines above 256 characters.
304 * PXELINUX: revert memory allocation change that caused
305 problems on some network cards.
306 * MEMDISK: Try work around a bug on some BIOSes when no
307 physical floppy disk is present in the system.
308 * Enable the 16550A FIFOs, if present, when doing serial
309 console.
310 * New "totaltimeout" command establishes a timeout without
311 regard for any user input.
312 * Simple menu system: timeout behaviour now more in line with
313 user expectations.
314 * Simple menu system: "ontimeout" should now work correctly.
316 Changes in 3.10:
317 * gcc 4.0.1 compilation fixes.
318 * Add support for querying the PCI BIOS in libcom32
319 (used by ethersel et al.)
320 * Fix PCI handing (ethersel etc) on several old chipsets (and
321 VMWare.)
322 * Try to deal with systems with broken EBIOS.
323 * New API call to do "localboot".
324 * New API call to query features.
325 * New API call to run kernel image, a lower-level call than
326 "run command". See comboot.doc.
327 * Fix for bug in EBIOS code discovered by Arwin Vosselman.
328 * NOESCAPE security fix.
329 * Comments are now recognized even without a space following #.
330 * Fix incorrect handling of mixes of entries with and without
331 MENU PASSWD.
332 * The idle API call now harmlessly returns failure if it is a
333 no-op. That way the caller can decide whether or not to
334 bother invoking it again.
335 * Temporarily disable the idle API call on PXELINUX, due to
336 some platforms on which the idle API call seems to hang; this
337 problem has not yet been debugged.
338 * MEMDISK: the handling of DOSEMU-headered images was broken;
339 fix it.
340 * EXTLINUX: symlinks are now supported.
341 * Simple menu system: N and P now work correctly as hotkeys.
342 * MEMDISK: more BIOS bug workarounds.
344 Changes in 3.09:
345 * gcc4 compilation fix.
346 * <BEL> (Ctrl-G) in message files now causes a beep.
347 * Reduce the command line to 511 characters; 1023 caused
348 memory overflows.
350 Changes in 3.08:
351 * SYSLINUX: Fix performance regression (-s mode always
352 enabled.)
353 * Add API function for idle loop.
354 * libutil: Add do_idle() function for idle loop, make
355 get_key() use it.
356 * libutil: Add SHA-1 and base64 functions.
357 * Simple menu system: add password support.
358 * EXTLINUX: Sparse files now handled correctly.
359 * EXTLINUX: Large directories now handled correctly.
360 * ALL: At the prompt, Ctrl-X now forces text mode.
361 * Fix configuration file parsing error, that could cause
362 hangs.
363 * Rewritten advanced menuing system from Murali Ganapathy.
364 * MEMDISK: New "bigraw" mode to work around certain broken
365 BIOS flash programs.
366 * COM32 module to boot Multiboot systems, including Xen. See
367 com32/modules/mboot.doc.
368 * Max command line changed to 1023 characters. Note that the
369 kernel proper still can only handle 255 characters without
370 patching, and COM16 binaries can only handle 125 characters.
372 Changes in 3.07:
373 * Fix chainloading (chain.c32).
374 * Fix zlib build problem.
375 * Use a private copy of <linux/ext2_fs.h>.
377 Changes in 3.06:
378 * Fix typo that caused the ramdisk to load in the wrong place.
380 Changes in 3.05:
381 * New API function "shuffle and boot"; allows COM32 modules to
382 load or construct (almost) arbitrarily complex objects,
383 e.g. a kernel and its initrd/initramfs in pieces, and have
384 the API core reorganize memory for booting. (A library API
385 for this function will be introduced in a later version.)
386 * The initrd= option now supports multiple filenames separated
387 by commas. This is mostly useful for initramfs, which can
388 be composed of multiple separate cpio or cpio.gz archives.
389 (Note: all files except the last one are zero-padded to a 4K
390 page boundary. This should not affect initramfs.)
391 * EXTLINUX: Fix API function 000Ah (get derivative-specific
392 info).
393 * libcom32/ethersel: Support PCI Config Mechanism #2 on
394 machines still infested with that hideous old hack.
395 * SYSLINUX: Fix directory-parsing bug.
397 Changes in 3.02:
398 * SYSLINUX: The "unix" installer now sets the MS-DOS
399 attributes (hidden, system, readonly.)
400 * COM32 library: build the .lnx (test modules for running
401 under Linux) as architecture native modules, in case
402 i386 devel libraries aren't installed.
