| blob | d21fe777d0ddbdef2b27adf8e8624d708148e98e |
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 3.62:
6 * Clean up garbage after "aborted." message.
7 * Clean up memdump.com filenames.
8 * Support SHA256 and SHA512 encrypted passwords.
9 * The shuffle library now can generate chained descriptors,
10 thus allowing pretty much arbitrarily complex memory maps.
11 * Handle command lines up to 2047 characters, the current
12 Linux kernel limit.
13 * vesamenu: support systems without linear framebuffer support
14 (sigh, what is this, 1993?) and 15-bit RGB modes.
15 * Move the label storage (for the command-line interface) to
16 high memory, removing the size limit and freeing up 64K of
17 low memory.
18 * Get rid of 4096-entry limit in the simple menu system.
19 * New hierarchial submenu support: see MENU BEGIN, MENU END,
20 MENU GOTO in doc/menu.txt.
21 * MENU QUIT allows creating a menu entry for returning to the
22 command line.
23 * ISOLINUX: Work around bug in certain Adaptec BIOSes,
24 patch by Bruce Robson.
25 * pngtopnm dependency removed from samples/ directory.
26 * Text documentation files (in doc/) renamed *.doc -> *.txt.
28 Changes in 3.61:
29 * EXTLINUX: fix crash when accessing an empty file.
30 * elf.c32: If a PHDR segment is present, load it.
31 * Fix SHA-1 and MD5 passwords.
32 * ISOLINUX: fix booting when mastered without
33 mkisofs -boot-info-table (broken since 3.50, sigh...)
34 * Handle BIOSes which emit multiple contiguous valid
35 memory regions in the e820 map.
37 Changes in 3.60:
38 * Support for "auxilliary data vector", a small amount of
39 writable storage. Currently only supported for EXTLINUX,
40 but the infrastructure is there for the other derivatives,
41 assuming a suitable storage location can be found.
42 * EXTLINUX: boot-once support (--once, --clear-once, and
43 --reset-adv).
44 * A command is now required to the EXTLINUX installer, i.e. at
45 least one of --install, --update, --once, --clear-once, or
46 --reset-adv.
48 Changes in 3.55:
49 * PXELINUX: as per RFC 5071, PXELINUX no longer requires the
50 use of the magic cookie option (208) for unencapsulated
51 options. Currently it does not require it for
52 vendor-encapsulated options (vendor-option-space) either,
53 but that MAY be reverted in the future if it causes
54 problems.
55 * Documentation text files moved to a common "doc" directory;
56 man pages from the Debian project added to the "man"
57 directory.
58 * Correct bug with self-overlapping memory areas when using
59 the shuffle interface.
61 Changes in 3.54:
62 * Add "menu separator", "menu indent", "menu disabled"
63 (see README.menu).
64 * vesamenu: fix handing of VESA modes with noncontiguous
65 memory buffers. In particular, Qemu/KVM sets up such a mode
66 when Cirrus Logic emulation is enabled (which is the
67 default.)
68 * Support for calling real mode functions using far calls,
69 with argument on the stack. This was implemented to support
70 the BIOS BBS specification, but subsequent experiments show
71 that the at least one of the most common BIOS cores, Award,
72 passes the presence check but doesn't actually implement the
73 functionality.
75 Changes in 3.53:
76 * Fix bugs related to the $PnP BIOS functionality on some
77 platforms.
78 * PXELINUX: Fix the "naked" version of :: (suppress prefix.)
79 * elf.c32: better error messages.
80 * Faster operation under Intel VT virtualization.
81 * PXELINUX: Fix DHCP bootfile option.
82 * mkdiskimage: Support more than 1024 cylinders.
83 * (Hopefully) fix installer on non-x86 platforms.
84 * Fix shuffle_and_boot_rm, used by linux.c32.
85 * Fix shuffle_and_boot_pm on 386/486.
86 * ISOLINUX (at least): fix bss memory overwrite hang.
87 * MBR: Fix booting from logical partitions.
88 * Code cleanups.
90 Changes in 3.52:
91 * Handle capitalized F-key commands in the menu system.
92 * Fix padding error when loading multiple ramdisks.
93 * Workaround for VMware crashing when trying to print a
94 message during early kernel boot (does not seem to work,
95 consider deleting.)
96 * chain.c32: add the ability to search for a specific MBR
97 signature at runtime.
98 * Fall back to the server identity option if the siaddr field
99 in the DHCP header isn't set. This seems to match the
100 behaviour of most PXE stacks.
101 * mkdiskimage: give the generated disk image an MBR signature.
102 * MEMDISK: Fix failures on some BIOSes.
103 * Simple menu system: new "MENU HIDDEN" option to not display
104 the menu unless the user presses a key.
105 * Simple menu system: support MD5-encrypted passwords (modern
106 Unix standard style, with "$1$" prefixes.)
107 * pcitest.c32: now functions as a full "lspci". Thanks to
108 Erwan Velu for this work.
109 * MEMDISK: Make EDD actually work.
110 * ISOLINUX: Fix for certain broken CD-ROM BIOSes which
111 randomly corrupted register FS.
112 * Simple menu system: fix memory overwrite bug that caused
113 some systems to lock up or behave weirdly.
114 * Fix building on 64-bit systems without a 32-bit libc installed.
116 Changes in 3.51:
117 * EXTLINUX: Fix failure to find the configuration file.
119 Changes in 3.50:
120 * New keywords allow the type of file to be specified in the
121 configuration file.
122 * It is now supported to load a different configuration file
123 with the CONFIG keyword.
124 * Fix API call 0x0019 (Read Disk.)
125 * MENU AUTOBOOT, MENU TABMSG, MENU PASSPROMPT allows
126 internationalization of menu messages.
127 * A new feature, TEXT HELP, allows the administrator to set
128 a multi-line help message for individual selections.
