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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 3.62:
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.doc.
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.
26 Changes in 3.61:
27 * EXTLINUX: fix crash when accessing an empty file.
28 * elf.c32: If a PHDR segment is present, load it.
29 * Fix SHA-1 and MD5 passwords.
30 * ISOLINUX: fix booting when mastered without
31 mkisofs -boot-info-table (broken since 3.50, sigh...)
32 * Handle BIOSes which emit multiple contiguous valid
33 memory regions in the e820 map.
35 Changes in 3.60:
36 * Support for "auxilliary data vector", a small amount of
37 writable storage. Currently only supported for EXTLINUX,
38 but the infrastructure is there for the other derivatives,
39 assuming a suitable storage location can be found.
40 * EXTLINUX: boot-once support (--once, --clear-once, and
41 --reset-adv).
42 * A command is now required to the EXTLINUX installer, i.e. at
43 least one of --install, --update, --once, --clear-once, or
44 --reset-adv.
46 Changes in 3.55:
47 * PXELINUX: as per RFC 5071, PXELINUX no longer requires the
48 use of the magic cookie option (208) for unencapsulated
49 options. Currently it does not require it for
50 vendor-encapsulated options (vendor-option-space) either,
51 but that MAY be reverted in the future if it causes
52 problems.
53 * Documentation text files moved to a common "doc" directory;
54 man pages from the Debian project added to the "man"
55 directory.
56 * Correct bug with self-overlapping memory areas when using
57 the shuffle interface.
59 Changes in 3.54:
60 * Add "menu separator", "menu indent", "menu disabled"
61 (see README.menu).
62 * vesamenu: fix handing of VESA modes with noncontiguous
63 memory buffers. In particular, Qemu/KVM sets up such a mode
64 when Cirrus Logic emulation is enabled (which is the
65 default.)
66 * Support for calling real mode functions using far calls,
67 with argument on the stack. This was implemented to support
68 the BIOS BBS specification, but subsequent experiments show
69 that the at least one of the most common BIOS cores, Award,
70 passes the presence check but doesn't actually implement the
71 functionality.
73 Changes in 3.53:
74 * Fix bugs related to the $PnP BIOS functionality on some
75 platforms.
76 * PXELINUX: Fix the "naked" version of :: (suppress prefix.)
77 * elf.c32: better error messages.
78 * Faster operation under Intel VT virtualization.
79 * PXELINUX: Fix DHCP bootfile option.
80 * mkdiskimage: Support more than 1024 cylinders.
81 * (Hopefully) fix installer on non-x86 platforms.
82 * Fix shuffle_and_boot_rm, used by linux.c32.
83 * Fix shuffle_and_boot_pm on 386/486.
84 * ISOLINUX (at least): fix bss memory overwrite hang.
85 * MBR: Fix booting from logical partitions.
86 * Code cleanups.
88 Changes in 3.52:
89 * Handle capitalized F-key commands in the menu system.
90 * Fix padding error when loading multiple ramdisks.
91 * Workaround for VMware crashing when trying to print a
92 message during early kernel boot (does not seem to work,
93 consider deleting.)
94 * chain.c32: add the ability to search for a specific MBR
95 signature at runtime.
96 * Fall back to the server identity option if the siaddr field
97 in the DHCP header isn't set. This seems to match the
98 behaviour of most PXE stacks.
99 * mkdiskimage: give the generated disk image an MBR signature.
100 * MEMDISK: Fix failures on some BIOSes.
101 * Simple menu system: new "MENU HIDDEN" option to not display
102 the menu unless the user presses a key.
103 * Simple menu system: support MD5-encrypted passwords (modern
104 Unix standard style, with "$1$" prefixes.)
105 * pcitest.c32: now functions as a full "lspci". Thanks to
106 Erwan Velu for this work.
107 * MEMDISK: Make EDD actually work.
108 * ISOLINUX: Fix for certain broken CD-ROM BIOSes which
109 randomly corrupted register FS.
110 * Simple menu system: fix memory overwrite bug that caused
111 some systems to lock up or behave weirdly.
112 * Fix building on 64-bit systems without a 32-bit libc installed.
114 Changes in 3.51:
115 * EXTLINUX: Fix failure to find the configuration file.
117 Changes in 3.50:
118 * New keywords allow the type of file to be specified in the
119 configuration file.
120 * It is now supported to load a different configuration file
121 with the CONFIG keyword.
122 * Fix API call 0x0019 (Read Disk.)
123 * MENU AUTOBOOT, MENU TABMSG, MENU PASSPROMPT allows
124 internationalization of menu messages.
125 * A new feature, TEXT HELP, allows the administrator to set
126 a multi-line help message for individual selections.
127 * Fix API call 0x0012 (Cleanup, shuffle and boot.)
128 * New API call "Cleanup, shuffle and boot to flat protected mode"
129 * New API call "Cleanup, shuffle and boot to real mode",
130 similar to API call 0x0012 but allows arbitrary register setting.
131 * Introduce a library interface for loading arbitrary binary
132 formats with relatively easily understood code. See
133 the elf.c32 module for an example on how to use it.
134 * New module "elf.c32", to load a protected-mode ELF kernel.
135 * MBR (old and new): Fix bug in CHS mode when LBA >
136 65535*sectors.
137 * vesamenu: fix decoding of palettized PNG images.
138 * Update the Linux kernel boot protocol.
139 * PXELINUX: Press Ctrl-N at the boot prompt to read out the
140 network info.
141 * Instead of the (non-existent) MAC, use the client identifier
142 for networks like Infiniband and Firewire/1394.
143 * Add a new INCLUDE command to the core syslinux parser.
