Magellan Linux

Annotation of /trunk/mkinitrd-magellan/isolinux/NEWS

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Revision 532 - (hide annotations) (download)
Sat Sep 1 22:45:15 2007 UTC (16 years, 8 months ago) by niro
File size: 34271 byte(s)
-import if magellan mkinitrd; it is a fork of redhats mkinitrd-5.0.8 with all magellan patches and features; deprecates magellan-src/mkinitrd

1 niro 532 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.
4    
5     Changes in 3.11:
6     * MEMDISK: Fix bug by which accessing the real floppy disk
7     as B: in MS-DOS was broken.
8     * Simple menu system: allow tweaking of the screen layout.
9     * Simple menu system: better command-line editing, correctly
10     handle command lines above 256 characters.
11     * PXELINUX: revert memory allocation change that caused
12     problems on some network cards.
13     * MEMDISK: Try work around a bug on some BIOSes when no
14     physical floppy disk is present in the system.
15     * Enable the 16550A FIFOs, if present, when doing serial
16     console.
17     * New "totaltimeout" command establishes a timeout without
18     regard for any user input.
19     * Simple menu system: timeout behaviour now more in line with
20     user expectations.
21    
22     Changes in 3.10:
23     * gcc 4.0.1 compilation fixes.
24     * Add support for querying the PCI BIOS in libcom32
25     (used by ethersel et al.)
26     * Fix PCI handing (ethersel etc) on several old chipsets (and
27     VMWare.)
28     * Try to deal with systems with broken EBIOS.
29     * New API call to do "localboot".
30     * New API call to query features.
31     * New API call to run kernel image, a lower-level call than
32     "run command". See comboot.doc.
33     * Fix for bug in EBIOS code discovered by Arwin Vosselman.
34     * NOESCAPE security fix.
35     * Comments are now recognized even without a space following #.
36     * Fix incorrect handling of mixes of entries with and without
37     MENU PASSWD.
38     * The idle API call now harmlessly returns failure if it is a
39     no-op. That way the caller can decide whether or not to
40     bother invoking it again.
41     * Temporarily disable the idle API call on PXELINUX, due to
42     some platforms on which the idle API call seems to hang; this
43     problem has not yet been debugged.
44     * MEMDISK: the handling of DOSEMU-headered images was broken;
45     fix it.
46     * EXTLINUX: symlinks are now supported.
47     * Simple menu system: N and P now work correctly as hotkeys.
48     * MEMDISK: more BIOS bug workarounds.
49    
50     Changes in 3.09:
51     * gcc4 compilation fix.
52     * <BEL> (Ctrl-G) in message files now causes a beep.
53     * Reduce the command line to 511 characters; 1023 caused
54     memory overflows.
55    
56     Changes in 3.08:
57     * SYSLINUX: Fix performance regression (-s mode always
58     enabled.)
59     * Add API function for idle loop.
60     * libutil: Add do_idle() function for idle loop, make
61     get_key() use it.
62     * libutil: Add SHA-1 and base64 functions.
63     * Simple menu system: add password support.
64     * EXTLINUX: Sparse files now handled correctly.
65     * EXTLINUX: Large directories now handled correctly.
66     * ALL: At the prompt, Ctrl-X now forces text mode.
67     * Fix configuration file parsing error, that could cause
68     hangs.
69     * Rewritten advanced menuing system from Murali Ganapathy.
70     * MEMDISK: New "bigraw" mode to work around certain broken
71     BIOS flash programs.
72     * COM32 module to boot Multiboot systems, including Xen. See
73     com32/modules/mboot.doc.
74     * Max command line changed to 1023 characters. Note that the
75     kernel proper still can only handle 255 characters without
76     patching, and COM16 binaries can only handle 125 characters.
77    
78     Changes in 3.07:
79     * Fix chainloading (chain.c32).
80     * Fix zlib build problem.
81     * Use a private copy of <linux/ext2_fs.h>.
82    
83     Changes in 3.06:
84     * Fix typo that caused the ramdisk to load in the wrong place.
85    
86     Changes in 3.05:
87     * New API function "shuffle and boot"; allows COM32 modules to
88     load or construct (almost) arbitrarily complex objects,
89     e.g. a kernel and its initrd/initramfs in pieces, and have
90     the API core reorganize memory for booting. (A library API
91     for this function will be introduced in a later version.)
92     * The initrd= option now supports multiple filenames separated
93     by commas. This is mostly useful for initramfs, which can
94     be composed of multiple separate cpio or cpio.gz archives.
95     (Note: all files except the last one are zero-padded to a 4K
96     page boundary. This should not affect initramfs.)
