| blob | 14e53a4f29b2492f4cce31e29e391c438771b919 |
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 with klcc.
14 * PXELINUX: Fail (and eventually reboot) if no configuration
15 file was found.
16 * COM32 module by Erwan Velu to make decisions based on DMI
17 info.
18 * Fix issue where going back and forth between menus a lot
19 would cause a hang.
21 Changes in 3.11:
22 * MEMDISK: Fix bug by which accessing the real floppy disk
23 as B: in MS-DOS was broken.
24 * Simple menu system: allow tweaking of the screen layout.
25 * Simple menu system: better command-line editing, correctly
26 handle command lines above 256 characters.
27 * PXELINUX: revert memory allocation change that caused
28 problems on some network cards.
29 * MEMDISK: Try work around a bug on some BIOSes when no
30 physical floppy disk is present in the system.
31 * Enable the 16550A FIFOs, if present, when doing serial
32 console.
33 * New "totaltimeout" command establishes a timeout without
34 regard for any user input.
35 * Simple menu system: timeout behaviour now more in line with
36 user expectations.
37 * Simple menu system: "ontimeout" should now work correctly.
39 Changes in 3.10:
40 * gcc 4.0.1 compilation fixes.
41 * Add support for querying the PCI BIOS in libcom32
42 (used by ethersel et al.)
43 * Fix PCI handing (ethersel etc) on several old chipsets (and
44 VMWare.)
45 * Try to deal with systems with broken EBIOS.
46 * New API call to do "localboot".
47 * New API call to query features.
48 * New API call to run kernel image, a lower-level call than
49 "run command". See comboot.doc.
50 * Fix for bug in EBIOS code discovered by Arwin Vosselman.
51 * NOESCAPE security fix.
52 * Comments are now recognized even without a space following #.
53 * Fix incorrect handling of mixes of entries with and without
54 MENU PASSWD.
55 * The idle API call now harmlessly returns failure if it is a
56 no-op. That way the caller can decide whether or not to
57 bother invoking it again.
58 * Temporarily disable the idle API call on PXELINUX, due to
59 some platforms on which the idle API call seems to hang; this
60 problem has not yet been debugged.
61 * MEMDISK: the handling of DOSEMU-headered images was broken;
62 fix it.
63 * EXTLINUX: symlinks are now supported.
64 * Simple menu system: N and P now work correctly as hotkeys.
65 * MEMDISK: more BIOS bug workarounds.
67 Changes in 3.09:
68 * gcc4 compilation fix.
69 * <BEL> (Ctrl-G) in message files now causes a beep.
70 * Reduce the command line to 511 characters; 1023 caused
71 memory overflows.
73 Changes in 3.08:
74 * SYSLINUX: Fix performance regression (-s mode always
75 enabled.)
76 * Add API function for idle loop.
77 * libutil: Add do_idle() function for idle loop, make
78 get_key() use it.
79 * libutil: Add SHA-1 and base64 functions.
80 * Simple menu system: add password support.
81 * EXTLINUX: Sparse files now handled correctly.
82 * EXTLINUX: Large directories now handled correctly.
83 * ALL: At the prompt, Ctrl-X now forces text mode.
84 * Fix configuration file parsing error, that could cause
85 hangs.
86 * Rewritten advanced menuing system from Murali Ganapathy.
87 * MEMDISK: New "bigraw" mode to work around certain broken
88 BIOS flash programs.
89 * COM32 module to boot Multiboot systems, including Xen. See
90 com32/modules/mboot.doc.
91 * Max command line changed to 1023 characters. Note that the
92 kernel proper still can only handle 255 characters without
93 patching, and COM16 binaries can only handle 125 characters.
95 Changes in 3.07:
96 * Fix chainloading (chain.c32).
97 * Fix zlib build problem.
98 * Use a private copy of <linux/ext2_fs.h>.
100 Changes in 3.06:
101 * Fix typo that caused the ramdisk to load in the wrong place.
103 Changes in 3.05:
104 * New API function "shuffle and boot"; allows COM32 modules to
105 load or construct (almost) arbitrarily complex objects,
106 e.g. a kernel and its initrd/initramfs in pieces, and have
107 the API core reorganize memory for booting. (A library API
108 for this function will be introduced in a later version.)
109 * The initrd= option now supports multiple filenames separated
110 by commas. This is mostly useful for initramfs, which can
111 be composed of multiple separate cpio or cpio.gz archives.
112 (Note: all files except the last one are zero-padded to a 4K
113 page boundary. This should not affect initramfs.)
114 * EXTLINUX: Fix API function 000Ah (get derivative-specific
115 info).