144 * Allow binding help text to F11 and F12.
145 * F-key help now available in the simple menu system.
146 * Disabled the polling for ARP during idle. It is simply too
147 slow on some (broken!) PXE stacks.
148 * PXELINUX: also try to fetch the config file based on UUID.
149 * SYSLINUX/EXTLINUX: New RAID mode (-r) which calls the BIOS
150 to load the next device (typically the next drive) on boot
151 failure.
153 Changes in 3.36:
154 * MEMDISK: Disable EDD by default on floppy disks. EDD can be
155 enabled with the "edd" option and disabled with "noedd".
156 This (hopefully) should make Ghost work again.
157 * SYSLINUX: "unix" installer now uses Linux ioctls instead of
158 using libfat.
159 * New MBR which can boot from logical partitions.
160 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in detecting special extensions which was
161 introduced in 3.35 :(
162 * PXELINUX: Unbreak chainbooting FreeBSD (and possibly others.)
164 Changes in 3.35:
165 * MEMDISK: New "safeint" mode.
166 * MEMDISK: Be more compliant with the PnP BIOS spec.
167 * MEMDISK: Turn on EDD support by default.
168 * MEMDISK: Try to work on some machines on which it would not
169 work when there was no floppy drive in the system.
170 * Simple menu system: fix serial console support (broken in
171 3.30).
172 * SYSLINUX: Support subdirectories. Like ISOLINUX, the
173 "current directory" is the directory in which syslinux.cfg
174 is found; this is searched for in the sequence
175 /boot/syslinux, /syslinux, /. As a side benefit, label names
176 like "linux-2.6.18" and "linux-2.6.19" are now supported.
178 To install ldlinux.sys in a subdirectory, pass the -d
179 directory option to the SYSLINUX installer.
181 This work was sponsored by slax.org (thanks, Tomas!)
182 * New API call: read disk.
183 * Invoke ONERROR on initrd load failure.
185 Changes in 3.31:
186 * The simple menu system (menu.c32 and vesamenu.c32) now
187 support loading more than one configuration file at a time,
188 using MENU INCLUDE or by specifying multiple filenames.
189 * The MENU COLOR statement can now control the shadowing mode.
191 Changes in 3.30:
192 * libcom32 extended to support graphics mode and graphical console.
193 * vesamenu.c32, new graphical version of the Simple
194 Menu System, see README.menu.
195 * New com32 modules by Erwan Velu do selection based on CPUID
196 or PCI devices present.
197 * RPM spec: add syslinux-tftpboot module; move syslinux by
198 default to the /usr/share/syslinux directory.
199 * RPM spec: extlinux is now a separate package.
201 Changes in 3.20:
202 * EXTLINUX: New options --install (-i) and --update (-U), to
203 make it clear if a boot loader should be installed or
204 updated. For now, defaults to --install for compatibility;
205 a future version will require one of these options.
206 * New library functions to load and place files in memory.
207 * mboot.c32 bug fixes.
208 * Remove 8 MB kernel size restriction.
209 * Add "klibc" target for building unix/syslinux and
210 extlinux/extlinux with klcc (klibc-1.4.27 or later.)
211 * PXELINUX: Fail (and eventually reboot) if no configuration
212 file was found.
213 * COM32 module by Erwan Velu to make decisions based on DMI
214 info.
215 * Fix issue where going back and forth between menus a lot
216 would cause a hang.
217 * ISOLINUX: Fix bug which made "cd boot sectors" not work.
219 Changes in 3.11:
220 * MEMDISK: Fix bug by which accessing the real floppy disk
221 as B: in MS-DOS was broken.
222 * Simple menu system: allow tweaking of the screen layout.
223 * Simple menu system: better command-line editing, correctly
224 handle command lines above 256 characters.
225 * PXELINUX: revert memory allocation change that caused
226 problems on some network cards.
227 * MEMDISK: Try work around a bug on some BIOSes when no
228 physical floppy disk is present in the system.
229 * Enable the 16550A FIFOs, if present, when doing serial
230 console.
231 * New "totaltimeout" command establishes a timeout without
232 regard for any user input.
233 * Simple menu system: timeout behaviour now more in line with
234 user expectations.
235 * Simple menu system: "ontimeout" should now work correctly.
237 Changes in 3.10:
238 * gcc 4.0.1 compilation fixes.
239 * Add support for querying the PCI BIOS in libcom32
240 (used by ethersel et al.)
241 * Fix PCI handing (ethersel etc) on several old chipsets (and
242 VMWare.)
243 * Try to deal with systems with broken EBIOS.
244 * New API call to do "localboot".
245 * New API call to query features.
246 * New API call to run kernel image, a lower-level call than
247 "run command". See comboot.doc.
248 * Fix for bug in EBIOS code discovered by Arwin Vosselman.
249 * NOESCAPE security fix.
250 * Comments are now recognized even without a space following #.
251 * Fix incorrect handling of mixes of entries with and without
252 MENU PASSWD.
253 * The idle API call now harmlessly returns failure if it is a
254 no-op. That way the caller can decide whether or not to
255 bother invoking it again.
256 * Temporarily disable the idle API call on PXELINUX, due to
257 some platforms on which the idle API call seems to hang; this
258 problem has not yet been debugged.
259 * MEMDISK: the handling of DOSEMU-headered images was broken;
260 fix it.
261 * EXTLINUX: symlinks are now supported.
262 * Simple menu system: N and P now work correctly as hotkeys.
263 * MEMDISK: more BIOS bug workarounds.
265 Changes in 3.09:
266 * gcc4 compilation fix.
267 * <BEL> (Ctrl-G) in message files now causes a beep.