97     * EXTLINUX: Fix API function 000Ah (get derivative-specific
98     info).
99     * libcom32/ethersel: Support PCI Config Mechanism #2 on
100     machines still infested with that hideous old hack.
101     * SYSLINUX: Fix directory-parsing bug.
102    
103     Changes in 3.02:
104     * SYSLINUX: The "unix" installer now sets the MS-DOS
105     attributes (hidden, system, readonly.)
106     * COM32 library: build the .lnx (test modules for running
107     under Linux) as architecture native modules, in case
108     i386 devel libraries aren't installed.
109     * EXTLINUX: Hack for systems which don't have BLKGETSIZE64
110     defined in the standard header files.
111     * Simple menu system: minor aestetic improvements, and try to
112     work better over a serial console (speed, and readability on
113     monochrome terminal emulators.)
114     * New CONSOLE directive to control output on the video console
115     (useful for dealing with some broken serial-forwarding
116     BIOSes.)
117     * New com32 module "ethersel" for searching for an Ethernet
118     card and selecting the proper version of Etherboot.
119     * EXTLINUX: Allow the user to override the detected geometry.
120     Add help.
121    
122     Changes in 3.01:
123     * EXTLINUX, SYSLINUX: Fix compile errors on some systems.
124     * EXTLINUX: Default to zipdrive geometry (64 heads, 32
125     sectors) if no other geometry can be detected.
126    
127     Changes in 3.00:
128     * SYSLINUX: Support FAT32 and EDD. As an unfortunate
129     consequence, LDLINUX.SYS is no longer an ordinary file; it
130     is block-mapped at install time, which means it can only be
131     written using the syslinux installers.
132     * SYSLINUX: Reorganize the source code for the installers;
133     each one of the installers (dos, win32, unix, mtools) is now
134     built in its own subdirectory. In particular, "mtools" is
135     the unprivileged installer which uses mtools; "unix" is the
136     privileged installer which uses system calls.
137     * SYSLINUX: Completely rewritten DOS installer in C.
138     * ALL: "label" statement information is now stored in a
139     compressed format, which means that a lot more labels are
140     permitted (500-1000 in a typical configuration, but depends
141     on the complexity.)
142     * EXTLINUX: New derivative, which boots from an ext2/ext3
143     filesystem.
144     * SYSLINUX: The DOS and Win32 installers can now optionally
145     write the boot sector to a file instead of the real boot
146     sector. This is not supported in the Linux installers,
147     however.
148     * ALL: New NOESCAPE command, disables the "hold down the Shift
149     key to display the prompt" behaviour.
150     * New simple menu system, as an alternative to the advanced
151     menu system already present. See README.menu for details.
152     * PXELINUX: Filenames can now be prefixed with an IP address
153     or DNS name plus :: (e.g. 192.0.2.1::filename or
154     server.domain.com::filename), which downloads a file from an
155     alternate TFTP server, or just a :: (e.g. ::filename), which
156     suppresses the common pathname prefix. See pxelinux.doc.
157     * SYSLINUX: Add an -m option to the DOS and Win32 installers
158     to write an MBR and -a to mark the partition SYSLINUX is
159     being installed on active.
160     * MEMDISK: Give a way to query the boot loader type while
161     running MEMDISK; see memdisk/memdisk.doc and
162     sample/mdiskchk.c.
163     * mkdiskimage: substantially improved mkdiskimage which, among
164     other things, can now be used to initialize USB keys as
165     zipdrives; see README.usbkey for more information.
166    
167     Changes in 2.13:
168     * MEMDISK: Fix command-line parsing "brown paper bag" class
169     bug.
170     * MEMDISK: Add "raw" mode to support the DOS boot disk from
171     WinME/XP, which seems to deliberately crash the system
172     when someone uses the "INT 15h mover" highmem API.
173     * Make "make install" do something sane for the com32
174     development environment.
175     * In the spec file, create a separate -devel RPM for the com32
176     development environment.
177    
178     Changes in 2.12:
179     * Simple C library, based on klibc, for writing COM32
180     programs.
181     * Fix the handling of file length in loading of COM32
182     programs.
183     * MEMDISK: Work around a linker bug by rearranging the code to
184     not use the linker for the 16-bit code.
185     * SYSLINUX: If we're building on a machine without a Win32
186     (mingw) compiler, just skip building syslinux.exe.
187     * ISOLINUX: Support non-mkisofs mastering programs, at least
188     as long as the image is single-session. For best results,
189     ISOLINUX should be the only boot loader installed.
190     * MEMDISK: Allow the user to specify that the simulated disk
191     should be write-protected.