403 * EXTLINUX: Hack for systems which don't have BLKGETSIZE64
404 defined in the standard header files.
405 * Simple menu system: minor aestetic improvements, and try to
406 work better over a serial console (speed, and readability on
407 monochrome terminal emulators.)
408 * New CONSOLE directive to control output on the video console
409 (useful for dealing with some broken serial-forwarding
410 BIOSes.)
411 * New com32 module "ethersel" for searching for an Ethernet
412 card and selecting the proper version of Etherboot.
413 * EXTLINUX: Allow the user to override the detected geometry.
414 Add help.
416 Changes in 3.01:
417 * EXTLINUX, SYSLINUX: Fix compile errors on some systems.
418 * EXTLINUX: Default to zipdrive geometry (64 heads, 32
419 sectors) if no other geometry can be detected.
421 Changes in 3.00:
422 * SYSLINUX: Support FAT32 and EDD. As an unfortunate
423 consequence, LDLINUX.SYS is no longer an ordinary file; it
424 is block-mapped at install time, which means it can only be
425 written using the syslinux installers.
426 * SYSLINUX: Reorganize the source code for the installers;
427 each one of the installers (dos, win32, unix, mtools) is now
428 built in its own subdirectory. In particular, "mtools" is
429 the unprivileged installer which uses mtools; "unix" is the
430 privileged installer which uses system calls.
431 * SYSLINUX: Completely rewritten DOS installer in C.
432 * ALL: "label" statement information is now stored in a
433 compressed format, which means that a lot more labels are
434 permitted (500-1000 in a typical configuration, but depends
435 on the complexity.)
436 * EXTLINUX: New derivative, which boots from an ext2/ext3
437 filesystem.
438 * SYSLINUX: The DOS and Win32 installers can now optionally
439 write the boot sector to a file instead of the real boot
440 sector. This is not supported in the Linux installers,
441 however.
442 * ALL: New NOESCAPE command, disables the "hold down the Shift
443 key to display the prompt" behaviour.
444 * New simple menu system, as an alternative to the advanced
445 menu system already present. See README.menu for details.
446 * PXELINUX: Filenames can now be prefixed with an IP address
447 or DNS name plus :: (e.g. 192.0.2.1::filename or
448 server.domain.com::filename), which downloads a file from an
449 alternate TFTP server, or just a :: (e.g. ::filename), which
450 suppresses the common pathname prefix. See pxelinux.doc.
451 * SYSLINUX: Add an -m option to the DOS and Win32 installers
452 to write an MBR and -a to mark the partition SYSLINUX is
453 being installed on active.
454 * MEMDISK: Give a way to query the boot loader type while
455 running MEMDISK; see memdisk/memdisk.doc and
456 sample/mdiskchk.c.
457 * mkdiskimage: substantially improved mkdiskimage which, among
458 other things, can now be used to initialize USB keys as
459 zipdrives; see README.usbkey for more information.
461 Changes in 2.13:
462 * MEMDISK: Fix command-line parsing "brown paper bag" class
463 bug.
464 * MEMDISK: Add "raw" mode to support the DOS boot disk from
465 WinME/XP, which seems to deliberately crash the system
466 when someone uses the "INT 15h mover" highmem API.
467 * Make "make install" do something sane for the com32
468 development environment.
469 * In the spec file, create a separate -devel RPM for the com32
470 development environment.
472 Changes in 2.12:
473 * Simple C library, based on klibc, for writing COM32
474 programs.
475 * Fix the handling of file length in loading of COM32
476 programs.
477 * MEMDISK: Work around a linker bug by rearranging the code to
478 not use the linker for the 16-bit code.
479 * SYSLINUX: If we're building on a machine without a Win32
480 (mingw) compiler, just skip building syslinux.exe.
481 * ISOLINUX: Support non-mkisofs mastering programs, at least
482 as long as the image is single-session. For best results,
483 ISOLINUX should be the only boot loader installed.
484 * MEMDISK: Allow the user to specify that the simulated disk
485 should be write-protected.
487 Changes in 2.11:
488 * ALL: Add an API call to get the configuration file name.
489 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in 2.10 that prevented it from working
490 correctly for a lot of people.
491 * SYSLINUX: In the installer, make mtools a bit less fussy.
492 * Make the menu system compile with newer gcc's.
494 Changes in 2.10:
495 * MEMDISK: Handle images compressed with zip as well as with
496 gzip. Some Windows-based image tools apparently generate
497 these kinds of images by default. Patch by Patrick
498 LoPresti.
499 * Major menu improvement from Murali Ganapathy.