268 * Reduce the command line to 511 characters; 1023 caused
269 memory overflows.
271 Changes in 3.08:
272 * SYSLINUX: Fix performance regression (-s mode always
273 enabled.)
274 * Add API function for idle loop.
275 * libutil: Add do_idle() function for idle loop, make
276 get_key() use it.
277 * libutil: Add SHA-1 and base64 functions.
278 * Simple menu system: add password support.
279 * EXTLINUX: Sparse files now handled correctly.
280 * EXTLINUX: Large directories now handled correctly.
281 * ALL: At the prompt, Ctrl-X now forces text mode.
282 * Fix configuration file parsing error, that could cause
283 hangs.
284 * Rewritten advanced menuing system from Murali Ganapathy.
285 * MEMDISK: New "bigraw" mode to work around certain broken
286 BIOS flash programs.
287 * COM32 module to boot Multiboot systems, including Xen. See
288 com32/modules/mboot.doc.
289 * Max command line changed to 1023 characters. Note that the
290 kernel proper still can only handle 255 characters without
291 patching, and COM16 binaries can only handle 125 characters.
293 Changes in 3.07:
294 * Fix chainloading (chain.c32).
295 * Fix zlib build problem.
296 * Use a private copy of <linux/ext2_fs.h>.
298 Changes in 3.06:
299 * Fix typo that caused the ramdisk to load in the wrong place.
301 Changes in 3.05:
302 * New API function "shuffle and boot"; allows COM32 modules to
303 load or construct (almost) arbitrarily complex objects,
304 e.g. a kernel and its initrd/initramfs in pieces, and have
305 the API core reorganize memory for booting. (A library API
306 for this function will be introduced in a later version.)
307 * The initrd= option now supports multiple filenames separated
308 by commas. This is mostly useful for initramfs, which can
309 be composed of multiple separate cpio or cpio.gz archives.
310 (Note: all files except the last one are zero-padded to a 4K
311 page boundary. This should not affect initramfs.)
312 * EXTLINUX: Fix API function 000Ah (get derivative-specific
313 info).
314 * libcom32/ethersel: Support PCI Config Mechanism #2 on
315 machines still infested with that hideous old hack.
316 * SYSLINUX: Fix directory-parsing bug.
318 Changes in 3.02:
319 * SYSLINUX: The "unix" installer now sets the MS-DOS
320 attributes (hidden, system, readonly.)
321 * COM32 library: build the .lnx (test modules for running
322 under Linux) as architecture native modules, in case
323 i386 devel libraries aren't installed.
324 * EXTLINUX: Hack for systems which don't have BLKGETSIZE64
325 defined in the standard header files.
326 * Simple menu system: minor aestetic improvements, and try to
327 work better over a serial console (speed, and readability on
328 monochrome terminal emulators.)
329 * New CONSOLE directive to control output on the video console
330 (useful for dealing with some broken serial-forwarding
331 BIOSes.)
332 * New com32 module "ethersel" for searching for an Ethernet
333 card and selecting the proper version of Etherboot.
334 * EXTLINUX: Allow the user to override the detected geometry.
335 Add help.
337 Changes in 3.01:
338 * EXTLINUX, SYSLINUX: Fix compile errors on some systems.
339 * EXTLINUX: Default to zipdrive geometry (64 heads, 32
340 sectors) if no other geometry can be detected.
342 Changes in 3.00:
343 * SYSLINUX: Support FAT32 and EDD. As an unfortunate
344 consequence, LDLINUX.SYS is no longer an ordinary file; it
345 is block-mapped at install time, which means it can only be
346 written using the syslinux installers.
347 * SYSLINUX: Reorganize the source code for the installers;
348 each one of the installers (dos, win32, unix, mtools) is now
349 built in its own subdirectory. In particular, "mtools" is
350 the unprivileged installer which uses mtools; "unix" is the
351 privileged installer which uses system calls.
352 * SYSLINUX: Completely rewritten DOS installer in C.
353 * ALL: "label" statement information is now stored in a
354 compressed format, which means that a lot more labels are
355 permitted (500-1000 in a typical configuration, but depends
356 on the complexity.)
357 * EXTLINUX: New derivative, which boots from an ext2/ext3
358 filesystem.
359 * SYSLINUX: The DOS and Win32 installers can now optionally
360 write the boot sector to a file instead of the real boot
361 sector. This is not supported in the Linux installers,
362 however.
363 * ALL: New NOESCAPE command, disables the "hold down the Shift
364 key to display the prompt" behaviour.
365 * New simple menu system, as an alternative to the advanced
366 menu system already present. See README.menu for details.
367 * PXELINUX: Filenames can now be prefixed with an IP address
368 or DNS name plus :: (e.g. 192.0.2.1::filename or
369 server.domain.com::filename), which downloads a file from an
370 alternate TFTP server, or just a :: (e.g. ::filename), which
371 suppresses the common pathname prefix. See pxelinux.doc.
372 * SYSLINUX: Add an -m option to the DOS and Win32 installers
373 to write an MBR and -a to mark the partition SYSLINUX is
374 being installed on active.
375 * MEMDISK: Give a way to query the boot loader type while
376 running MEMDISK; see memdisk/memdisk.doc and
377 sample/mdiskchk.c.
378 * mkdiskimage: substantially improved mkdiskimage which, among
379 other things, can now be used to initialize USB keys as
380 zipdrives; see README.usbkey for more information.
382 Changes in 2.13:
383 * MEMDISK: Fix command-line parsing "brown paper bag" class
384 bug.
385 * MEMDISK: Add "raw" mode to support the DOS boot disk from
386 WinME/XP, which seems to deliberately crash the system
387 when someone uses the "INT 15h mover" highmem API.