192    
193     Changes in 2.11:
194     * ALL: Add an API call to get the configuration file name.
195     * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in 2.10 that prevented it from working
196     correctly for a lot of people.
197     * SYSLINUX: In the installer, make mtools a bit less fussy.
198     * Make the menu system compile with newer gcc's.
199    
200     Changes in 2.10:
201     * MEMDISK: Handle images compressed with zip as well as with
202     gzip. Some Windows-based image tools apparently generate
203     these kinds of images by default. Patch by Patrick
204     LoPresti.
205     * Major menu improvement from Murali Ganapathy.
206     * ISOLINUX: Wonderfully sick and brilliant workaround for
207     severe bugs in certain Award BIOSes; from Knut Petersen.
208     * SYSLINUX: Fix for the nomtools installed, from Frederic
209     Pasteleurs.
210     * PXELINUX: Fix handling of IP numbers in the ranges
211     100-109 and 200-209.
212     * ALL: New option "allowoptions" (defaults to 1), which
213     controls if options are allowed on the command line or not.
214     * SYSLINUX: Support building under klibc (see the klibc
215     distribution for details.)
216    
217     Changes in 2.09:
218     * SYSLINUX: Remove residual setuid crap from
219     syslinux-nomtools.
220     * Handle video pages correctly when using the API functions.
221     * Handle compiling on an x86-64 platform correctly.
222     * Menu system from Murali Krishnan Ganapathy; see the menu
223     directory for information.
224     * COMBOOT: Allow COMBOOT programs to change screen text mode.
225     * COMBOOT: Correct the documentation of how to detect
226     SYSLINUX from COMBOOT!!!!
227     * COMBOOT: Fix "get key without echo" API function.
228     * SYSLINUX: Fix bug that affected the API open function.
229     * ALL: Improve the E820 memory parser, to work around some
230     buggy BIOSes.
231    
232     Changes in 2.08:
233     * Add new configuration command "ontimeout" to allow timeout
234     to have a different action than just pressing Enter.
235     * Add new configuration command "onerror" to allow a custom
236     command to be executed in case the kernel image is not found.
237     * Fix bugs in the COMBOOT/COM32 command-line parsing. APPEND
238     now works with COMBOOT/COM32 images.
239     * PXELINUX: Poll for ARP requests while sitting at the
240     prompt. This makes some boot servers a lot less unhappy.
241     * PXELINUX: Actually free sockets when we get a failure
242     (including file not found.) This bug would cause us to run
243     out of sockets and thus "go deaf" after a while.
244     * MEMDISK: Add an API to query for the existence of MEMDISK.
245     * SYSLINUX: Fix loading boot sectors (.bs/.bss) from floppy
246     disk.
247     * .c32 is now one of the extensions searched for
248     automatically.
249     * PXELINUX: RFBG.exe seems to randomly overwrite memory
250     location 0x5700. Thus, don't use it!
251     * PXELINUX: Change pathname length max from 63 to 127; change
252     max vkernels from 128 to 64.
253     * Support Ctrl-U -> kill entire command line input.
254     * The "samples" directory contains a (barely at all tested)
255     chain loading example, chain.c32, which may be used to
256     chainload local floppy disks and hard disks. Use with
257     "chain fdN" or "chain hdN [partition]"; N = 0 for the first
258     drive of each type.
259    
260     Changes in 2.07:
261     * MEMDISK: Workaround for BIOSes which go into a snit when
262     they get a RESET command for the floppy system when there is
263     no floppy in the system.
264     * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend 2", which passes the hardware
265     address of the boot interface to the kernel as a
266     command-line option.
267     * mkdiskimage: fix the generation of the end limit.
268     * PXELINUX: Fix multiple bugs in chainloading of other NBPs.
269     * MEMDISK: Fix bug that would occationally cause "ran out of
270     input data" when using compressed disk images.
271     * SYSLINUX: Updates for the win32 installer (from Lars Munch.)
272     * PXELINUX: PXELINUX-specific options are now recognized both
273     in a vendor-option-space (a.k.a. type 43 encapsulated) as
274     well as in a site-option-space (unencapsulated.)
275     * COM32: Don't crash when DS != 0.
276     * COMBOOT/COM32: Make file reading work correctly. Thanks to
277     Phung Chi Kien for submitting a test program.
278    
279     Changes in 2.06:
280     * ALL: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
281     boot failure, depending on the length of the kernel.
282     * ISOLINUX: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
283     boot failure, depending on the length of directories.
284     * SYSLINUX: Win32 installer now flushes buffers.