129 * Fix API call 0x0012 (Cleanup, shuffle and boot.)
130 * New API call "Cleanup, shuffle and boot to flat protected mode"
131 * New API call "Cleanup, shuffle and boot to real mode",
132 similar to API call 0x0012 but allows arbitrary register setting.
133 * Introduce a library interface for loading arbitrary binary
134 formats with relatively easily understood code. See
135 the elf.c32 module for an example on how to use it.
136 * New module "elf.c32", to load a protected-mode ELF kernel.
137 * MBR (old and new): Fix bug in CHS mode when LBA >
138 65535*sectors.
139 * vesamenu: fix decoding of palettized PNG images.
140 * Update the Linux kernel boot protocol.
141 * PXELINUX: Press Ctrl-N at the boot prompt to read out the
142 network info.
143 * Instead of the (non-existent) MAC, use the client identifier
144 for networks like Infiniband and Firewire/1394.
145 * Add a new INCLUDE command to the core syslinux parser.
146 * Allow binding help text to F11 and F12.
147 * F-key help now available in the simple menu system.
148 * Disabled the polling for ARP during idle. It is simply too
149 slow on some (broken!) PXE stacks.
150 * PXELINUX: also try to fetch the config file based on UUID.
151 * SYSLINUX/EXTLINUX: New RAID mode (-r) which calls the BIOS
152 to load the next device (typically the next drive) on boot
153 failure.
155 Changes in 3.36:
156 * MEMDISK: Disable EDD by default on floppy disks. EDD can be
157 enabled with the "edd" option and disabled with "noedd".
158 This (hopefully) should make Ghost work again.
159 * SYSLINUX: "unix" installer now uses Linux ioctls instead of
160 using libfat.
161 * New MBR which can boot from logical partitions.
162 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in detecting special extensions which was
163 introduced in 3.35 :(
164 * PXELINUX: Unbreak chainbooting FreeBSD (and possibly others.)
166 Changes in 3.35:
167 * MEMDISK: New "safeint" mode.
168 * MEMDISK: Be more compliant with the PnP BIOS spec.
169 * MEMDISK: Turn on EDD support by default.
170 * MEMDISK: Try to work on some machines on which it would not
171 work when there was no floppy drive in the system.
172 * Simple menu system: fix serial console support (broken in
173 3.30).
174 * SYSLINUX: Support subdirectories. Like ISOLINUX, the
175 "current directory" is the directory in which syslinux.cfg
176 is found; this is searched for in the sequence
177 /boot/syslinux, /syslinux, /. As a side benefit, label names
178 like "linux-2.6.18" and "linux-2.6.19" are now supported.
180 To install ldlinux.sys in a subdirectory, pass the -d
181 directory option to the SYSLINUX installer.
183 This work was sponsored by slax.org (thanks, Tomas!)
184 * New API call: read disk.
185 * Invoke ONERROR on initrd load failure.
187 Changes in 3.31:
188 * The simple menu system (menu.c32 and vesamenu.c32) now
189 support loading more than one configuration file at a time,
190 using MENU INCLUDE or by specifying multiple filenames.
191 * The MENU COLOR statement can now control the shadowing mode.
193 Changes in 3.30:
194 * libcom32 extended to support graphics mode and graphical console.
195 * vesamenu.c32, new graphical version of the Simple
196 Menu System, see README.menu.
197 * New com32 modules by Erwan Velu do selection based on CPUID
198 or PCI devices present.
199 * RPM spec: add syslinux-tftpboot module; move syslinux by
200 default to the /usr/share/syslinux directory.
201 * RPM spec: extlinux is now a separate package.
203 Changes in 3.20:
204 * EXTLINUX: New options --install (-i) and --update (-U), to
205 make it clear if a boot loader should be installed or
206 updated. For now, defaults to --install for compatibility;
207 a future version will require one of these options.
208 * New library functions to load and place files in memory.
209 * mboot.c32 bug fixes.
210 * Remove 8 MB kernel size restriction.
211 * Add "klibc" target for building unix/syslinux and
212 extlinux/extlinux with klcc (klibc-1.4.27 or later.)
213 * PXELINUX: Fail (and eventually reboot) if no configuration
214 file was found.
215 * COM32 module by Erwan Velu to make decisions based on DMI
216 info.
217 * Fix issue where going back and forth between menus a lot
218 would cause a hang.
219 * ISOLINUX: Fix bug which made "cd boot sectors" not work.
221 Changes in 3.11:
222 * MEMDISK: Fix bug by which accessing the real floppy disk
223 as B: in MS-DOS was broken.
224 * Simple menu system: allow tweaking of the screen layout.
225 * Simple menu system: better command-line editing, correctly
226 handle command lines above 256 characters.
227 * PXELINUX: revert memory allocation change that caused
228 problems on some network cards.
229 * MEMDISK: Try work around a bug on some BIOSes when no
230 physical floppy disk is present in the system.
231 * Enable the 16550A FIFOs, if present, when doing serial
232 console.
233 * New "totaltimeout" command establishes a timeout without
234 regard for any user input.
235 * Simple menu system: timeout behaviour now more in line with
236 user expectations.
237 * Simple menu system: "ontimeout" should now work correctly.
239 Changes in 3.10:
240 * gcc 4.0.1 compilation fixes.
241 * Add support for querying the PCI BIOS in libcom32
242 (used by ethersel et al.)
243 * Fix PCI handing (ethersel etc) on several old chipsets (and
244 VMWare.)
245 * Try to deal with systems with broken EBIOS.
246 * New API call to do "localboot".
247 * New API call to query features.
248 * New API call to run kernel image, a lower-level call than
249 "run command". See comboot.doc.
250 * Fix for bug in EBIOS code discovered by Arwin Vosselman.