388 * Make "make install" do something sane for the com32
389 development environment.
390 * In the spec file, create a separate -devel RPM for the com32
391 development environment.
393 Changes in 2.12:
394 * Simple C library, based on klibc, for writing COM32
395 programs.
396 * Fix the handling of file length in loading of COM32
397 programs.
398 * MEMDISK: Work around a linker bug by rearranging the code to
399 not use the linker for the 16-bit code.
400 * SYSLINUX: If we're building on a machine without a Win32
401 (mingw) compiler, just skip building syslinux.exe.
402 * ISOLINUX: Support non-mkisofs mastering programs, at least
403 as long as the image is single-session. For best results,
404 ISOLINUX should be the only boot loader installed.
405 * MEMDISK: Allow the user to specify that the simulated disk
406 should be write-protected.
408 Changes in 2.11:
409 * ALL: Add an API call to get the configuration file name.
410 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in 2.10 that prevented it from working
411 correctly for a lot of people.
412 * SYSLINUX: In the installer, make mtools a bit less fussy.
413 * Make the menu system compile with newer gcc's.
415 Changes in 2.10:
416 * MEMDISK: Handle images compressed with zip as well as with
417 gzip. Some Windows-based image tools apparently generate
418 these kinds of images by default. Patch by Patrick
419 LoPresti.
420 * Major menu improvement from Murali Ganapathy.
421 * ISOLINUX: Wonderfully sick and brilliant workaround for
422 severe bugs in certain Award BIOSes; from Knut Petersen.
423 * SYSLINUX: Fix for the nomtools installed, from Frederic
424 Pasteleurs.
425 * PXELINUX: Fix handling of IP numbers in the ranges
426 100-109 and 200-209.
427 * ALL: New option "allowoptions" (defaults to 1), which
428 controls if options are allowed on the command line or not.
429 * SYSLINUX: Support building under klibc (see the klibc
430 distribution for details.)
432 Changes in 2.09:
433 * SYSLINUX: Remove residual setuid crap from
434 syslinux-nomtools.
435 * Handle video pages correctly when using the API functions.
436 * Handle compiling on an x86-64 platform correctly.
437 * Menu system from Murali Krishnan Ganapathy; see the menu
438 directory for information.
439 * COMBOOT: Allow COMBOOT programs to change screen text mode.
440 * COMBOOT: Correct the documentation of how to detect
441 SYSLINUX from COMBOOT!!!!
442 * COMBOOT: Fix "get key without echo" API function.
443 * SYSLINUX: Fix bug that affected the API open function.
444 * ALL: Improve the E820 memory parser, to work around some
445 buggy BIOSes.
447 Changes in 2.08:
448 * Add new configuration command "ontimeout" to allow timeout
449 to have a different action than just pressing Enter.
450 * Add new configuration command "onerror" to allow a custom
451 command to be executed in case the kernel image is not found.
452 * Fix bugs in the COMBOOT/COM32 command-line parsing. APPEND
453 now works with COMBOOT/COM32 images.
454 * PXELINUX: Poll for ARP requests while sitting at the
455 prompt. This makes some boot servers a lot less unhappy.
456 * PXELINUX: Actually free sockets when we get a failure
457 (including file not found.) This bug would cause us to run
458 out of sockets and thus "go deaf" after a while.
459 * MEMDISK: Add an API to query for the existence of MEMDISK.
460 * SYSLINUX: Fix loading boot sectors (.bs/.bss) from floppy
461 disk.
462 * .c32 is now one of the extensions searched for
463 automatically.
464 * PXELINUX: RFBG.exe seems to randomly overwrite memory
465 location 0x5700. Thus, don't use it!
466 * PXELINUX: Change pathname length max from 63 to 127; change
467 max vkernels from 128 to 64.
468 * Support Ctrl-U -> kill entire command line input.
469 * The "samples" directory contains a (barely at all tested)
470 chain loading example, chain.c32, which may be used to
471 chainload local floppy disks and hard disks. Use with
472 "chain fdN" or "chain hdN [partition]"; N = 0 for the first
473 drive of each type.
475 Changes in 2.07:
476 * MEMDISK: Workaround for BIOSes which go into a snit when
477 they get a RESET command for the floppy system when there is
478 no floppy in the system.
479 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend 2", which passes the hardware
480 address of the boot interface to the kernel as a
481 command-line option.
482 * mkdiskimage: fix the generation of the end limit.
483 * PXELINUX: Fix multiple bugs in chainloading of other NBPs.
484 * MEMDISK: Fix bug that would occationally cause "ran out of
485 input data" when using compressed disk images.
486 * SYSLINUX: Updates for the win32 installer (from Lars Munch.)
487 * PXELINUX: PXELINUX-specific options are now recognized both
488 in a vendor-option-space (a.k.a. type 43 encapsulated) as
489 well as in a site-option-space (unencapsulated.)
490 * COM32: Don't crash when DS != 0.
491 * COMBOOT/COM32: Make file reading work correctly. Thanks to
492 Phung Chi Kien for submitting a test program.
494 Changes in 2.06:
495 * ALL: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
496 boot failure, depending on the length of the kernel.
497 * ISOLINUX: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
498 boot failure, depending on the length of directories.
499 * SYSLINUX: Win32 installer now flushes buffers.
500 * ppmtolss16: Be fully compliant with the PNM spec;
501 actually process comments in the header and odd
502 alignments of the various parameters, as well as
503 "plain" (not raw) files and PBM and PGM files.
504 * PXELINUX: Lower the default MTU to 1472 in order to deal
505 with systems with slightly nonstandard MTUs, and PXE
506 stacks which don't defragment correctly. Unfortunately this
507 is very hard to test dynamically.