500 * ISOLINUX: Wonderfully sick and brilliant workaround for
501 severe bugs in certain Award BIOSes; from Knut Petersen.
502 * SYSLINUX: Fix for the nomtools installed, from Frederic
503 Pasteleurs.
504 * PXELINUX: Fix handling of IP numbers in the ranges
505 100-109 and 200-209.
506 * ALL: New option "allowoptions" (defaults to 1), which
507 controls if options are allowed on the command line or not.
508 * SYSLINUX: Support building under klibc (see the klibc
509 distribution for details.)
511 Changes in 2.09:
512 * SYSLINUX: Remove residual setuid crap from
513 syslinux-nomtools.
514 * Handle video pages correctly when using the API functions.
515 * Handle compiling on an x86-64 platform correctly.
516 * Menu system from Murali Krishnan Ganapathy; see the menu
517 directory for information.
518 * COMBOOT: Allow COMBOOT programs to change screen text mode.
519 * COMBOOT: Correct the documentation of how to detect
520 SYSLINUX from COMBOOT!!!!
521 * COMBOOT: Fix "get key without echo" API function.
522 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug that affected the API open function.
523 * ALL: Improve the E820 memory parser, to work around some
524 buggy BIOSes.
526 Changes in 2.08:
527 * Add new configuration command "ontimeout" to allow timeout
528 to have a different action than just pressing Enter.
529 * Add new configuration command "onerror" to allow a custom
530 command to be executed in case the kernel image is not found.
531 * Fix bugs in the COMBOOT/COM32 command-line parsing. APPEND
532 now works with COMBOOT/COM32 images.
533 * PXELINUX: Poll for ARP requests while sitting at the
534 prompt. This makes some boot servers a lot less unhappy.
535 * PXELINUX: Actually free sockets when we get a failure
536 (including file not found.) This bug would cause us to run
537 out of sockets and thus "go deaf" after a while.
538 * MEMDISK: Add an API to query for the existence of MEMDISK.
539 * SYSLINUX: Fix loading boot sectors (.bs/.bss) from floppy
540 disk.
541 * .c32 is now one of the extensions searched for
542 automatically.
543 * PXELINUX: RFBG.exe seems to randomly overwrite memory
544 location 0x5700. Thus, don't use it!
545 * PXELINUX: Change pathname length max from 63 to 127; change
546 max vkernels from 128 to 64.
547 * Support Ctrl-U -> kill entire command line input.
548 * The "samples" directory contains a (barely at all tested)
549 chain loading example, chain.c32, which may be used to
550 chainload local floppy disks and hard disks. Use with
551 "chain fdN" or "chain hdN [partition]"; N = 0 for the first
552 drive of each type.
554 Changes in 2.07:
555 * MEMDISK: Workaround for BIOSes which go into a snit when
556 they get a RESET command for the floppy system when there is
557 no floppy in the system.
558 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend 2", which passes the hardware
559 address of the boot interface to the kernel as a
560 command-line option.
561 * mkdiskimage: fix the generation of the end limit.
562 * PXELINUX: Fix multiple bugs in chainloading of other NBPs.
563 * MEMDISK: Fix bug that would occationally cause "ran out of
564 input data" when using compressed disk images.
565 * SYSLINUX: Updates for the win32 installer (from Lars Munch.)
566 * PXELINUX: PXELINUX-specific options are now recognized both
567 in a vendor-option-space (a.k.a. type 43 encapsulated) as
568 well as in a site-option-space (unencapsulated.)
569 * COM32: Don't crash when DS != 0.
570 * COMBOOT/COM32: Make file reading work correctly. Thanks to
571 Phung Chi Kien for submitting a test program.
573 Changes in 2.06:
574 * ALL: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
575 boot failure, depending on the length of the kernel.
576 * ISOLINUX: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
577 boot failure, depending on the length of directories.
578 * SYSLINUX: Win32 installer now flushes buffers.
579 * ppmtolss16: Be fully compliant with the PNM spec;
580 actually process comments in the header and odd
581 alignments of the various parameters, as well as
582 "plain" (not raw) files and PBM and PGM files.
583 * PXELINUX: Lower the default MTU to 1472 in order to deal
584 with systems with slightly nonstandard MTUs, and PXE
585 stacks which don't defragment correctly. Unfortunately this
586 is very hard to test dynamically.
588 Changes in 2.05:
589 * PXELINUX: Add a default query based on the hardware address
590 of the boot device. This is in lower case hexadecimal form
591 separated by dashes and including the hardware type, for
592 example, the Ethernet (type 1) address 88:99:AA:BB:CC:DD
593 would query the file pxelinux.cfg/01-88-99-aa-bb-cc-dd.