251 * NOESCAPE security fix.
252 * Comments are now recognized even without a space following #.
253 * Fix incorrect handling of mixes of entries with and without
254 MENU PASSWD.
255 * The idle API call now harmlessly returns failure if it is a
256 no-op. That way the caller can decide whether or not to
257 bother invoking it again.
258 * Temporarily disable the idle API call on PXELINUX, due to
259 some platforms on which the idle API call seems to hang; this
260 problem has not yet been debugged.
261 * MEMDISK: the handling of DOSEMU-headered images was broken;
262 fix it.
263 * EXTLINUX: symlinks are now supported.
264 * Simple menu system: N and P now work correctly as hotkeys.
265 * MEMDISK: more BIOS bug workarounds.
267 Changes in 3.09:
268 * gcc4 compilation fix.
269 * <BEL> (Ctrl-G) in message files now causes a beep.
270 * Reduce the command line to 511 characters; 1023 caused
271 memory overflows.
273 Changes in 3.08:
274 * SYSLINUX: Fix performance regression (-s mode always
275 enabled.)
276 * Add API function for idle loop.
277 * libutil: Add do_idle() function for idle loop, make
278 get_key() use it.
279 * libutil: Add SHA-1 and base64 functions.
280 * Simple menu system: add password support.
281 * EXTLINUX: Sparse files now handled correctly.
282 * EXTLINUX: Large directories now handled correctly.
283 * ALL: At the prompt, Ctrl-X now forces text mode.
284 * Fix configuration file parsing error, that could cause
285 hangs.
286 * Rewritten advanced menuing system from Murali Ganapathy.
287 * MEMDISK: New "bigraw" mode to work around certain broken
288 BIOS flash programs.
289 * COM32 module to boot Multiboot systems, including Xen. See
290 com32/modules/mboot.doc.
291 * Max command line changed to 1023 characters. Note that the
292 kernel proper still can only handle 255 characters without
293 patching, and COM16 binaries can only handle 125 characters.
295 Changes in 3.07:
296 * Fix chainloading (chain.c32).
297 * Fix zlib build problem.
298 * Use a private copy of <linux/ext2_fs.h>.
300 Changes in 3.06:
301 * Fix typo that caused the ramdisk to load in the wrong place.
303 Changes in 3.05:
304 * New API function "shuffle and boot"; allows COM32 modules to
305 load or construct (almost) arbitrarily complex objects,
306 e.g. a kernel and its initrd/initramfs in pieces, and have
307 the API core reorganize memory for booting. (A library API
308 for this function will be introduced in a later version.)
309 * The initrd= option now supports multiple filenames separated
310 by commas. This is mostly useful for initramfs, which can
311 be composed of multiple separate cpio or cpio.gz archives.
312 (Note: all files except the last one are zero-padded to a 4K
313 page boundary. This should not affect initramfs.)
314 * EXTLINUX: Fix API function 000Ah (get derivative-specific
315 info).
316 * libcom32/ethersel: Support PCI Config Mechanism #2 on
317 machines still infested with that hideous old hack.
318 * SYSLINUX: Fix directory-parsing bug.
320 Changes in 3.02:
321 * SYSLINUX: The "unix" installer now sets the MS-DOS
322 attributes (hidden, system, readonly.)
323 * COM32 library: build the .lnx (test modules for running
324 under Linux) as architecture native modules, in case
325 i386 devel libraries aren't installed.
326 * EXTLINUX: Hack for systems which don't have BLKGETSIZE64
327 defined in the standard header files.
328 * Simple menu system: minor aestetic improvements, and try to
329 work better over a serial console (speed, and readability on
330 monochrome terminal emulators.)
331 * New CONSOLE directive to control output on the video console
332 (useful for dealing with some broken serial-forwarding
333 BIOSes.)
334 * New com32 module "ethersel" for searching for an Ethernet
335 card and selecting the proper version of Etherboot.
336 * EXTLINUX: Allow the user to override the detected geometry.
337 Add help.
339 Changes in 3.01:
340 * EXTLINUX, SYSLINUX: Fix compile errors on some systems.
341 * EXTLINUX: Default to zipdrive geometry (64 heads, 32
342 sectors) if no other geometry can be detected.
344 Changes in 3.00:
345 * SYSLINUX: Support FAT32 and EDD. As an unfortunate
346 consequence, LDLINUX.SYS is no longer an ordinary file; it
347 is block-mapped at install time, which means it can only be
348 written using the syslinux installers.
349 * SYSLINUX: Reorganize the source code for the installers;
350 each one of the installers (dos, win32, unix, mtools) is now
351 built in its own subdirectory. In particular, "mtools" is
352 the unprivileged installer which uses mtools; "unix" is the
353 privileged installer which uses system calls.
354 * SYSLINUX: Completely rewritten DOS installer in C.
355 * ALL: "label" statement information is now stored in a
356 compressed format, which means that a lot more labels are
357 permitted (500-1000 in a typical configuration, but depends
358 on the complexity.)
359 * EXTLINUX: New derivative, which boots from an ext2/ext3
360 filesystem.
361 * SYSLINUX: The DOS and Win32 installers can now optionally
362 write the boot sector to a file instead of the real boot
363 sector. This is not supported in the Linux installers,
364 however.
365 * ALL: New NOESCAPE command, disables the "hold down the Shift
366 key to display the prompt" behaviour.
367 * New simple menu system, as an alternative to the advanced
368 menu system already present. See README.menu for details.
369 * PXELINUX: Filenames can now be prefixed with an IP address
370 or DNS name plus :: (e.g. 192.0.2.1::filename or
371 server.domain.com::filename), which downloads a file from an
372 alternate TFTP server, or just a :: (e.g. ::filename), which
373 suppresses the common pathname prefix. See pxelinux.doc.