509 Changes in 2.05:
510 * PXELINUX: Add a default query based on the hardware address
511 of the boot device. This is in lower case hexadecimal form
512 separated by dashes and including the hardware type, for
513 example, the Ethernet (type 1) address 88:99:AA:BB:CC:DD
514 would query the file pxelinux.cfg/01-88-99-aa-bb-cc-dd.
515 * PXELINUX: Fix bug involving non-IP-based config file names.
516 * SYSLINUX: New installer for WinNT-based systems, from Lars
517 Munch.
518 * MEMDISK: Fix handling of memory region overlap when
519 decompressing. Thanks to Mikhail Kupchik for identifying
520 the problem.
522 Changes in 2.04:
523 * ALL: Reclaim even more low memory by observing that
524 comboot_seg == real_mode_seg is perfectly fine, and by the
525 fact that the 1000h segment managed to get unused in all
526 derivatives...
527 * PXELINUX: Attempt to negotiate full Ethernet-sized blocks
528 (1468 bytes) using the blksize option.
529 * SYSLINUX: Resurrect the old no-mtools version of the
530 installer, although as a root-only tool. Some distributors
531 have indicated that they need a small standalone installer.
532 * MEMDISK: Fix a memory offset computation error when
533 installing compressed disks which generally would cause
534 1 MB of memory to be wasted.
535 * MEMDISK: Fix installing the E820 memory map. Calling
536 INT 15h AX=0E820h with MEMDISK 2.03 loaded would give a
537 completely corrupt memory map.
538 * SYSLINUX: Make libsyslinux a dynamic library, so that it can
539 be updated separately from client programs. The whole idea,
540 after all, is to enable alternate programs to become
541 syslinux installers.
542 * Include an rpm spec file in the distribution, so rpmbuild
543 -ta works.
545 Changes in 2.03:
546 * Actually support comment lines in the configuration file.
547 * PXELINUX: Try to resolve some problems with stack switches.
548 * PXELINUX: Handle PXE stacks with broken routing.
549 With these workarounds, the remote install PXE boot floppy
550 (rbfg.exe) from Argon Technologies should work correctly.
551 * Fix problems with Perl scripts in UTF-8 locales.
552 * You probably need NASM 0.98.34 or later to compile this
553 version. 0.98.36 is recommended.
554 * MEMDISK: Now supports gzip compressed images.
556 Changes in 2.02:
557 * SYSLINUX: Security flaws have been found in the SYSLINUX
558 installer when running setuid root. Rewrite the SYSLINUX
559 installer so it uses mtools instead. It therefore now
560 requires mtools (specifically mcopy and mattrib) to exist on
561 your system, but it will not require root privileges and
562 SHOULD NOT be setuid.
564 Changes in 2.01:
565 * MEMDISK: Fix memory sizing bug when the ramdisk crosses the
566 16 MB boundary.
567 * MEMDISK: Add a "pause" option to stop immediately before
568 booting, to read off the messages.
569 * MEMDISK: Support disk images with DOSEMU headers.
570 * Update the mkdiskimage script to handle newer mtools
571 versions, and be able to generate disk images with DOSEMU
572 headers (controlled by the -d option).
573 * Fix the COM32 sample program.
574 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix some COMBOOT API calls.
575 * PXELINUX: Doc fix.
576 * Build SYSLINUX into a small library for encapsulation into
577 other programs (however, please keep in mind this is a GPL'd
578 library.)
579 * SYSLINUX: Make installer work with "owner" in /etc/fstab.
580 * SYSLINUX: Fix issue with working on nonpartitioned hard disk
581 devices. THIS CONFIGURATION IS NOT RECOMMENDED.
583 Changes in 2.00:
584 * ALL: Add support for "COM32" (32-bit COMBOOT) images.
585 * ALL: Add an API for COMBOOT/COM32 images. See comboot.doc
586 for details. There is a C development environment for
587 COM32 being created; it should be ready at some point in
588 the future.
589 * Fix mbr.asm so that it actually works.
590 * SYSLINUX: The syslinux installer *SHOULD* now be safe to
591 run setuid root.
592 * PXELINUX: Fix bug where PXELINUX would override random
593 chunks of the UNDI code segment! Thanks to Kevin Tran for
594 finding this bug.
595 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug related to slashes in pathnames.
596 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug in handling initrds over 128 MB.
597 * ALL: Make the <Ctrl-V> key print out the version; this is
598 to help debugging.
599 * Add a small script, mkdiskimage, to create a DOS-formatted
600 hard disk image using mtools. This may be useful in
601 conjunction with MEMDISK.
602 * ISOLINUX: Search for a /boot/isolinux directory as well as
603 /isolinux.
604 * ALL: Fix a bug related to very long configuration files.
605 * PXELINUX: Work around a NASM bug which would result in no
606 delay before reset if an error occurs.
608 Changes in 1.76:
609 * ISOLINUX: Remove code no longer used which caused hangs on
610 some Toshiba laptops.
612 Changes in 1.75:
613 * ALL: NASM 0.98.32 or later is now required to build
614 SYSLINUX from sources.
615 * SYSLINUX: put back in the workaround for the BIOS floppy
616 table. This seems to be a requirement for "extended" floppy
617 formats to work correctly.
618 * SYSLINUX: No longer warn if one is trying to boot on a 286
619 or older. The above BIOS workaround no longer fits if the
620 requirement to use only 8086-compatible code in the early
621 boot is maintained. It made sense in 1994, but in 2002 a
622 286 or older is a museum object.