594 * PXELINUX: Fix bug involving non-IP-based config file names.
595 * SYSLINUX: New installer for WinNT-based systems, from Lars
596 Munch.
597 * MEMDISK: Fix handling of memory region overlap when
598 decompressing. Thanks to Mikhail Kupchik for identifying
599 the problem.
601 Changes in 2.04:
602 * ALL: Reclaim even more low memory by observing that
603 comboot_seg == real_mode_seg is perfectly fine, and by the
604 fact that the 1000h segment managed to get unused in all
605 derivatives...
606 * PXELINUX: Attempt to negotiate full Ethernet-sized blocks
607 (1468 bytes) using the blksize option.
608 * SYSLINUX: Resurrect the old no-mtools version of the
609 installer, although as a root-only tool. Some distributors
610 have indicated that they need a small standalone installer.
611 * MEMDISK: Fix a memory offset computation error when
612 installing compressed disks which generally would cause
613 1 MB of memory to be wasted.
614 * MEMDISK: Fix installing the E820 memory map. Calling
615 INT 15h AX=0E820h with MEMDISK 2.03 loaded would give a
616 completely corrupt memory map.
617 * SYSLINUX: Make libsyslinux a dynamic library, so that it can
618 be updated separately from client programs. The whole idea,
619 after all, is to enable alternate programs to become
620 syslinux installers.
621 * Include an rpm spec file in the distribution, so rpmbuild
622 -ta works.
624 Changes in 2.03:
625 * Actually support comment lines in the configuration file.
626 * PXELINUX: Try to resolve some problems with stack switches.
627 * PXELINUX: Handle PXE stacks with broken routing.
628 With these workarounds, the remote install PXE boot floppy
629 (rbfg.exe) from Argon Technologies should work correctly.
630 * Fix problems with Perl scripts in UTF-8 locales.
631 * You probably need NASM 0.98.34 or later to compile this
632 version. 0.98.36 is recommended.
633 * MEMDISK: Now supports gzip compressed images.
635 Changes in 2.02:
636 * SYSLINUX: Security flaws have been found in the SYSLINUX
637 installer when running setuid root. Rewrite the SYSLINUX
638 installer so it uses mtools instead. It therefore now
639 requires mtools (specifically mcopy and mattrib) to exist on
640 your system, but it will not require root privileges and
641 SHOULD NOT be setuid.
643 Changes in 2.01:
644 * MEMDISK: Fix memory sizing bug when the ramdisk crosses the
645 16 MB boundary.
646 * MEMDISK: Add a "pause" option to stop immediately before
647 booting, to read off the messages.
648 * MEMDISK: Support disk images with DOSEMU headers.
649 * Update the mkdiskimage script to handle newer mtools
650 versions, and be able to generate disk images with DOSEMU
651 headers (controlled by the -d option).
652 * Fix the COM32 sample program.
653 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix some COMBOOT API calls.
654 * PXELINUX: Doc fix.
655 * Build SYSLINUX into a small library for encapsulation into
656 other programs (however, please keep in mind this is a GPL'd
657 library.)
658 * SYSLINUX: Make installer work with "owner" in /etc/fstab.
659 * SYSLINUX: Fix issue with working on nonpartitioned hard disk
660 devices. THIS CONFIGURATION IS NOT RECOMMENDED.
662 Changes in 2.00:
663 * ALL: Add support for "COM32" (32-bit COMBOOT) images.
664 * ALL: Add an API for COMBOOT/COM32 images. See comboot.doc
665 for details. There is a C development environment for
666 COM32 being created; it should be ready at some point in
667 the future.
668 * Fix mbr.asm so that it actually works.
669 * SYSLINUX: The syslinux installer *SHOULD* now be safe to
670 run setuid root.
671 * PXELINUX: Fix bug where PXELINUX would override random
672 chunks of the UNDI code segment! Thanks to Kevin Tran for
673 finding this bug.
674 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug related to slashes in pathnames.
675 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug in handling initrds over 128 MB.
676 * ALL: Make the <Ctrl-V> key print out the version; this is
677 to help debugging.
678 * Add a small script, mkdiskimage, to create a DOS-formatted
679 hard disk image using mtools. This may be useful in
680 conjunction with MEMDISK.
681 * ISOLINUX: Search for a /boot/isolinux directory as well as
682 /isolinux.