374 * SYSLINUX: Add an -m option to the DOS and Win32 installers
375 to write an MBR and -a to mark the partition SYSLINUX is
376 being installed on active.
377 * MEMDISK: Give a way to query the boot loader type while
378 running MEMDISK; see memdisk/memdisk.doc and
379 sample/mdiskchk.c.
380 * mkdiskimage: substantially improved mkdiskimage which, among
381 other things, can now be used to initialize USB keys as
382 zipdrives; see README.usbkey for more information.
384 Changes in 2.13:
385 * MEMDISK: Fix command-line parsing "brown paper bag" class
386 bug.
387 * MEMDISK: Add "raw" mode to support the DOS boot disk from
388 WinME/XP, which seems to deliberately crash the system
389 when someone uses the "INT 15h mover" highmem API.
390 * Make "make install" do something sane for the com32
391 development environment.
392 * In the spec file, create a separate -devel RPM for the com32
393 development environment.
395 Changes in 2.12:
396 * Simple C library, based on klibc, for writing COM32
397 programs.
398 * Fix the handling of file length in loading of COM32
399 programs.
400 * MEMDISK: Work around a linker bug by rearranging the code to
401 not use the linker for the 16-bit code.
402 * SYSLINUX: If we're building on a machine without a Win32
403 (mingw) compiler, just skip building syslinux.exe.
404 * ISOLINUX: Support non-mkisofs mastering programs, at least
405 as long as the image is single-session. For best results,
406 ISOLINUX should be the only boot loader installed.
407 * MEMDISK: Allow the user to specify that the simulated disk
408 should be write-protected.
410 Changes in 2.11:
411 * ALL: Add an API call to get the configuration file name.
412 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in 2.10 that prevented it from working
413 correctly for a lot of people.
414 * SYSLINUX: In the installer, make mtools a bit less fussy.
415 * Make the menu system compile with newer gcc's.
417 Changes in 2.10:
418 * MEMDISK: Handle images compressed with zip as well as with
419 gzip. Some Windows-based image tools apparently generate
420 these kinds of images by default. Patch by Patrick
421 LoPresti.
422 * Major menu improvement from Murali Ganapathy.
423 * ISOLINUX: Wonderfully sick and brilliant workaround for
424 severe bugs in certain Award BIOSes; from Knut Petersen.
425 * SYSLINUX: Fix for the nomtools installed, from Frederic
426 Pasteleurs.
427 * PXELINUX: Fix handling of IP numbers in the ranges
428 100-109 and 200-209.
429 * ALL: New option "allowoptions" (defaults to 1), which
430 controls if options are allowed on the command line or not.
431 * SYSLINUX: Support building under klibc (see the klibc
432 distribution for details.)
434 Changes in 2.09:
435 * SYSLINUX: Remove residual setuid crap from
436 syslinux-nomtools.
437 * Handle video pages correctly when using the API functions.
438 * Handle compiling on an x86-64 platform correctly.
439 * Menu system from Murali Krishnan Ganapathy; see the menu
440 directory for information.
441 * COMBOOT: Allow COMBOOT programs to change screen text mode.
442 * COMBOOT: Correct the documentation of how to detect
443 SYSLINUX from COMBOOT!!!!
444 * COMBOOT: Fix "get key without echo" API function.
445 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug that affected the API open function.
446 * ALL: Improve the E820 memory parser, to work around some
447 buggy BIOSes.
449 Changes in 2.08:
450 * Add new configuration command "ontimeout" to allow timeout
451 to have a different action than just pressing Enter.
452 * Add new configuration command "onerror" to allow a custom
453 command to be executed in case the kernel image is not found.
454 * Fix bugs in the COMBOOT/COM32 command-line parsing. APPEND
455 now works with COMBOOT/COM32 images.
456 * PXELINUX: Poll for ARP requests while sitting at the
457 prompt. This makes some boot servers a lot less unhappy.
458 * PXELINUX: Actually free sockets when we get a failure
459 (including file not found.) This bug would cause us to run
460 out of sockets and thus "go deaf" after a while.
461 * MEMDISK: Add an API to query for the existence of MEMDISK.
462 * SYSLINUX: Fix loading boot sectors (.bs/.bss) from floppy
463 disk.
464 * .c32 is now one of the extensions searched for
465 automatically.
466 * PXELINUX: RFBG.exe seems to randomly overwrite memory
467 location 0x5700. Thus, don't use it!
468 * PXELINUX: Change pathname length max from 63 to 127; change
469 max vkernels from 128 to 64.
470 * Support Ctrl-U -> kill entire command line input.
471 * The "samples" directory contains a (barely at all tested)
472 chain loading example, chain.c32, which may be used to
473 chainload local floppy disks and hard disks. Use with
474 "chain fdN" or "chain hdN [partition]"; N = 0 for the first
475 drive of each type.
477 Changes in 2.07:
478 * MEMDISK: Workaround for BIOSes which go into a snit when
479 they get a RESET command for the floppy system when there is
480 no floppy in the system.
481 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend 2", which passes the hardware
482 address of the boot interface to the kernel as a
483 command-line option.
484 * mkdiskimage: fix the generation of the end limit.
485 * PXELINUX: Fix multiple bugs in chainloading of other NBPs.
486 * MEMDISK: Fix bug that would occationally cause "ran out of
487 input data" when using compressed disk images.
488 * SYSLINUX: Updates for the win32 installer (from Lars Munch.)
489 * PXELINUX: PXELINUX-specific options are now recognized both
490 in a vendor-option-space (a.k.a. type 43 encapsulated) as
491 well as in a site-option-space (unencapsulated.)
492 * COM32: Don't crash when DS != 0.
493 * COMBOOT/COM32: Make file reading work correctly. Thanks to
494 Phung Chi Kien for submitting a test program.
496 Changes in 2.06:
497 * ALL: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
498 boot failure, depending on the length of the kernel.