623 * SYSLINUX: Use a downright bizarre, stateful algorithm to try
624 to guess the maximum transfer size. I am *hoping* this will
625 cut down on the number of systems for which -s is required
626 to work at any acceptable speed.
627 * ISOLINUX: Add a few more workarounds for various broken El
628 Torito BIOSes.
629 * Make sure .depend files aren't accidentally packed...
630 * ALL: Fix bugs in the extension-detect code; this caused
631 files like COMBOOT images and CD boot sectors to be
632 mis-identified as Linux kernels and rejected.
633 * ALL: Fix the return from COMBOOT.
634 * ALL: Do some of the early groundwork for supporting DOS
635 system calls in COMBOOT.
636 * Get rid of unnecessary "near" directives, making the code
637 bigger.
638 * PXELINUX: Put the PXE stack back in the init state before
639 invoking a chain-loaded NBP.
640 * PXELINUX: Actually found the combination of calls that
641 allows some (most?) PXE 2+ stacks to be unloaded from memory
642 properly.
643 * PXELINUX: Add "keeppxe" command-line option to disable
644 the standard unloading of the PXE stack.
646 Changes in 1.74:
647 * SYSLINUX: fix bug that would cause valid kernel images to be
648 labelled "invalid".
650 Changes in 1.73:
651 * Work on removing gratuitous differences between modules.
652 * Break up the source in common and module-specific files.
653 * PXELINUX: Allow chaining of other PXE NBPs.
654 * ISOLINUX: Allow loading "CD-ROM boot sectors".
655 * ALL: generalize the definition of a boot sector/NBP.
657 Changes in 1.72:
658 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix bugs in the new core code.
660 Changes in 1.71:
661 * Fix a "brown paper bag" class bug in the new core code.
663 Changes in 1.70:
664 * Major code restructuring.
665 * Relax the conventional memory limits somewhat.
666 * MEMDISK: Set up the "version number string" pointer in the
667 header correctly.
668 * SYSLINUX: Fix, again, "the bug that won't die": the use of
669 the offset parameter with the SYSLINUX installer.
670 * SYSLINUX: Fix possible superblock corruption problem in the
671 SYSLINUX installer.
673 Changes in 1.67:
674 * Handle bug in the location of initrd.
676 Changes in 1.66:
677 * MEMDISK: Make compile with newer versions of gcc.
679 Changes in 1.65:
680 * ISOLINUX: Support booting disk image files (to boot DOS or
681 other non-Linux operating systems), *IF* the BIOS works
682 correctly; unfortunately many BIOSes apparently don't.
683 * Support Linux boot protocol version 2.03 (explicitly
684 specify the initrd address limit.)
685 * Handle small "pseudo-kernels"; images that use the Linux
686 kernel boot protocols but are less than 64K in size.
687 * MEMDISK: New subsystem; this is a driver which allows
688 legacy OSes to boot using an in-memory simulated disk.
689 See memdisk/memdisk.doc for more info.
690 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Correctly handle files larger than 65535
691 blocks (32 MB for PXELINUX, 128 MB for ISOLINUX.)
692 * PXELINUX: Make a best-effort attempt at freeing all memory
693 claimed. From the looks of it, it will fail on most PXE
694 stacks.
696 Changes in 1.64:
697 * Limited support for hardware flow control when using a
698 serial port console.
699 * Support specifying the serial port I/O address explicitly.
700 * Make DOS installer hopefully behave more nicely when used on
701 recent Windows versions.
702 * Fix returning to text mode when a font has been specified.
703 * Attempt to detect missing serial port hardware and disable
704 the serial port if there is nothing there.
706 Changes in 1.63:
707 * Make the ppmtolss16 program handle color conversion more
708 correctly.
709 * Clean up "make install" target, honour INSTALLROOT if it
710 exists.
711 * SYSLINUX: Fix stack-smash bug identified by Steffen
712 Winterfeldt.
713 * Hopefully fix return-to-text-mode on some graphics cards.
714 * ISOLINUX: Bug workaround for Award BIOS 4.51, and perhaps
715 other buggy BIOSes as well.
717 Changes in 1.62:
718 * PXELINUX: Allow the DHCP server to override the
719 configuration file name and pathname prefix, using
720 "site-specific" DHCP options.
721 * PXELINUX: Documentation fixes.
722 * PXELINUX: Fix the "ipappend" option; the last two values
723 were reversed vs. what the kernel expected.
724 * Introduce a way to return to text mode once we are already
725 in graphics mode. This may be useful for F-key help
726 screens.
727 * Fix several bugs in the way return to text mode was handled.
729 Changes in 1.61:
730 * ISOLINUX: Support full pathname searches. Max length for a
731 pathname is 255 characters. As a result, only 64 "label"
732 statements are supported in ISOLINUX.
733 * PXELINUX: Max filename length extended to 63 characters.
735 Changes in 1.60:
736 * Add support for graphical splash screens.
737 * Add mode control characters, which allows you to control
738 message display output depending on output mode (text,
739 graphics, or serial port.)
740 * ISOLINUX: New program, which boots Linux from a CD-ROM
741 without using floppy emulation mode. See isolinux.doc for
742 more details.
743 * PXELINUX: Don't search for boot sector file types, since
744 they don't work anyway.
745 * SYSLINUX: Document the LOCK command for Win9x, and the error
746 dialog box for WinNT/2K.
748 Changes in 1.54:
749 * PXELINUX: Fix code for finding !PXE from PXENV+. This was
750 due to a spec bug; match the most recent spec since that
751 seems to be what implementations actually do.
752 * SYSLINUX: Add some smarts to the boot sector, which
753 hopefully should reduce the number of systems which require
754 stupid mode ("syslinux -s").