116 * libcom32/ethersel: Support PCI Config Mechanism #2 on
117 machines still infested with that hideous old hack.
118 * SYSLINUX: Fix directory-parsing bug.
120 Changes in 3.02:
121 * SYSLINUX: The "unix" installer now sets the MS-DOS
122 attributes (hidden, system, readonly.)
123 * COM32 library: build the .lnx (test modules for running
124 under Linux) as architecture native modules, in case
125 i386 devel libraries aren't installed.
126 * EXTLINUX: Hack for systems which don't have BLKGETSIZE64
127 defined in the standard header files.
128 * Simple menu system: minor aestetic improvements, and try to
129 work better over a serial console (speed, and readability on
130 monochrome terminal emulators.)
131 * New CONSOLE directive to control output on the video console
132 (useful for dealing with some broken serial-forwarding
133 BIOSes.)
134 * New com32 module "ethersel" for searching for an Ethernet
135 card and selecting the proper version of Etherboot.
136 * EXTLINUX: Allow the user to override the detected geometry.
137 Add help.
139 Changes in 3.01:
140 * EXTLINUX, SYSLINUX: Fix compile errors on some systems.
141 * EXTLINUX: Default to zipdrive geometry (64 heads, 32
142 sectors) if no other geometry can be detected.
144 Changes in 3.00:
145 * SYSLINUX: Support FAT32 and EDD. As an unfortunate
146 consequence, LDLINUX.SYS is no longer an ordinary file; it
147 is block-mapped at install time, which means it can only be
148 written using the syslinux installers.
149 * SYSLINUX: Reorganize the source code for the installers;
150 each one of the installers (dos, win32, unix, mtools) is now
151 built in its own subdirectory. In particular, "mtools" is
152 the unprivileged installer which uses mtools; "unix" is the
153 privileged installer which uses system calls.
154 * SYSLINUX: Completely rewritten DOS installer in C.
155 * ALL: "label" statement information is now stored in a
156 compressed format, which means that a lot more labels are
157 permitted (500-1000 in a typical configuration, but depends
158 on the complexity.)
159 * EXTLINUX: New derivative, which boots from an ext2/ext3
160 filesystem.
161 * SYSLINUX: The DOS and Win32 installers can now optionally
162 write the boot sector to a file instead of the real boot
163 sector. This is not supported in the Linux installers,
164 however.
165 * ALL: New NOESCAPE command, disables the "hold down the Shift
166 key to display the prompt" behaviour.
167 * New simple menu system, as an alternative to the advanced
168 menu system already present. See README.menu for details.
169 * PXELINUX: Filenames can now be prefixed with an IP address
170 or DNS name plus :: (e.g. 192.0.2.1::filename or
171 server.domain.com::filename), which downloads a file from an
172 alternate TFTP server, or just a :: (e.g. ::filename), which
173 suppresses the common pathname prefix. See pxelinux.doc.
174 * SYSLINUX: Add an -m option to the DOS and Win32 installers
175 to write an MBR and -a to mark the partition SYSLINUX is
176 being installed on active.
177 * MEMDISK: Give a way to query the boot loader type while
178 running MEMDISK; see memdisk/memdisk.doc and
179 sample/mdiskchk.c.
180 * mkdiskimage: substantially improved mkdiskimage which, among
181 other things, can now be used to initialize USB keys as
182 zipdrives; see README.usbkey for more information.
184 Changes in 2.13:
185 * MEMDISK: Fix command-line parsing "brown paper bag" class
186 bug.
187 * MEMDISK: Add "raw" mode to support the DOS boot disk from
188 WinME/XP, which seems to deliberately crash the system
189 when someone uses the "INT 15h mover" highmem API.
190 * Make "make install" do something sane for the com32
191 development environment.
192 * In the spec file, create a separate -devel RPM for the com32
193 development environment.
195 Changes in 2.12:
196 * Simple C library, based on klibc, for writing COM32
197 programs.
198 * Fix the handling of file length in loading of COM32
199 programs.
200 * MEMDISK: Work around a linker bug by rearranging the code to
201 not use the linker for the 16-bit code.
202 * SYSLINUX: If we're building on a machine without a Win32
203 (mingw) compiler, just skip building syslinux.exe.
204 * ISOLINUX: Support non-mkisofs mastering programs, at least
205 as long as the image is single-session. For best results,
206 ISOLINUX should be the only boot loader installed.
207 * MEMDISK: Allow the user to specify that the simulated disk
208 should be write-protected.
210 Changes in 2.11:
211 * ALL: Add an API call to get the configuration file name.