499 * ISOLINUX: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
500 boot failure, depending on the length of directories.
501 * SYSLINUX: Win32 installer now flushes buffers.
502 * ppmtolss16: Be fully compliant with the PNM spec;
503 actually process comments in the header and odd
504 alignments of the various parameters, as well as
505 "plain" (not raw) files and PBM and PGM files.
506 * PXELINUX: Lower the default MTU to 1472 in order to deal
507 with systems with slightly nonstandard MTUs, and PXE
508 stacks which don't defragment correctly. Unfortunately this
509 is very hard to test dynamically.
511 Changes in 2.05:
512 * PXELINUX: Add a default query based on the hardware address
513 of the boot device. This is in lower case hexadecimal form
514 separated by dashes and including the hardware type, for
515 example, the Ethernet (type 1) address 88:99:AA:BB:CC:DD
516 would query the file pxelinux.cfg/01-88-99-aa-bb-cc-dd.
517 * PXELINUX: Fix bug involving non-IP-based config file names.
518 * SYSLINUX: New installer for WinNT-based systems, from Lars
519 Munch.
520 * MEMDISK: Fix handling of memory region overlap when
521 decompressing. Thanks to Mikhail Kupchik for identifying
522 the problem.
524 Changes in 2.04:
525 * ALL: Reclaim even more low memory by observing that
526 comboot_seg == real_mode_seg is perfectly fine, and by the
527 fact that the 1000h segment managed to get unused in all
528 derivatives...
529 * PXELINUX: Attempt to negotiate full Ethernet-sized blocks
530 (1468 bytes) using the blksize option.
531 * SYSLINUX: Resurrect the old no-mtools version of the
532 installer, although as a root-only tool. Some distributors
533 have indicated that they need a small standalone installer.
534 * MEMDISK: Fix a memory offset computation error when
535 installing compressed disks which generally would cause
536 1 MB of memory to be wasted.
537 * MEMDISK: Fix installing the E820 memory map. Calling
538 INT 15h AX=0E820h with MEMDISK 2.03 loaded would give a
539 completely corrupt memory map.
540 * SYSLINUX: Make libsyslinux a dynamic library, so that it can
541 be updated separately from client programs. The whole idea,
542 after all, is to enable alternate programs to become
543 syslinux installers.
544 * Include an rpm spec file in the distribution, so rpmbuild
545 -ta works.
547 Changes in 2.03:
548 * Actually support comment lines in the configuration file.
549 * PXELINUX: Try to resolve some problems with stack switches.
550 * PXELINUX: Handle PXE stacks with broken routing.
551 With these workarounds, the remote install PXE boot floppy
552 (rbfg.exe) from Argon Technologies should work correctly.
553 * Fix problems with Perl scripts in UTF-8 locales.
554 * You probably need NASM 0.98.34 or later to compile this
555 version. 0.98.36 is recommended.
556 * MEMDISK: Now supports gzip compressed images.
558 Changes in 2.02:
559 * SYSLINUX: Security flaws have been found in the SYSLINUX
560 installer when running setuid root. Rewrite the SYSLINUX
561 installer so it uses mtools instead. It therefore now
562 requires mtools (specifically mcopy and mattrib) to exist on
563 your system, but it will not require root privileges and
564 SHOULD NOT be setuid.
566 Changes in 2.01:
567 * MEMDISK: Fix memory sizing bug when the ramdisk crosses the
568 16 MB boundary.
569 * MEMDISK: Add a "pause" option to stop immediately before
570 booting, to read off the messages.
571 * MEMDISK: Support disk images with DOSEMU headers.
572 * Update the mkdiskimage script to handle newer mtools
573 versions, and be able to generate disk images with DOSEMU
574 headers (controlled by the -d option).
575 * Fix the COM32 sample program.
576 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix some COMBOOT API calls.
577 * PXELINUX: Doc fix.
578 * Build SYSLINUX into a small library for encapsulation into
579 other programs (however, please keep in mind this is a GPL'd
580 library.)
581 * SYSLINUX: Make installer work with "owner" in /etc/fstab.
582 * SYSLINUX: Fix issue with working on nonpartitioned hard disk
583 devices. THIS CONFIGURATION IS NOT RECOMMENDED.
585 Changes in 2.00:
586 * ALL: Add support for "COM32" (32-bit COMBOOT) images.
587 * ALL: Add an API for COMBOOT/COM32 images. See comboot.doc
588 for details. There is a C development environment for
589 COM32 being created; it should be ready at some point in
590 the future.
591 * Fix mbr.asm so that it actually works.
592 * SYSLINUX: The syslinux installer *SHOULD* now be safe to
593 run setuid root.
594 * PXELINUX: Fix bug where PXELINUX would override random
595 chunks of the UNDI code segment! Thanks to Kevin Tran for
596 finding this bug.
597 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug related to slashes in pathnames.
598 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug in handling initrds over 128 MB.
599 * ALL: Make the <Ctrl-V> key print out the version; this is
600 to help debugging.
601 * Add a small script, mkdiskimage, to create a DOS-formatted
602 hard disk image using mtools. This may be useful in
603 conjunction with MEMDISK.
604 * ISOLINUX: Search for a /boot/isolinux directory as well as
605 /isolinux.
606 * ALL: Fix a bug related to very long configuration files.
607 * PXELINUX: Work around a NASM bug which would result in no
608 delay before reset if an error occurs.
610 Changes in 1.76:
611 * ISOLINUX: Remove code no longer used which caused hangs on
612 some Toshiba laptops.
614 Changes in 1.75:
615 * ALL: NASM 0.98.32 or later is now required to build
616 SYSLINUX from sources.
617 * SYSLINUX: put back in the workaround for the BIOS floppy
618 table. This seems to be a requirement for "extended" floppy
619 formats to work correctly.