285     * ppmtolss16: Be fully compliant with the PNM spec;
286     actually process comments in the header and odd
287     alignments of the various parameters, as well as
288     "plain" (not raw) files and PBM and PGM files.
289     * PXELINUX: Lower the default MTU to 1472 in order to deal
290     with systems with slightly nonstandard MTUs, and PXE
291     stacks which don't defragment correctly. Unfortunately this
292     is very hard to test dynamically.
293    
294     Changes in 2.05:
295     * PXELINUX: Add a default query based on the hardware address
296     of the boot device. This is in lower case hexadecimal form
297     separated by dashes and including the hardware type, for
298     example, the Ethernet (type 1) address 88:99:AA:BB:CC:DD
299     would query the file pxelinux.cfg/01-88-99-aa-bb-cc-dd.
300     * PXELINUX: Fix bug involving non-IP-based config file names.
301     * SYSLINUX: New installer for WinNT-based systems, from Lars
302     Munch.
303     * MEMDISK: Fix handling of memory region overlap when
304     decompressing. Thanks to Mikhail Kupchik for identifying
305     the problem.
306    
307     Changes in 2.04:
308     * ALL: Reclaim even more low memory by observing that
309     comboot_seg == real_mode_seg is perfectly fine, and by the
310     fact that the 1000h segment managed to get unused in all
311     derivatives...
312     * PXELINUX: Attempt to negotiate full Ethernet-sized blocks
313     (1468 bytes) using the blksize option.
314     * SYSLINUX: Resurrect the old no-mtools version of the
315     installer, although as a root-only tool. Some distributors
316     have indicated that they need a small standalone installer.
317     * MEMDISK: Fix a memory offset computation error when
318     installing compressed disks which generally would cause
319     1 MB of memory to be wasted.
320     * MEMDISK: Fix installing the E820 memory map. Calling
321     INT 15h AX=0E820h with MEMDISK 2.03 loaded would give a
322     completely corrupt memory map.
323     * SYSLINUX: Make libsyslinux a dynamic library, so that it can
324     be updated separately from client programs. The whole idea,
325     after all, is to enable alternate programs to become
326     syslinux installers.
327     * Include an rpm spec file in the distribution, so rpmbuild
328     -ta works.
329    
330     Changes in 2.03:
331     * Actually support comment lines in the configuration file.
332     * PXELINUX: Try to resolve some problems with stack switches.
333     * PXELINUX: Handle PXE stacks with broken routing.
334     With these workarounds, the remote install PXE boot floppy
335     (rbfg.exe) from Argon Technologies should work correctly.
336     * Fix problems with Perl scripts in UTF-8 locales.
337     * You probably need NASM 0.98.34 or later to compile this
338     version. 0.98.36 is recommended.
339     * MEMDISK: Now supports gzip compressed images.
340    
341     Changes in 2.02:
342     * SYSLINUX: Security flaws have been found in the SYSLINUX
343     installer when running setuid root. Rewrite the SYSLINUX
344     installer so it uses mtools instead. It therefore now
345     requires mtools (specifically mcopy and mattrib) to exist on
346     your system, but it will not require root privileges and
347     SHOULD NOT be setuid.
348    
349     Changes in 2.01:
350     * MEMDISK: Fix memory sizing bug when the ramdisk crosses the
351     16 MB boundary.
352     * MEMDISK: Add a "pause" option to stop immediately before
353     booting, to read off the messages.
354     * MEMDISK: Support disk images with DOSEMU headers.
355     * Update the mkdiskimage script to handle newer mtools
356     versions, and be able to generate disk images with DOSEMU
357     headers (controlled by the -d option).
358     * Fix the COM32 sample program.
359     * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix some COMBOOT API calls.
360     * PXELINUX: Doc fix.
361     * Build SYSLINUX into a small library for encapsulation into
362     other programs (however, please keep in mind this is a GPL'd
363     library.)
364     * SYSLINUX: Make installer work with "owner" in /etc/fstab.
365     * SYSLINUX: Fix issue with working on nonpartitioned hard disk
366     devices. THIS CONFIGURATION IS NOT RECOMMENDED.
367    
368     Changes in 2.00:
369     * ALL: Add support for "COM32" (32-bit COMBOOT) images.
370     * ALL: Add an API for COMBOOT/COM32 images. See comboot.doc
371     for details. There is a C development environment for
372     COM32 being created; it should be ready at some point in
373     the future.
374     * Fix mbr.asm so that it actually works.
375     * SYSLINUX: The syslinux installer *SHOULD* now be safe to
376     run setuid root.