212 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in 2.10 that prevented it from working
213 correctly for a lot of people.
214 * SYSLINUX: In the installer, make mtools a bit less fussy.
215 * Make the menu system compile with newer gcc's.
217 Changes in 2.10:
218 * MEMDISK: Handle images compressed with zip as well as with
219 gzip. Some Windows-based image tools apparently generate
220 these kinds of images by default. Patch by Patrick
221 LoPresti.
222 * Major menu improvement from Murali Ganapathy.
223 * ISOLINUX: Wonderfully sick and brilliant workaround for
224 severe bugs in certain Award BIOSes; from Knut Petersen.
225 * SYSLINUX: Fix for the nomtools installed, from Frederic
226 Pasteleurs.
227 * PXELINUX: Fix handling of IP numbers in the ranges
228 100-109 and 200-209.
229 * ALL: New option "allowoptions" (defaults to 1), which
230 controls if options are allowed on the command line or not.
231 * SYSLINUX: Support building under klibc (see the klibc
232 distribution for details.)
234 Changes in 2.09:
235 * SYSLINUX: Remove residual setuid crap from
236 syslinux-nomtools.
237 * Handle video pages correctly when using the API functions.
238 * Handle compiling on an x86-64 platform correctly.
239 * Menu system from Murali Krishnan Ganapathy; see the menu
240 directory for information.
241 * COMBOOT: Allow COMBOOT programs to change screen text mode.
242 * COMBOOT: Correct the documentation of how to detect
243 SYSLINUX from COMBOOT!!!!
244 * COMBOOT: Fix "get key without echo" API function.
245 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug that affected the API open function.
246 * ALL: Improve the E820 memory parser, to work around some
247 buggy BIOSes.
249 Changes in 2.08:
250 * Add new configuration command "ontimeout" to allow timeout
251 to have a different action than just pressing Enter.
252 * Add new configuration command "onerror" to allow a custom
253 command to be executed in case the kernel image is not found.
254 * Fix bugs in the COMBOOT/COM32 command-line parsing. APPEND
255 now works with COMBOOT/COM32 images.
256 * PXELINUX: Poll for ARP requests while sitting at the
257 prompt. This makes some boot servers a lot less unhappy.
258 * PXELINUX: Actually free sockets when we get a failure
259 (including file not found.) This bug would cause us to run
260 out of sockets and thus "go deaf" after a while.
261 * MEMDISK: Add an API to query for the existence of MEMDISK.
262 * SYSLINUX: Fix loading boot sectors (.bs/.bss) from floppy
263 disk.
264 * .c32 is now one of the extensions searched for
265 automatically.
266 * PXELINUX: RFBG.exe seems to randomly overwrite memory
267 location 0x5700. Thus, don't use it!
268 * PXELINUX: Change pathname length max from 63 to 127; change
269 max vkernels from 128 to 64.
270 * Support Ctrl-U -> kill entire command line input.
271 * The "samples" directory contains a (barely at all tested)
272 chain loading example, chain.c32, which may be used to
273 chainload local floppy disks and hard disks. Use with
274 "chain fdN" or "chain hdN [partition]"; N = 0 for the first
275 drive of each type.
277 Changes in 2.07:
278 * MEMDISK: Workaround for BIOSes which go into a snit when
279 they get a RESET command for the floppy system when there is
280 no floppy in the system.
281 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend 2", which passes the hardware
282 address of the boot interface to the kernel as a
283 command-line option.
284 * mkdiskimage: fix the generation of the end limit.
285 * PXELINUX: Fix multiple bugs in chainloading of other NBPs.
286 * MEMDISK: Fix bug that would occationally cause "ran out of
287 input data" when using compressed disk images.
288 * SYSLINUX: Updates for the win32 installer (from Lars Munch.)
289 * PXELINUX: PXELINUX-specific options are now recognized both
290 in a vendor-option-space (a.k.a. type 43 encapsulated) as
291 well as in a site-option-space (unencapsulated.)
292 * COM32: Don't crash when DS != 0.
293 * COMBOOT/COM32: Make file reading work correctly. Thanks to
294 Phung Chi Kien for submitting a test program.
296 Changes in 2.06:
297 * ALL: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
298 boot failure, depending on the length of the kernel.
299 * ISOLINUX: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
300 boot failure, depending on the length of directories.
301 * SYSLINUX: Win32 installer now flushes buffers.
302 * ppmtolss16: Be fully compliant with the PNM spec;
303 actually process comments in the header and odd
304 alignments of the various parameters, as well as
305 "plain" (not raw) files and PBM and PGM files.