620 * SYSLINUX: No longer warn if one is trying to boot on a 286
621 or older. The above BIOS workaround no longer fits if the
622 requirement to use only 8086-compatible code in the early
623 boot is maintained. It made sense in 1994, but in 2002 a
624 286 or older is a museum object.
625 * SYSLINUX: Use a downright bizarre, stateful algorithm to try
626 to guess the maximum transfer size. I am *hoping* this will
627 cut down on the number of systems for which -s is required
628 to work at any acceptable speed.
629 * ISOLINUX: Add a few more workarounds for various broken El
630 Torito BIOSes.
631 * Make sure .depend files aren't accidentally packed...
632 * ALL: Fix bugs in the extension-detect code; this caused
633 files like COMBOOT images and CD boot sectors to be
634 mis-identified as Linux kernels and rejected.
635 * ALL: Fix the return from COMBOOT.
636 * ALL: Do some of the early groundwork for supporting DOS
637 system calls in COMBOOT.
638 * Get rid of unnecessary "near" directives, making the code
639 bigger.
640 * PXELINUX: Put the PXE stack back in the init state before
641 invoking a chain-loaded NBP.
642 * PXELINUX: Actually found the combination of calls that
643 allows some (most?) PXE 2+ stacks to be unloaded from memory
644 properly.
645 * PXELINUX: Add "keeppxe" command-line option to disable
646 the standard unloading of the PXE stack.
648 Changes in 1.74:
649 * SYSLINUX: fix bug that would cause valid kernel images to be
650 labelled "invalid".
652 Changes in 1.73:
653 * Work on removing gratuitous differences between modules.
654 * Break up the source in common and module-specific files.
655 * PXELINUX: Allow chaining of other PXE NBPs.
656 * ISOLINUX: Allow loading "CD-ROM boot sectors".
657 * ALL: generalize the definition of a boot sector/NBP.
659 Changes in 1.72:
660 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix bugs in the new core code.
662 Changes in 1.71:
663 * Fix a "brown paper bag" class bug in the new core code.
665 Changes in 1.70:
666 * Major code restructuring.
667 * Relax the conventional memory limits somewhat.
668 * MEMDISK: Set up the "version number string" pointer in the
669 header correctly.
670 * SYSLINUX: Fix, again, "the bug that won't die": the use of
671 the offset parameter with the SYSLINUX installer.
672 * SYSLINUX: Fix possible superblock corruption problem in the
673 SYSLINUX installer.
675 Changes in 1.67:
676 * Handle bug in the location of initrd.
678 Changes in 1.66:
679 * MEMDISK: Make compile with newer versions of gcc.
681 Changes in 1.65:
682 * ISOLINUX: Support booting disk image files (to boot DOS or
683 other non-Linux operating systems), *IF* the BIOS works
684 correctly; unfortunately many BIOSes apparently don't.
685 * Support Linux boot protocol version 2.03 (explicitly
686 specify the initrd address limit.)
687 * Handle small "pseudo-kernels"; images that use the Linux
688 kernel boot protocols but are less than 64K in size.
689 * MEMDISK: New subsystem; this is a driver which allows
690 legacy OSes to boot using an in-memory simulated disk.
691 See memdisk/memdisk.doc for more info.
692 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Correctly handle files larger than 65535
693 blocks (32 MB for PXELINUX, 128 MB for ISOLINUX.)
694 * PXELINUX: Make a best-effort attempt at freeing all memory
695 claimed. From the looks of it, it will fail on most PXE
696 stacks.
698 Changes in 1.64:
699 * Limited support for hardware flow control when using a
700 serial port console.
701 * Support specifying the serial port I/O address explicitly.
702 * Make DOS installer hopefully behave more nicely when used on
703 recent Windows versions.
704 * Fix returning to text mode when a font has been specified.
705 * Attempt to detect missing serial port hardware and disable
706 the serial port if there is nothing there.
708 Changes in 1.63:
709 * Make the ppmtolss16 program handle color conversion more
710 correctly.
711 * Clean up "make install" target, honour INSTALLROOT if it
712 exists.
713 * SYSLINUX: Fix stack-smash bug identified by Steffen
714 Winterfeldt.
715 * Hopefully fix return-to-text-mode on some graphics cards.
716 * ISOLINUX: Bug workaround for Award BIOS 4.51, and perhaps
717 other buggy BIOSes as well.
719 Changes in 1.62:
720 * PXELINUX: Allow the DHCP server to override the
721 configuration file name and pathname prefix, using
722 "site-specific" DHCP options.
723 * PXELINUX: Documentation fixes.
724 * PXELINUX: Fix the "ipappend" option; the last two values
725 were reversed vs. what the kernel expected.
726 * Introduce a way to return to text mode once we are already
727 in graphics mode. This may be useful for F-key help
728 screens.
729 * Fix several bugs in the way return to text mode was handled.
731 Changes in 1.61:
732 * ISOLINUX: Support full pathname searches. Max length for a
733 pathname is 255 characters. As a result, only 64 "label"
734 statements are supported in ISOLINUX.
735 * PXELINUX: Max filename length extended to 63 characters.
737 Changes in 1.60:
738 * Add support for graphical splash screens.
739 * Add mode control characters, which allows you to control
740 message display output depending on output mode (text,
741 graphics, or serial port.)
742 * ISOLINUX: New program, which boots Linux from a CD-ROM
743 without using floppy emulation mode. See isolinux.doc for
744 more details.
745 * PXELINUX: Don't search for boot sector file types, since
746 they don't work anyway.
747 * SYSLINUX: Document the LOCK command for Win9x, and the error
748 dialog box for WinNT/2K.