683 * ALL: Fix a bug related to very long configuration files.
684 * PXELINUX: Work around a NASM bug which would result in no
685 delay before reset if an error occurs.
687 Changes in 1.76:
688 * ISOLINUX: Remove code no longer used which caused hangs on
689 some Toshiba laptops.
691 Changes in 1.75:
692 * ALL: NASM 0.98.32 or later is now required to build
693 SYSLINUX from sources.
694 * SYSLINUX: put back in the workaround for the BIOS floppy
695 table. This seems to be a requirement for "extended" floppy
696 formats to work correctly.
697 * SYSLINUX: No longer warn if one is trying to boot on a 286
698 or older. The above BIOS workaround no longer fits if the
699 requirement to use only 8086-compatible code in the early
700 boot is maintained. It made sense in 1994, but in 2002 a
701 286 or older is a museum object.
702 * SYSLINUX: Use a downright bizarre, stateful algorithm to try
703 to guess the maximum transfer size. I am *hoping* this will
704 cut down on the number of systems for which -s is required
705 to work at any acceptable speed.
706 * ISOLINUX: Add a few more workarounds for various broken El
707 Torito BIOSes.
708 * Make sure .depend files aren't accidentally packed...
709 * ALL: Fix bugs in the extension-detect code; this caused
710 files like COMBOOT images and CD boot sectors to be
711 mis-identified as Linux kernels and rejected.
712 * ALL: Fix the return from COMBOOT.
713 * ALL: Do some of the early groundwork for supporting DOS
714 system calls in COMBOOT.
715 * Get rid of unnecessary "near" directives, making the code
716 bigger.
717 * PXELINUX: Put the PXE stack back in the init state before
718 invoking a chain-loaded NBP.
719 * PXELINUX: Actually found the combination of calls that
720 allows some (most?) PXE 2+ stacks to be unloaded from memory
721 properly.
722 * PXELINUX: Add "keeppxe" command-line option to disable
723 the standard unloading of the PXE stack.
725 Changes in 1.74:
726 * SYSLINUX: fix bug that would cause valid kernel images to be
727 labelled "invalid".
729 Changes in 1.73:
730 * Work on removing gratuitous differences between modules.
731 * Break up the source in common and module-specific files.
732 * PXELINUX: Allow chaining of other PXE NBPs.
733 * ISOLINUX: Allow loading "CD-ROM boot sectors".
734 * ALL: generalize the definition of a boot sector/NBP.
736 Changes in 1.72:
737 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix bugs in the new core code.
739 Changes in 1.71:
740 * Fix a "brown paper bag" class bug in the new core code.
742 Changes in 1.70:
743 * Major code restructuring.
744 * Relax the conventional memory limits somewhat.
745 * MEMDISK: Set up the "version number string" pointer in the
746 header correctly.
747 * SYSLINUX: Fix, again, "the bug that won't die": the use of
748 the offset parameter with the SYSLINUX installer.
749 * SYSLINUX: Fix possible superblock corruption problem in the
750 SYSLINUX installer.
752 Changes in 1.67:
753 * Handle bug in the location of initrd.
755 Changes in 1.66:
756 * MEMDISK: Make compile with newer versions of gcc.
758 Changes in 1.65:
759 * ISOLINUX: Support booting disk image files (to boot DOS or
760 other non-Linux operating systems), *IF* the BIOS works
761 correctly; unfortunately many BIOSes apparently don't.
762 * Support Linux boot protocol version 2.03 (explicitly
763 specify the initrd address limit.)
764 * Handle small "pseudo-kernels"; images that use the Linux
765 kernel boot protocols but are less than 64K in size.
766 * MEMDISK: New subsystem; this is a driver which allows
767 legacy OSes to boot using an in-memory simulated disk.
768 See memdisk/memdisk.doc for more info.
769 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Correctly handle files larger than 65535
770 blocks (32 MB for PXELINUX, 128 MB for ISOLINUX.)
771 * PXELINUX: Make a best-effort attempt at freeing all memory
772 claimed. From the looks of it, it will fail on most PXE
773 stacks.
775 Changes in 1.64:
776 * Limited support for hardware flow control when using a
777 serial port console.
778 * Support specifying the serial port I/O address explicitly.
779 * Make DOS installer hopefully behave more nicely when used on
780 recent Windows versions.
781 * Fix returning to text mode when a font has been specified.
782 * Attempt to detect missing serial port hardware and disable
783 the serial port if there is nothing there.
785 Changes in 1.63:
786 * Make the ppmtolss16 program handle color conversion more
787 correctly.