306 * PXELINUX: Lower the default MTU to 1472 in order to deal
307 with systems with slightly nonstandard MTUs, and PXE
308 stacks which don't defragment correctly. Unfortunately this
309 is very hard to test dynamically.
311 Changes in 2.05:
312 * PXELINUX: Add a default query based on the hardware address
313 of the boot device. This is in lower case hexadecimal form
314 separated by dashes and including the hardware type, for
315 example, the Ethernet (type 1) address 88:99:AA:BB:CC:DD
316 would query the file pxelinux.cfg/01-88-99-aa-bb-cc-dd.
317 * PXELINUX: Fix bug involving non-IP-based config file names.
318 * SYSLINUX: New installer for WinNT-based systems, from Lars
319 Munch.
320 * MEMDISK: Fix handling of memory region overlap when
321 decompressing. Thanks to Mikhail Kupchik for identifying
322 the problem.
324 Changes in 2.04:
325 * ALL: Reclaim even more low memory by observing that
326 comboot_seg == real_mode_seg is perfectly fine, and by the
327 fact that the 1000h segment managed to get unused in all
328 derivatives...
329 * PXELINUX: Attempt to negotiate full Ethernet-sized blocks
330 (1468 bytes) using the blksize option.
331 * SYSLINUX: Resurrect the old no-mtools version of the
332 installer, although as a root-only tool. Some distributors
333 have indicated that they need a small standalone installer.
334 * MEMDISK: Fix a memory offset computation error when
335 installing compressed disks which generally would cause
336 1 MB of memory to be wasted.
337 * MEMDISK: Fix installing the E820 memory map. Calling
338 INT 15h AX=0E820h with MEMDISK 2.03 loaded would give a
339 completely corrupt memory map.
340 * SYSLINUX: Make libsyslinux a dynamic library, so that it can
341 be updated separately from client programs. The whole idea,
342 after all, is to enable alternate programs to become
343 syslinux installers.
344 * Include an rpm spec file in the distribution, so rpmbuild
345 -ta works.
347 Changes in 2.03:
348 * Actually support comment lines in the configuration file.
349 * PXELINUX: Try to resolve some problems with stack switches.
350 * PXELINUX: Handle PXE stacks with broken routing.
351 With these workarounds, the remote install PXE boot floppy
352 (rbfg.exe) from Argon Technologies should work correctly.
353 * Fix problems with Perl scripts in UTF-8 locales.
354 * You probably need NASM 0.98.34 or later to compile this
355 version. 0.98.36 is recommended.
356 * MEMDISK: Now supports gzip compressed images.
358 Changes in 2.02:
359 * SYSLINUX: Security flaws have been found in the SYSLINUX
360 installer when running setuid root. Rewrite the SYSLINUX
361 installer so it uses mtools instead. It therefore now
362 requires mtools (specifically mcopy and mattrib) to exist on
363 your system, but it will not require root privileges and
364 SHOULD NOT be setuid.
366 Changes in 2.01:
367 * MEMDISK: Fix memory sizing bug when the ramdisk crosses the
368 16 MB boundary.
369 * MEMDISK: Add a "pause" option to stop immediately before
370 booting, to read off the messages.
371 * MEMDISK: Support disk images with DOSEMU headers.
372 * Update the mkdiskimage script to handle newer mtools
373 versions, and be able to generate disk images with DOSEMU
374 headers (controlled by the -d option).
375 * Fix the COM32 sample program.
376 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix some COMBOOT API calls.
377 * PXELINUX: Doc fix.
378 * Build SYSLINUX into a small library for encapsulation into
379 other programs (however, please keep in mind this is a GPL'd
380 library.)
381 * SYSLINUX: Make installer work with "owner" in /etc/fstab.
382 * SYSLINUX: Fix issue with working on nonpartitioned hard disk
383 devices. THIS CONFIGURATION IS NOT RECOMMENDED.
385 Changes in 2.00:
386 * ALL: Add support for "COM32" (32-bit COMBOOT) images.
387 * ALL: Add an API for COMBOOT/COM32 images. See comboot.doc
388 for details. There is a C development environment for
389 COM32 being created; it should be ready at some point in
390 the future.
391 * Fix mbr.asm so that it actually works.
392 * SYSLINUX: The syslinux installer *SHOULD* now be safe to
393 run setuid root.
394 * PXELINUX: Fix bug where PXELINUX would override random
395 chunks of the UNDI code segment! Thanks to Kevin Tran for
396 finding this bug.
397 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug related to slashes in pathnames.