755 * PXELINUX: Document further some of the pathologies with old
756 PXE stacks.
757 * When specifying a "default" command line, no longer
758 automatically appent "auto". See the "DEFAULT" command in
759 syslinux.doc for more information.
760 * PXELINUX: Clean up the allocation of local socket numbers.
762 Changes in 1.53:
763 * PXELINUX: Rename pxelinux.bin to pxelinux.0, to match what
764 most PXE servers seem to expect.
765 * PXELINUX: Update the DHCP/boot server setup documentation.
766 * PXELINUX: Support new "localboot" option for "label"
767 sections.
768 * PXELINUX: More robust parsing of DHCP/boot server packets.
769 * PXELINUX: Include a small utility program "gethostip" to
770 compute hexadecimal IP addresses.
772 Changes in 1.52:
773 * PXELINUX: Fix bugs introduced by new A20 code. (SYSLINUX
774 has also been changed for code consistency reasons, but I'm
775 pretty sure the changes are don't care on SYSLINUX.)
776 * Documentation updates.
777 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend" option to generate an ip= option to
778 the kernel.
780 Changes in 1.51:
781 * PXELINUX: Not all PXE stacks fill in the IP address for a
782 type 3 cached info query. Use a type 2 cached info query
783 for this information (only.)
784 * Yet another attempt at A20 coding. Now support BIOS call
785 15:2401 as well, and handle machines which always have A20
786 on separately.
787 * Support memory detection using INT 15h, AX=0E820h. BIOS
788 manufacturers have apparently gotten sloppy about keeping
789 INT 15h, AX=0E801h working properly.
790 * Don't issue <CR><LF> onto the serial port when we're doing
791 screen wraparound.
793 Changes in 1.50:
794 * Yet another A20-code update. It seems some "legacy-free"
795 machines and embedded gear simply don't have a KBC to talk
796 to, and that waiting for one will wait forever. Sigh.
798 Changes in 1.49:
799 * SYSLINUX: Implement a hack for BIOS drivers which hog significant
800 chunks of low memory during boot. (Note: PXELINUX already
801 had this modification. SYSLINUX does still require that the
802 low 512K is available; PXELINUX requires 384K. Machines
803 with a physical memory hole in the low 640K cannot boot
804 Linux no matter what.) Depending what the reason is for the
805 memory hole, a new kernel (2.4.0-test3-pre3 or later) may be
806 required.
807 * SYSLINUX: Default installer binary now compiled against
808 glibc 2.1. If this is inappropriate for your system and you
809 still want to use the offical version of SYSLINUX, please
810 follow the instructions in "distrib.doc" to rebuild the
811 installer.
812 * SYSLINUX: Linux installer program now supports -o <offset>
813 option which does a loopback mount with the
814 -o loop,offset=<> option. Useful to run SYSLINUX on an
815 individual partition of a whole-harddisk image.
816 * Include the source code to a Master Boot Record (MBR)
817 functionally equivalent to the one installed DOS except it
818 includes EBIOS support, and should be resistant to geometry
819 changes. The MBR code is public domain.
820 * PXELINUX: Fix "double p" bug: if the tftp prefix was null,
821 all filenames would get a "p" preprended, e.g.
822 "ppxelinux.cfg" and "pvmlinux".
824 Changes in 1.48:
825 * PXELINUX: Workaround for PXE ROMs based on the Intel PXE PDK
826 3.0 build 071 and earlier: missing !PXE structure pointer.
827 * PXELINUX: Handle larger BOOTP/DHCP packages.
828 * PXELINUX: The command line passing was broken; fix.
829 * PXELINUX: Make COMBOOT images work.
830 * PXELINUX: Documentation on how to make booting work using
831 the PDK 3.0-derived clients, which aren't so generous as to
832 allow booting with only "PXEClient" specified.
834 Changes in 1.47:
835 * PXELINUX: RFC 1123 states that a TFTP implementation MUST
836 use adaptive timeout, "at least an exponential backoff of
837 retransmission timeout is necessary." Implement a very
838 simple exponential backoff for retransmits.
839 * PXELINUX: Updated documentation, including pointer to new
840 TFTP server.
841 * PXELINUX: When sending ERROR due to bad OACK, use the proper
842 destination port number (why are TFTP port numbers so odd?)
843 * PXELINUX: If the boot dies in the middle somewhere,
844 eventually give up and reset the machine (unattended
845 operation.)
847 Changes in 1.46:
848 * New program PXELINUX to do network booting using a
849 PXE-compliant (Pre-Execution Environment) network booting
850 PROM. See pxelinux.doc for details.
852 Changes in 1.45:
853 * Serial console support. See syslinux.doc for details.
855 Changes in 1.44:
856 * Change HIGHMEM_MAX to 38000000h to (hopefully) avoid the
857 kernel stepping on it; 3f000000h was apparently a higher
858 limit than the kernel used!
860 Changes in 1.43:
861 * Add sys2ansi.pl script to display the contents of a
862 colorized SYSLINUX file.
863 * Changed the io_delay once again, after a report that the
864 old delay port causes hangs on some systems.
866 Changes in 1.42:
867 * Frob the "fast A20 gate" port as well as the keyboard
868 controller; will this help systems with problems?
869 * Be even more paranoid about A20, unfortunately even this
870 seems to be not paranoid enough... what I don't understand
871 is that if there is hardware out there *this broken*, how
872 can it run Linux at all? Report an error message rather
873 than hang forever if A20 is stuck.
874 * Include some intermediate files in the distribution, plus
875 provide a "make installer" target for distributors to relink
876 the install programs only. I would prefer the syslinux boot
877 loader proper to be "binary clean" for debuggablity -- use
878 "make clean ; make installer" to rebuild the installers only.