788 * Clean up "make install" target, honour INSTALLROOT if it
789 exists.
790 * SYSLINUX: Fix stack-smash bug identified by Steffen
791 Winterfeldt.
792 * Hopefully fix return-to-text-mode on some graphics cards.
793 * ISOLINUX: Bug workaround for Award BIOS 4.51, and perhaps
794 other buggy BIOSes as well.
796 Changes in 1.62:
797 * PXELINUX: Allow the DHCP server to override the
798 configuration file name and pathname prefix, using
799 "site-specific" DHCP options.
800 * PXELINUX: Documentation fixes.
801 * PXELINUX: Fix the "ipappend" option; the last two values
802 were reversed vs. what the kernel expected.
803 * Introduce a way to return to text mode once we are already
804 in graphics mode. This may be useful for F-key help
805 screens.
806 * Fix several bugs in the way return to text mode was handled.
808 Changes in 1.61:
809 * ISOLINUX: Support full pathname searches. Max length for a
810 pathname is 255 characters. As a result, only 64 "label"
811 statements are supported in ISOLINUX.
812 * PXELINUX: Max filename length extended to 63 characters.
814 Changes in 1.60:
815 * Add support for graphical splash screens.
816 * Add mode control characters, which allows you to control
817 message display output depending on output mode (text,
818 graphics, or serial port.)
819 * ISOLINUX: New program, which boots Linux from a CD-ROM
820 without using floppy emulation mode. See isolinux.doc for
821 more details.
822 * PXELINUX: Don't search for boot sector file types, since
823 they don't work anyway.
824 * SYSLINUX: Document the LOCK command for Win9x, and the error
825 dialog box for WinNT/2K.
827 Changes in 1.54:
828 * PXELINUX: Fix code for finding !PXE from PXENV+. This was
829 due to a spec bug; match the most recent spec since that
830 seems to be what implementations actually do.
831 * SYSLINUX: Add some smarts to the boot sector, which
832 hopefully should reduce the number of systems which require
833 stupid mode ("syslinux -s").
834 * PXELINUX: Document further some of the pathologies with old
835 PXE stacks.
836 * When specifying a "default" command line, no longer
837 automatically appent "auto". See the "DEFAULT" command in
838 syslinux.doc for more information.
839 * PXELINUX: Clean up the allocation of local socket numbers.
841 Changes in 1.53:
842 * PXELINUX: Rename pxelinux.bin to pxelinux.0, to match what
843 most PXE servers seem to expect.
844 * PXELINUX: Update the DHCP/boot server setup documentation.
845 * PXELINUX: Support new "localboot" option for "label"
846 sections.
847 * PXELINUX: More robust parsing of DHCP/boot server packets.
848 * PXELINUX: Include a small utility program "gethostip" to
849 compute hexadecimal IP addresses.
851 Changes in 1.52:
852 * PXELINUX: Fix bugs introduced by new A20 code. (SYSLINUX
853 has also been changed for code consistency reasons, but I'm
854 pretty sure the changes are don't care on SYSLINUX.)
855 * Documentation updates.
856 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend" option to generate an ip= option to
857 the kernel.
859 Changes in 1.51:
860 * PXELINUX: Not all PXE stacks fill in the IP address for a
861 type 3 cached info query. Use a type 2 cached info query
862 for this information (only.)
863 * Yet another attempt at A20 coding. Now support BIOS call
864 15:2401 as well, and handle machines which always have A20
865 on separately.
866 * Support memory detection using INT 15h, AX=0E820h. BIOS
867 manufacturers have apparently gotten sloppy about keeping
868 INT 15h, AX=0E801h working properly.
869 * Don't issue <CR><LF> onto the serial port when we're doing
870 screen wraparound.
872 Changes in 1.50:
873 * Yet another A20-code update. It seems some "legacy-free"
874 machines and embedded gear simply don't have a KBC to talk
875 to, and that waiting for one will wait forever. Sigh.
877 Changes in 1.49:
878 * SYSLINUX: Implement a hack for BIOS drivers which hog significant
879 chunks of low memory during boot. (Note: PXELINUX already
880 had this modification. SYSLINUX does still require that the
881 low 512K is available; PXELINUX requires 384K. Machines
882 with a physical memory hole in the low 640K cannot boot
883 Linux no matter what.) Depending what the reason is for the
884 memory hole, a new kernel (2.4.0-test3-pre3 or later) may be
885 required.