398 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug in handling initrds over 128 MB.
399 * ALL: Make the <Ctrl-V> key print out the version; this is
400 to help debugging.
401 * Add a small script, mkdiskimage, to create a DOS-formatted
402 hard disk image using mtools. This may be useful in
403 conjunction with MEMDISK.
404 * ISOLINUX: Search for a /boot/isolinux directory as well as
405 /isolinux.
406 * ALL: Fix a bug related to very long configuration files.
407 * PXELINUX: Work around a NASM bug which would result in no
408 delay before reset if an error occurs.
410 Changes in 1.76:
411 * ISOLINUX: Remove code no longer used which caused hangs on
412 some Toshiba laptops.
414 Changes in 1.75:
415 * ALL: NASM 0.98.32 or later is now required to build
416 SYSLINUX from sources.
417 * SYSLINUX: put back in the workaround for the BIOS floppy
418 table. This seems to be a requirement for "extended" floppy
419 formats to work correctly.
420 * SYSLINUX: No longer warn if one is trying to boot on a 286
421 or older. The above BIOS workaround no longer fits if the
422 requirement to use only 8086-compatible code in the early
423 boot is maintained. It made sense in 1994, but in 2002 a
424 286 or older is a museum object.
425 * SYSLINUX: Use a downright bizarre, stateful algorithm to try
426 to guess the maximum transfer size. I am *hoping* this will
427 cut down on the number of systems for which -s is required
428 to work at any acceptable speed.
429 * ISOLINUX: Add a few more workarounds for various broken El
430 Torito BIOSes.
431 * Make sure .depend files aren't accidentally packed...
432 * ALL: Fix bugs in the extension-detect code; this caused
433 files like COMBOOT images and CD boot sectors to be
434 mis-identified as Linux kernels and rejected.
435 * ALL: Fix the return from COMBOOT.
436 * ALL: Do some of the early groundwork for supporting DOS
437 system calls in COMBOOT.
438 * Get rid of unnecessary "near" directives, making the code
439 bigger.
440 * PXELINUX: Put the PXE stack back in the init state before
441 invoking a chain-loaded NBP.
442 * PXELINUX: Actually found the combination of calls that
443 allows some (most?) PXE 2+ stacks to be unloaded from memory
444 properly.
445 * PXELINUX: Add "keeppxe" command-line option to disable
446 the standard unloading of the PXE stack.
448 Changes in 1.74:
449 * SYSLINUX: fix bug that would cause valid kernel images to be
450 labelled "invalid".
452 Changes in 1.73:
453 * Work on removing gratuitous differences between modules.
454 * Break up the source in common and module-specific files.
455 * PXELINUX: Allow chaining of other PXE NBPs.
456 * ISOLINUX: Allow loading "CD-ROM boot sectors".
457 * ALL: generalize the definition of a boot sector/NBP.
459 Changes in 1.72:
460 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix bugs in the new core code.
462 Changes in 1.71:
463 * Fix a "brown paper bag" class bug in the new core code.
465 Changes in 1.70:
466 * Major code restructuring.
467 * Relax the conventional memory limits somewhat.
468 * MEMDISK: Set up the "version number string" pointer in the
469 header correctly.
470 * SYSLINUX: Fix, again, "the bug that won't die": the use of
471 the offset parameter with the SYSLINUX installer.
472 * SYSLINUX: Fix possible superblock corruption problem in the
473 SYSLINUX installer.
475 Changes in 1.67:
476 * Handle bug in the location of initrd.
478 Changes in 1.66:
479 * MEMDISK: Make compile with newer versions of gcc.
481 Changes in 1.65:
482 * ISOLINUX: Support booting disk image files (to boot DOS or
483 other non-Linux operating systems), *IF* the BIOS works
484 correctly; unfortunately many BIOSes apparently don't.
485 * Support Linux boot protocol version 2.03 (explicitly
486 specify the initrd address limit.)
487 * Handle small "pseudo-kernels"; images that use the Linux
488 kernel boot protocols but are less than 64K in size.
489 * MEMDISK: New subsystem; this is a driver which allows
490 legacy OSes to boot using an in-memory simulated disk.
491 See memdisk/memdisk.doc for more info.
492 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Correctly handle files larger than 65535
493 blocks (32 MB for PXELINUX, 128 MB for ISOLINUX.)
494 * PXELINUX: Make a best-effort attempt at freeing all memory
495 claimed. From the looks of it, it will fail on most PXE
496 stacks.
498 Changes in 1.64:
499 * Limited support for hardware flow control when using a
500 serial port console.