750 Changes in 1.54:
751 * PXELINUX: Fix code for finding !PXE from PXENV+. This was
752 due to a spec bug; match the most recent spec since that
753 seems to be what implementations actually do.
754 * SYSLINUX: Add some smarts to the boot sector, which
755 hopefully should reduce the number of systems which require
756 stupid mode ("syslinux -s").
757 * PXELINUX: Document further some of the pathologies with old
758 PXE stacks.
759 * When specifying a "default" command line, no longer
760 automatically appent "auto". See the "DEFAULT" command in
761 syslinux.doc for more information.
762 * PXELINUX: Clean up the allocation of local socket numbers.
764 Changes in 1.53:
765 * PXELINUX: Rename pxelinux.bin to pxelinux.0, to match what
766 most PXE servers seem to expect.
767 * PXELINUX: Update the DHCP/boot server setup documentation.
768 * PXELINUX: Support new "localboot" option for "label"
769 sections.
770 * PXELINUX: More robust parsing of DHCP/boot server packets.
771 * PXELINUX: Include a small utility program "gethostip" to
772 compute hexadecimal IP addresses.
774 Changes in 1.52:
775 * PXELINUX: Fix bugs introduced by new A20 code. (SYSLINUX
776 has also been changed for code consistency reasons, but I'm
777 pretty sure the changes are don't care on SYSLINUX.)
778 * Documentation updates.
779 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend" option to generate an ip= option to
780 the kernel.
782 Changes in 1.51:
783 * PXELINUX: Not all PXE stacks fill in the IP address for a
784 type 3 cached info query. Use a type 2 cached info query
785 for this information (only.)
786 * Yet another attempt at A20 coding. Now support BIOS call
787 15:2401 as well, and handle machines which always have A20
788 on separately.
789 * Support memory detection using INT 15h, AX=0E820h. BIOS
790 manufacturers have apparently gotten sloppy about keeping
791 INT 15h, AX=0E801h working properly.
792 * Don't issue <CR><LF> onto the serial port when we're doing
793 screen wraparound.
795 Changes in 1.50:
796 * Yet another A20-code update. It seems some "legacy-free"
797 machines and embedded gear simply don't have a KBC to talk
798 to, and that waiting for one will wait forever. Sigh.
800 Changes in 1.49:
801 * SYSLINUX: Implement a hack for BIOS drivers which hog significant
802 chunks of low memory during boot. (Note: PXELINUX already
803 had this modification. SYSLINUX does still require that the
804 low 512K is available; PXELINUX requires 384K. Machines
805 with a physical memory hole in the low 640K cannot boot
806 Linux no matter what.) Depending what the reason is for the
807 memory hole, a new kernel (2.4.0-test3-pre3 or later) may be
808 required.
809 * SYSLINUX: Default installer binary now compiled against
810 glibc 2.1. If this is inappropriate for your system and you
811 still want to use the offical version of SYSLINUX, please
812 follow the instructions in "distrib.doc" to rebuild the
813 installer.
814 * SYSLINUX: Linux installer program now supports -o <offset>
815 option which does a loopback mount with the
816 -o loop,offset=<> option. Useful to run SYSLINUX on an
817 individual partition of a whole-harddisk image.
818 * Include the source code to a Master Boot Record (MBR)
819 functionally equivalent to the one installed DOS except it
820 includes EBIOS support, and should be resistant to geometry
821 changes. The MBR code is public domain.
822 * PXELINUX: Fix "double p" bug: if the tftp prefix was null,
823 all filenames would get a "p" preprended, e.g.
824 "ppxelinux.cfg" and "pvmlinux".
826 Changes in 1.48:
827 * PXELINUX: Workaround for PXE ROMs based on the Intel PXE PDK
828 3.0 build 071 and earlier: missing !PXE structure pointer.
829 * PXELINUX: Handle larger BOOTP/DHCP packages.
830 * PXELINUX: The command line passing was broken; fix.
831 * PXELINUX: Make COMBOOT images work.
832 * PXELINUX: Documentation on how to make booting work using
833 the PDK 3.0-derived clients, which aren't so generous as to
834 allow booting with only "PXEClient" specified.
836 Changes in 1.47:
837 * PXELINUX: RFC 1123 states that a TFTP implementation MUST
838 use adaptive timeout, "at least an exponential backoff of
839 retransmission timeout is necessary." Implement a very
840 simple exponential backoff for retransmits.
841 * PXELINUX: Updated documentation, including pointer to new
842 TFTP server.
843 * PXELINUX: When sending ERROR due to bad OACK, use the proper
844 destination port number (why are TFTP port numbers so odd?)
845 * PXELINUX: If the boot dies in the middle somewhere,
846 eventually give up and reset the machine (unattended
847 operation.)
849 Changes in 1.46:
850 * New program PXELINUX to do network booting using a
851 PXE-compliant (Pre-Execution Environment) network booting
852 PROM. See pxelinux.doc for details.
854 Changes in 1.45:
855 * Serial console support. See syslinux.doc for details.
857 Changes in 1.44:
858 * Change HIGHMEM_MAX to 38000000h to (hopefully) avoid the
859 kernel stepping on it; 3f000000h was apparently a higher
860 limit than the kernel used!
862 Changes in 1.43:
863 * Add sys2ansi.pl script to display the contents of a
864 colorized SYSLINUX file.
865 * Changed the io_delay once again, after a report that the
866 old delay port causes hangs on some systems.
868 Changes in 1.42:
869 * Frob the "fast A20 gate" port as well as the keyboard
870 controller; will this help systems with problems?
871 * Be even more paranoid about A20, unfortunately even this
872 seems to be not paranoid enough... what I don't understand
873 is that if there is hardware out there *this broken*, how
874 can it run Linux at all? Report an error message rather
875 than hang forever if A20 is stuck.