886 * SYSLINUX: Default installer binary now compiled against
887 glibc 2.1. If this is inappropriate for your system and you
888 still want to use the offical version of SYSLINUX, please
889 follow the instructions in "distrib.doc" to rebuild the
890 installer.
891 * SYSLINUX: Linux installer program now supports -o <offset>
892 option which does a loopback mount with the
893 -o loop,offset=<> option. Useful to run SYSLINUX on an
894 individual partition of a whole-harddisk image.
895 * Include the source code to a Master Boot Record (MBR)
896 functionally equivalent to the one installed DOS except it
897 includes EBIOS support, and should be resistant to geometry
898 changes. The MBR code is public domain.
899 * PXELINUX: Fix "double p" bug: if the tftp prefix was null,
900 all filenames would get a "p" preprended, e.g.
901 "ppxelinux.cfg" and "pvmlinux".
903 Changes in 1.48:
904 * PXELINUX: Workaround for PXE ROMs based on the Intel PXE PDK
905 3.0 build 071 and earlier: missing !PXE structure pointer.
906 * PXELINUX: Handle larger BOOTP/DHCP packages.
907 * PXELINUX: The command line passing was broken; fix.
908 * PXELINUX: Make COMBOOT images work.
909 * PXELINUX: Documentation on how to make booting work using
910 the PDK 3.0-derived clients, which aren't so generous as to
911 allow booting with only "PXEClient" specified.
913 Changes in 1.47:
914 * PXELINUX: RFC 1123 states that a TFTP implementation MUST
915 use adaptive timeout, "at least an exponential backoff of
916 retransmission timeout is necessary." Implement a very
917 simple exponential backoff for retransmits.
918 * PXELINUX: Updated documentation, including pointer to new
919 TFTP server.
920 * PXELINUX: When sending ERROR due to bad OACK, use the proper
921 destination port number (why are TFTP port numbers so odd?)
922 * PXELINUX: If the boot dies in the middle somewhere,
923 eventually give up and reset the machine (unattended
924 operation.)
926 Changes in 1.46:
927 * New program PXELINUX to do network booting using a
928 PXE-compliant (Pre-Execution Environment) network booting
929 PROM. See pxelinux.doc for details.
931 Changes in 1.45:
932 * Serial console support. See syslinux.doc for details.
934 Changes in 1.44:
935 * Change HIGHMEM_MAX to 38000000h to (hopefully) avoid the
936 kernel stepping on it; 3f000000h was apparently a higher
937 limit than the kernel used!
939 Changes in 1.43:
940 * Add sys2ansi.pl script to display the contents of a
941 colorized SYSLINUX file.
942 * Changed the io_delay once again, after a report that the
943 old delay port causes hangs on some systems.
945 Changes in 1.42:
946 * Frob the "fast A20 gate" port as well as the keyboard
947 controller; will this help systems with problems?
948 * Be even more paranoid about A20, unfortunately even this
949 seems to be not paranoid enough... what I don't understand
950 is that if there is hardware out there *this broken*, how
951 can it run Linux at all? Report an error message rather
952 than hang forever if A20 is stuck.
953 * Include some intermediate files in the distribution, plus
954 provide a "make installer" target for distributors to relink
955 the install programs only. I would prefer the syslinux boot
956 loader proper to be "binary clean" for debuggablity -- use
957 "make clean ; make installer" to rebuild the installers only.
959 Changes in 1.41:
960 * Don't get confused by directories, volume labels, or VFAT
961 long names.
962 * Use INT 15h, AX=0E801h to query memory size before trying
963 INT 15h, AH=88h. This not only provides more headroom
964 between the kernel and the initrd on large-memory machines,
965 but it appears some recent BIOSes actually have started
966 returning garbage for the AH=88h (older) call.
967 * Trust high memory beyond the 15 MB mark if the user has
968 specified it, or if obtained with INT 15h, AH=0E801h (with
969 no memory holes above 1 MB.)
971 Changes in 1.40:
972 * Increase A20M delay and put in a test to avoid problems on
973 certain IBM Thinkpads (thanks to Donnie Barnes of RedHat
974 for vital info on this one.)
975 * Support COMBOOT style boot command images.
976 * Support chain loading (foreign operating systems, e.g. DOS).
977 * Include a new "copybs" DOS utility to copy a boot sector to
978 a file (under Linux, use "dd".)
979 * Fix the DOS installer to work for disks over 32 MB.
980 * SYSLINUX should now handle disks with more than 65536 tracks.
982 Changes in 1.37:
983 * Fix a bug that caused "label" statements in syslinux.cfg to
984 not be handled properly.