501 * Support specifying the serial port I/O address explicitly.
502 * Make DOS installer hopefully behave more nicely when used on
503 recent Windows versions.
504 * Fix returning to text mode when a font has been specified.
505 * Attempt to detect missing serial port hardware and disable
506 the serial port if there is nothing there.
508 Changes in 1.63:
509 * Make the ppmtolss16 program handle color conversion more
510 correctly.
511 * Clean up "make install" target, honour INSTALLROOT if it
512 exists.
513 * SYSLINUX: Fix stack-smash bug identified by Steffen
514 Winterfeldt.
515 * Hopefully fix return-to-text-mode on some graphics cards.
516 * ISOLINUX: Bug workaround for Award BIOS 4.51, and perhaps
517 other buggy BIOSes as well.
519 Changes in 1.62:
520 * PXELINUX: Allow the DHCP server to override the
521 configuration file name and pathname prefix, using
522 "site-specific" DHCP options.
523 * PXELINUX: Documentation fixes.
524 * PXELINUX: Fix the "ipappend" option; the last two values
525 were reversed vs. what the kernel expected.
526 * Introduce a way to return to text mode once we are already
527 in graphics mode. This may be useful for F-key help
528 screens.
529 * Fix several bugs in the way return to text mode was handled.
531 Changes in 1.61:
532 * ISOLINUX: Support full pathname searches. Max length for a
533 pathname is 255 characters. As a result, only 64 "label"
534 statements are supported in ISOLINUX.
535 * PXELINUX: Max filename length extended to 63 characters.
537 Changes in 1.60:
538 * Add support for graphical splash screens.
539 * Add mode control characters, which allows you to control
540 message display output depending on output mode (text,
541 graphics, or serial port.)
542 * ISOLINUX: New program, which boots Linux from a CD-ROM
543 without using floppy emulation mode. See isolinux.doc for
544 more details.
545 * PXELINUX: Don't search for boot sector file types, since
546 they don't work anyway.
547 * SYSLINUX: Document the LOCK command for Win9x, and the error
548 dialog box for WinNT/2K.
550 Changes in 1.54:
551 * PXELINUX: Fix code for finding !PXE from PXENV+. This was
552 due to a spec bug; match the most recent spec since that
553 seems to be what implementations actually do.
554 * SYSLINUX: Add some smarts to the boot sector, which
555 hopefully should reduce the number of systems which require
556 stupid mode ("syslinux -s").
557 * PXELINUX: Document further some of the pathologies with old
558 PXE stacks.
559 * When specifying a "default" command line, no longer
560 automatically appent "auto". See the "DEFAULT" command in
561 syslinux.doc for more information.
562 * PXELINUX: Clean up the allocation of local socket numbers.
564 Changes in 1.53:
565 * PXELINUX: Rename pxelinux.bin to pxelinux.0, to match what
566 most PXE servers seem to expect.
567 * PXELINUX: Update the DHCP/boot server setup documentation.
568 * PXELINUX: Support new "localboot" option for "label"
569 sections.
570 * PXELINUX: More robust parsing of DHCP/boot server packets.
571 * PXELINUX: Include a small utility program "gethostip" to
572 compute hexadecimal IP addresses.
574 Changes in 1.52:
575 * PXELINUX: Fix bugs introduced by new A20 code. (SYSLINUX
576 has also been changed for code consistency reasons, but I'm
577 pretty sure the changes are don't care on SYSLINUX.)
578 * Documentation updates.
579 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend" option to generate an ip= option to
580 the kernel.
582 Changes in 1.51:
583 * PXELINUX: Not all PXE stacks fill in the IP address for a
584 type 3 cached info query. Use a type 2 cached info query
585 for this information (only.)
586 * Yet another attempt at A20 coding. Now support BIOS call
587 15:2401 as well, and handle machines which always have A20
588 on separately.
589 * Support memory detection using INT 15h, AX=0E820h. BIOS
590 manufacturers have apparently gotten sloppy about keeping
591 INT 15h, AX=0E801h working properly.
592 * Don't issue <CR><LF> onto the serial port when we're doing
593 screen wraparound.
595 Changes in 1.50:
596 * Yet another A20-code update. It seems some "legacy-free"
597 machines and embedded gear simply don't have a KBC to talk
598 to, and that waiting for one will wait forever. Sigh.
600 Changes in 1.49:
601 * SYSLINUX: Implement a hack for BIOS drivers which hog significant
602 chunks of low memory during boot. (Note: PXELINUX already
603 had this modification. SYSLINUX does still require that the
604 low 512K is available; PXELINUX requires 384K. Machines
605 with a physical memory hole in the low 640K cannot boot
606 Linux no matter what.) Depending what the reason is for the
607 memory hole, a new kernel (2.4.0-test3-pre3 or later) may be
608 required.