876 * Include some intermediate files in the distribution, plus
877 provide a "make installer" target for distributors to relink
878 the install programs only. I would prefer the syslinux boot
879 loader proper to be "binary clean" for debuggablity -- use
880 "make clean ; make installer" to rebuild the installers only.
882 Changes in 1.41:
883 * Don't get confused by directories, volume labels, or VFAT
884 long names.
885 * Use INT 15h, AX=0E801h to query memory size before trying
886 INT 15h, AH=88h. This not only provides more headroom
887 between the kernel and the initrd on large-memory machines,
888 but it appears some recent BIOSes actually have started
889 returning garbage for the AH=88h (older) call.
890 * Trust high memory beyond the 15 MB mark if the user has
891 specified it, or if obtained with INT 15h, AH=0E801h (with
892 no memory holes above 1 MB.)
894 Changes in 1.40:
895 * Increase A20M delay and put in a test to avoid problems on
896 certain IBM Thinkpads (thanks to Donnie Barnes of RedHat
897 for vital info on this one.)
898 * Support COMBOOT style boot command images.
899 * Support chain loading (foreign operating systems, e.g. DOS).
900 * Include a new "copybs" DOS utility to copy a boot sector to
901 a file (under Linux, use "dd".)
902 * Fix the DOS installer to work for disks over 32 MB.
903 * SYSLINUX should now handle disks with more than 65536 tracks.
905 Changes in 1.37:
906 * Fix a bug that caused "label" statements in syslinux.cfg to
907 not be handled properly.
908 * Updated the documentation. Among other things, we now allow
909 up to 128 "label" statements.
911 Changes in 1.36:
912 * Fix for booting old (pre-initrd) kernels.
913 * It seems at least some versions of OS/2 doesn't set up all
914 the fields in the superblock correctly. Account for that.
915 * Fix bug that caused boot failure when using the mem= option.
917 Changes in 1.35:
918 * Loading from partitions now should work properly. (Actually
919 tested, this time. You should even be able to dd a floppy
920 to a partition and boot from it.)
921 * Removed large workaround code for an alleged ancient BIOS
922 bug I have never actually seen. The -s option should work
923 on those machines, anyway.
924 * Support for simple keyboard remappings, same as used by
925 LILO (once again to support localization.) The program
926 keytab-lilo.pl from the LILO distribution included to
927 generate such maps.
928 * Added a "safe, slow and stupid" (-s) option to the
929 installers. This option will lobotomize the boot sector to
930 hopefully work on even very buggy BIOSes.
932 Changes in 1.34:
933 * Ability to load a VGA font on bootup (for localized Linux
934 distributions.)
936 Changes in 1.33:
937 * Bug fix in the Linux installer.
938 * Added a workaround for a bug in certain AMI/Intel BIOSes
939 when booting from CD-ROM.
940 * Documentation changes.
942 Changes in 1.32:
943 * FAT16 filesystems are now supported.
945 Changes in 1.31:
946 * Now compiles under Linux, using NASM, rather than using
947 Turbo Assembler under DOS. See http://www.cryogen.com/Nasm
948 for information about NASM.
949 * Linux-hosted SYSLINUX installer, as well as a
950 rewritten DOS installer (now is written in assembler, so we
951 don't need Turbo C.)
953 Changes in 1.30:
954 * Added support for loading bzImage and initrd loading, and made
955 SYSLINUX new-setup-code aware (SYSLINUX 1.30 id=0x31).
956 * Added LILO-style kernel labels; see the LABEL and IMPLICIT
957 keywords in README file.
958 * Added support for colorization of intro and help screens.
959 * The vga= option is now handled correctly.
960 * Massive rewrite of large chunks of the code in order to
961 support the first two new features.
963 Changes in 1.20:
964 * Added simple online help at the "boot:" prompt.
965 * Removed 2880K image as I no longer have access to such a
966 floppy drive. (Donations accepted!!)
967 * Decided to distribute the source in a subdirectory rather
968 than in a nested zipfile.
970 Changes in 1.11:
971 * Removed a sanity check which would cause booting to fail on
972 Phoenix BIOS version 4.03. Apparently this BIOS is buggy.
974 Changes in 1.10:
975 * Added configuration file SYSLINUX.CFG. This file contains all
976 configurable options, and can be edited from any OS which can
977 access an MS-DOS filesystem; there is no longer a need to run
978 SYSLINUX.EXE except to write the boot sector.
979 * Default command line now given by "default" line in config
980 file.
981 * LINUXMSG.TXT and BOOTMSG.TXT hard-coded file names replaced by
982 "display" and "prompt" lines in config file.
983 * LILO-style option appending now supported ("append" line in
984 config file).
985 * Prompt timeout is now supported ("timeout" line in config
986 file). The timeout is cancelled when anything is typed on the
987 command line.
988 * Pressing <ESC> or <Ctrl-C> at the Loading... stage now aborts
989 the kernel loading in progress and returns the user to the
990 boot: prompt.
991 * The installer now automatically sets the READONLY flag on
992 LDLINUX.SYS.
993 * Added 2880K disk image.
995 Changes in 1.03:
996 * Fixed bug that would prevent booting from double-density
997 floppies and other DOS filesystems with multiple sectors per
998 cluster.
999 * Added 720K disk image.
1000 * Changed default kernel name on disk images to LINUX.
1002 Changes in 1.02:
1003 * Fixed bug that would garble the command line on recent kernels
1004 with more than 4 sectors of setup code (this wasn't really a
1005 *bug*; rather, a kernel change broke the code. Unfortunately
1006 the Linux boot interface is still sorely undocumented).
1007 * Added BOOTMSG.TXT file support (message file which does not
1008 force display of the boot prompt).
1010 Changes in 1.01:
1011 * Fixed bug on some (most?) 386 BIOSes would require two boot
1012 attempts.