985 * Updated the documentation. Among other things, we now allow
986 up to 128 "label" statements.
988 Changes in 1.36:
989 * Fix for booting old (pre-initrd) kernels.
990 * It seems at least some versions of OS/2 doesn't set up all
991 the fields in the superblock correctly. Account for that.
992 * Fix bug that caused boot failure when using the mem= option.
994 Changes in 1.35:
995 * Loading from partitions now should work properly. (Actually
996 tested, this time. You should even be able to dd a floppy
997 to a partition and boot from it.)
998 * Removed large workaround code for an alleged ancient BIOS
999 bug I have never actually seen. The -s option should work
1000 on those machines, anyway.
1001 * Support for simple keyboard remappings, same as used by
1002 LILO (once again to support localization.) The program
1003 keytab-lilo.pl from the LILO distribution included to
1004 generate such maps.
1005 * Added a "safe, slow and stupid" (-s) option to the
1006 installers. This option will lobotomize the boot sector to
1007 hopefully work on even very buggy BIOSes.
1009 Changes in 1.34:
1010 * Ability to load a VGA font on bootup (for localized Linux
1011 distributions.)
1013 Changes in 1.33:
1014 * Bug fix in the Linux installer.
1015 * Added a workaround for a bug in certain AMI/Intel BIOSes
1016 when booting from CD-ROM.
1017 * Documentation changes.
1019 Changes in 1.32:
1020 * FAT16 filesystems are now supported.
1022 Changes in 1.31:
1023 * Now compiles under Linux, using NASM, rather than using
1024 Turbo Assembler under DOS. See http://www.cryogen.com/Nasm
1025 for information about NASM.
1026 * Linux-hosted SYSLINUX installer, as well as a
1027 rewritten DOS installer (now is written in assembler, so we
1028 don't need Turbo C.)
1030 Changes in 1.30:
1031 * Added support for loading bzImage and initrd loading, and made
1032 SYSLINUX new-setup-code aware (SYSLINUX 1.30 id=0x31).
1033 * Added LILO-style kernel labels; see the LABEL and IMPLICIT
1034 keywords in README file.
1035 * Added support for colorization of intro and help screens.
1036 * The vga= option is now handled correctly.
1037 * Massive rewrite of large chunks of the code in order to
1038 support the first two new features.
1040 Changes in 1.20:
1041 * Added simple online help at the "boot:" prompt.
1042 * Removed 2880K image as I no longer have access to such a
1043 floppy drive. (Donations accepted!!)
1044 * Decided to distribute the source in a subdirectory rather
1045 than in a nested zipfile.
1047 Changes in 1.11:
1048 * Removed a sanity check which would cause booting to fail on
1049 Phoenix BIOS version 4.03. Apparently this BIOS is buggy.
1051 Changes in 1.10:
1052 * Added configuration file SYSLINUX.CFG. This file contains all
1053 configurable options, and can be edited from any OS which can
1054 access an MS-DOS filesystem; there is no longer a need to run
1055 SYSLINUX.EXE except to write the boot sector.
1056 * Default command line now given by "default" line in config
1057 file.
1058 * LINUXMSG.TXT and BOOTMSG.TXT hard-coded file names replaced by
1059 "display" and "prompt" lines in config file.
1060 * LILO-style option appending now supported ("append" line in
1061 config file).
1062 * Prompt timeout is now supported ("timeout" line in config
1063 file). The timeout is cancelled when anything is typed on the
1064 command line.
1065 * Pressing <ESC> or <Ctrl-C> at the Loading... stage now aborts
1066 the kernel loading in progress and returns the user to the
1067 boot: prompt.
1068 * The installer now automatically sets the READONLY flag on
1069 LDLINUX.SYS.
1070 * Added 2880K disk image.
1072 Changes in 1.03:
1073 * Fixed bug that would prevent booting from double-density
1074 floppies and other DOS filesystems with multiple sectors per
1075 cluster.
1076 * Added 720K disk image.
1077 * Changed default kernel name on disk images to LINUX.
1079 Changes in 1.02:
1080 * Fixed bug that would garble the command line on recent kernels
1081 with more than 4 sectors of setup code (this wasn't really a
1082 *bug*; rather, a kernel change broke the code. Unfortunately
1083 the Linux boot interface is still sorely undocumented).
1084 * Added BOOTMSG.TXT file support (message file which does not
1085 force display of the boot prompt).
1087 Changes in 1.01:
1088 * Fixed bug on some (most?) 386 BIOSes would require two boot
1089 attempts.