609 * SYSLINUX: Default installer binary now compiled against
610 glibc 2.1. If this is inappropriate for your system and you
611 still want to use the offical version of SYSLINUX, please
612 follow the instructions in "distrib.doc" to rebuild the
613 installer.
614 * SYSLINUX: Linux installer program now supports -o <offset>
615 option which does a loopback mount with the
616 -o loop,offset=<> option. Useful to run SYSLINUX on an
617 individual partition of a whole-harddisk image.
618 * Include the source code to a Master Boot Record (MBR)
619 functionally equivalent to the one installed DOS except it
620 includes EBIOS support, and should be resistant to geometry
621 changes. The MBR code is public domain.
622 * PXELINUX: Fix "double p" bug: if the tftp prefix was null,
623 all filenames would get a "p" preprended, e.g.
624 "ppxelinux.cfg" and "pvmlinux".
626 Changes in 1.48:
627 * PXELINUX: Workaround for PXE ROMs based on the Intel PXE PDK
628 3.0 build 071 and earlier: missing !PXE structure pointer.
629 * PXELINUX: Handle larger BOOTP/DHCP packages.
630 * PXELINUX: The command line passing was broken; fix.
631 * PXELINUX: Make COMBOOT images work.
632 * PXELINUX: Documentation on how to make booting work using
633 the PDK 3.0-derived clients, which aren't so generous as to
634 allow booting with only "PXEClient" specified.
636 Changes in 1.47:
637 * PXELINUX: RFC 1123 states that a TFTP implementation MUST
638 use adaptive timeout, "at least an exponential backoff of
639 retransmission timeout is necessary." Implement a very
640 simple exponential backoff for retransmits.
641 * PXELINUX: Updated documentation, including pointer to new
642 TFTP server.
643 * PXELINUX: When sending ERROR due to bad OACK, use the proper
644 destination port number (why are TFTP port numbers so odd?)
645 * PXELINUX: If the boot dies in the middle somewhere,
646 eventually give up and reset the machine (unattended
647 operation.)
649 Changes in 1.46:
650 * New program PXELINUX to do network booting using a
651 PXE-compliant (Pre-Execution Environment) network booting
652 PROM. See pxelinux.doc for details.
654 Changes in 1.45:
655 * Serial console support. See syslinux.doc for details.
657 Changes in 1.44:
658 * Change HIGHMEM_MAX to 38000000h to (hopefully) avoid the
659 kernel stepping on it; 3f000000h was apparently a higher
660 limit than the kernel used!
662 Changes in 1.43:
663 * Add sys2ansi.pl script to display the contents of a
664 colorized SYSLINUX file.
665 * Changed the io_delay once again, after a report that the
666 old delay port causes hangs on some systems.
668 Changes in 1.42:
669 * Frob the "fast A20 gate" port as well as the keyboard
670 controller; will this help systems with problems?
671 * Be even more paranoid about A20, unfortunately even this
672 seems to be not paranoid enough... what I don't understand
673 is that if there is hardware out there *this broken*, how
674 can it run Linux at all? Report an error message rather
675 than hang forever if A20 is stuck.
676 * Include some intermediate files in the distribution, plus
677 provide a "make installer" target for distributors to relink
678 the install programs only. I would prefer the syslinux boot
679 loader proper to be "binary clean" for debuggablity -- use
680 "make clean ; make installer" to rebuild the installers only.
682 Changes in 1.41:
683 * Don't get confused by directories, volume labels, or VFAT
684 long names.
685 * Use INT 15h, AX=0E801h to query memory size before trying
686 INT 15h, AH=88h. This not only provides more headroom
687 between the kernel and the initrd on large-memory machines,
688 but it appears some recent BIOSes actually have started
689 returning garbage for the AH=88h (older) call.
690 * Trust high memory beyond the 15 MB mark if the user has
691 specified it, or if obtained with INT 15h, AH=0E801h (with
692 no memory holes above 1 MB.)
694 Changes in 1.40:
695 * Increase A20M delay and put in a test to avoid problems on
696 certain IBM Thinkpads (thanks to Donnie Barnes of RedHat
697 for vital info on this one.)
698 * Support COMBOOT style boot command images.
699 * Support chain loading (foreign operating systems, e.g. DOS).
700 * Include a new "copybs" DOS utility to copy a boot sector to
701 a file (under Linux, use "dd".)