880 Changes in 1.41:
881 * Don't get confused by directories, volume labels, or VFAT
882 long names.
883 * Use INT 15h, AX=0E801h to query memory size before trying
884 INT 15h, AH=88h. This not only provides more headroom
885 between the kernel and the initrd on large-memory machines,
886 but it appears some recent BIOSes actually have started
887 returning garbage for the AH=88h (older) call.
888 * Trust high memory beyond the 15 MB mark if the user has
889 specified it, or if obtained with INT 15h, AH=0E801h (with
890 no memory holes above 1 MB.)
892 Changes in 1.40:
893 * Increase A20M delay and put in a test to avoid problems on
894 certain IBM Thinkpads (thanks to Donnie Barnes of RedHat
895 for vital info on this one.)
896 * Support COMBOOT style boot command images.
897 * Support chain loading (foreign operating systems, e.g. DOS).
898 * Include a new "copybs" DOS utility to copy a boot sector to
899 a file (under Linux, use "dd".)
900 * Fix the DOS installer to work for disks over 32 MB.
901 * SYSLINUX should now handle disks with more than 65536 tracks.
903 Changes in 1.37:
904 * Fix a bug that caused "label" statements in syslinux.cfg to
905 not be handled properly.
906 * Updated the documentation. Among other things, we now allow
907 up to 128 "label" statements.
909 Changes in 1.36:
910 * Fix for booting old (pre-initrd) kernels.
911 * It seems at least some versions of OS/2 doesn't set up all
912 the fields in the superblock correctly. Account for that.
913 * Fix bug that caused boot failure when using the mem= option.
915 Changes in 1.35:
916 * Loading from partitions now should work properly. (Actually
917 tested, this time. You should even be able to dd a floppy
918 to a partition and boot from it.)
919 * Removed large workaround code for an alleged ancient BIOS
920 bug I have never actually seen. The -s option should work
921 on those machines, anyway.
922 * Support for simple keyboard remappings, same as used by
923 LILO (once again to support localization.) The program
924 keytab-lilo.pl from the LILO distribution included to
925 generate such maps.
926 * Added a "safe, slow and stupid" (-s) option to the
927 installers. This option will lobotomize the boot sector to
928 hopefully work on even very buggy BIOSes.
930 Changes in 1.34:
931 * Ability to load a VGA font on bootup (for localized Linux
932 distributions.)
934 Changes in 1.33:
935 * Bug fix in the Linux installer.
936 * Added a workaround for a bug in certain AMI/Intel BIOSes
937 when booting from CD-ROM.
938 * Documentation changes.
940 Changes in 1.32:
941 * FAT16 filesystems are now supported.
943 Changes in 1.31:
944 * Now compiles under Linux, using NASM, rather than using
945 Turbo Assembler under DOS. See http://www.cryogen.com/Nasm
946 for information about NASM.
947 * Linux-hosted SYSLINUX installer, as well as a
948 rewritten DOS installer (now is written in assembler, so we
949 don't need Turbo C.)
951 Changes in 1.30:
952 * Added support for loading bzImage and initrd loading, and made
953 SYSLINUX new-setup-code aware (SYSLINUX 1.30 id=0x31).
954 * Added LILO-style kernel labels; see the LABEL and IMPLICIT
955 keywords in README file.
956 * Added support for colorization of intro and help screens.
957 * The vga= option is now handled correctly.
958 * Massive rewrite of large chunks of the code in order to
959 support the first two new features.
961 Changes in 1.20:
962 * Added simple online help at the "boot:" prompt.
963 * Removed 2880K image as I no longer have access to such a
964 floppy drive. (Donations accepted!!)
965 * Decided to distribute the source in a subdirectory rather
966 than in a nested zipfile.
968 Changes in 1.11:
969 * Removed a sanity check which would cause booting to fail on
970 Phoenix BIOS version 4.03. Apparently this BIOS is buggy.
972 Changes in 1.10:
973 * Added configuration file SYSLINUX.CFG. This file contains all
974 configurable options, and can be edited from any OS which can
975 access an MS-DOS filesystem; there is no longer a need to run
976 SYSLINUX.EXE except to write the boot sector.
977 * Default command line now given by "default" line in config
978 file.
979 * LINUXMSG.TXT and BOOTMSG.TXT hard-coded file names replaced by
980 "display" and "prompt" lines in config file.
981 * LILO-style option appending now supported ("append" line in
982 config file).
983 * Prompt timeout is now supported ("timeout" line in config
984 file). The timeout is cancelled when anything is typed on the
985 command line.
986 * Pressing <ESC> or <Ctrl-C> at the Loading... stage now aborts
987 the kernel loading in progress and returns the user to the
988 boot: prompt.
989 * The installer now automatically sets the READONLY flag on
990 LDLINUX.SYS.
991 * Added 2880K disk image.
993 Changes in 1.03:
994 * Fixed bug that would prevent booting from double-density
995 floppies and other DOS filesystems with multiple sectors per
996 cluster.
997 * Added 720K disk image.
998 * Changed default kernel name on disk images to LINUX.
1000 Changes in 1.02:
1001 * Fixed bug that would garble the command line on recent kernels
1002 with more than 4 sectors of setup code (this wasn't really a
1003 *bug*; rather, a kernel change broke the code. Unfortunately
1004 the Linux boot interface is still sorely undocumented).
1005 * Added BOOTMSG.TXT file support (message file which does not
1006 force display of the boot prompt).
1008 Changes in 1.01:
1009 * Fixed bug on some (most?) 386 BIOSes would require two boot
1010 attempts.