702 * Fix the DOS installer to work for disks over 32 MB.
703 * SYSLINUX should now handle disks with more than 65536 tracks.
705 Changes in 1.37:
706 * Fix a bug that caused "label" statements in syslinux.cfg to
707 not be handled properly.
708 * Updated the documentation. Among other things, we now allow
709 up to 128 "label" statements.
711 Changes in 1.36:
712 * Fix for booting old (pre-initrd) kernels.
713 * It seems at least some versions of OS/2 doesn't set up all
714 the fields in the superblock correctly. Account for that.
715 * Fix bug that caused boot failure when using the mem= option.
717 Changes in 1.35:
718 * Loading from partitions now should work properly. (Actually
719 tested, this time. You should even be able to dd a floppy
720 to a partition and boot from it.)
721 * Removed large workaround code for an alleged ancient BIOS
722 bug I have never actually seen. The -s option should work
723 on those machines, anyway.
724 * Support for simple keyboard remappings, same as used by
725 LILO (once again to support localization.) The program
726 keytab-lilo.pl from the LILO distribution included to
727 generate such maps.
728 * Added a "safe, slow and stupid" (-s) option to the
729 installers. This option will lobotomize the boot sector to
730 hopefully work on even very buggy BIOSes.
732 Changes in 1.34:
733 * Ability to load a VGA font on bootup (for localized Linux
734 distributions.)
736 Changes in 1.33:
737 * Bug fix in the Linux installer.
738 * Added a workaround for a bug in certain AMI/Intel BIOSes
739 when booting from CD-ROM.
740 * Documentation changes.
742 Changes in 1.32:
743 * FAT16 filesystems are now supported.
745 Changes in 1.31:
746 * Now compiles under Linux, using NASM, rather than using
747 Turbo Assembler under DOS. See http://www.cryogen.com/Nasm
748 for information about NASM.
749 * Linux-hosted SYSLINUX installer, as well as a
750 rewritten DOS installer (now is written in assembler, so we
751 don't need Turbo C.)
753 Changes in 1.30:
754 * Added support for loading bzImage and initrd loading, and made
755 SYSLINUX new-setup-code aware (SYSLINUX 1.30 id=0x31).
756 * Added LILO-style kernel labels; see the LABEL and IMPLICIT
757 keywords in README file.
758 * Added support for colorization of intro and help screens.
759 * The vga= option is now handled correctly.
760 * Massive rewrite of large chunks of the code in order to
761 support the first two new features.
763 Changes in 1.20:
764 * Added simple online help at the "boot:" prompt.
765 * Removed 2880K image as I no longer have access to such a
766 floppy drive. (Donations accepted!!)
767 * Decided to distribute the source in a subdirectory rather
768 than in a nested zipfile.
770 Changes in 1.11:
771 * Removed a sanity check which would cause booting to fail on
772 Phoenix BIOS version 4.03. Apparently this BIOS is buggy.
774 Changes in 1.10:
775 * Added configuration file SYSLINUX.CFG. This file contains all
776 configurable options, and can be edited from any OS which can
777 access an MS-DOS filesystem; there is no longer a need to run
778 SYSLINUX.EXE except to write the boot sector.
779 * Default command line now given by "default" line in config
780 file.
781 * LINUXMSG.TXT and BOOTMSG.TXT hard-coded file names replaced by
782 "display" and "prompt" lines in config file.
783 * LILO-style option appending now supported ("append" line in
784 config file).
785 * Prompt timeout is now supported ("timeout" line in config
786 file). The timeout is cancelled when anything is typed on the
787 command line.
788 * Pressing <ESC> or <Ctrl-C> at the Loading... stage now aborts
789 the kernel loading in progress and returns the user to the
790 boot: prompt.
791 * The installer now automatically sets the READONLY flag on
792 LDLINUX.SYS.
793 * Added 2880K disk image.
795 Changes in 1.03:
796 * Fixed bug that would prevent booting from double-density
797 floppies and other DOS filesystems with multiple sectors per
798 cluster.
799 * Added 720K disk image.
800 * Changed default kernel name on disk images to LINUX.
802 Changes in 1.02:
803 * Fixed bug that would garble the command line on recent kernels
804 with more than 4 sectors of setup code (this wasn't really a
805 *bug*; rather, a kernel change broke the code. Unfortunately
806 the Linux boot interface is still sorely undocumented).
807 * Added BOOTMSG.TXT file support (message file which does not
808 force display of the boot prompt).
810 Changes in 1.01:
811 * Fixed bug on some (most?) 386 BIOSes would require two boot
812 attempts.