377     * PXELINUX: Fix bug where PXELINUX would override random
378     chunks of the UNDI code segment! Thanks to Kevin Tran for
379     finding this bug.
380     * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug related to slashes in pathnames.
381     * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug in handling initrds over 128 MB.
382     * ALL: Make the <Ctrl-V> key print out the version; this is
383     to help debugging.
384     * Add a small script, mkdiskimage, to create a DOS-formatted
385     hard disk image using mtools. This may be useful in
386     conjunction with MEMDISK.
387     * ISOLINUX: Search for a /boot/isolinux directory as well as
388     /isolinux.
389     * ALL: Fix a bug related to very long configuration files.
390     * PXELINUX: Work around a NASM bug which would result in no
391     delay before reset if an error occurs.
392    
393     Changes in 1.76:
394     * ISOLINUX: Remove code no longer used which caused hangs on
395     some Toshiba laptops.
396    
397     Changes in 1.75:
398     * ALL: NASM 0.98.32 or later is now required to build
399     SYSLINUX from sources.
400     * SYSLINUX: put back in the workaround for the BIOS floppy
401     table. This seems to be a requirement for "extended" floppy
402     formats to work correctly.
403     * SYSLINUX: No longer warn if one is trying to boot on a 286
404     or older. The above BIOS workaround no longer fits if the
405     requirement to use only 8086-compatible code in the early
406     boot is maintained. It made sense in 1994, but in 2002 a
407     286 or older is a museum object.
408     * SYSLINUX: Use a downright bizarre, stateful algorithm to try
409     to guess the maximum transfer size. I am *hoping* this will
410     cut down on the number of systems for which -s is required
411     to work at any acceptable speed.
412     * ISOLINUX: Add a few more workarounds for various broken El
413     Torito BIOSes.
414     * Make sure .depend files aren't accidentally packed...
415     * ALL: Fix bugs in the extension-detect code; this caused
416     files like COMBOOT images and CD boot sectors to be
417     mis-identified as Linux kernels and rejected.
418     * ALL: Fix the return from COMBOOT.
419     * ALL: Do some of the early groundwork for supporting DOS
420     system calls in COMBOOT.
421     * Get rid of unnecessary "near" directives, making the code
422     bigger.
423     * PXELINUX: Put the PXE stack back in the init state before
424     invoking a chain-loaded NBP.
425     * PXELINUX: Actually found the combination of calls that
426     allows some (most?) PXE 2+ stacks to be unloaded from memory
427     properly.
428     * PXELINUX: Add "keeppxe" command-line option to disable
429     the standard unloading of the PXE stack.
430    
431     Changes in 1.74:
432     * SYSLINUX: fix bug that would cause valid kernel images to be
433     labelled "invalid".
434    
435     Changes in 1.73:
436     * Work on removing gratuitous differences between modules.
437     * Break up the source in common and module-specific files.
438     * PXELINUX: Allow chaining of other PXE NBPs.
439     * ISOLINUX: Allow loading "CD-ROM boot sectors".
440     * ALL: generalize the definition of a boot sector/NBP.
441    
442     Changes in 1.72:
443     * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix bugs in the new core code.
444    
445     Changes in 1.71:
446     * Fix a "brown paper bag" class bug in the new core code.
447    
448     Changes in 1.70:
449     * Major code restructuring.
450     * Relax the conventional memory limits somewhat.
451     * MEMDISK: Set up the "version number string" pointer in the
452     header correctly.
453     * SYSLINUX: Fix, again, "the bug that won't die": the use of
454     the offset parameter with the SYSLINUX installer.
455     * SYSLINUX: Fix possible superblock corruption problem in the
456     SYSLINUX installer.
457    
458     Changes in 1.67:
459     * Handle bug in the location of initrd.
460    
461     Changes in 1.66:
462     * MEMDISK: Make compile with newer versions of gcc.
463    
464     Changes in 1.65:
465     * ISOLINUX: Support booting disk image files (to boot DOS or
466     other non-Linux operating systems), *IF* the BIOS works
467     correctly; unfortunately many BIOSes apparently don't.
468     * Support Linux boot protocol version 2.03 (explicitly
469     specify the initrd address limit.)
470     * Handle small "pseudo-kernels"; images that use the Linux
471     kernel boot protocols but are less than 64K in size.
472     * MEMDISK: New subsystem; this is a driver which allows
473     legacy OSes to boot using an in-memory simulated disk.
474     See memdisk/memdisk.doc for more info.
475     * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Correctly handle files larger than 65535
476     blocks (32 MB for PXELINUX, 128 MB for ISOLINUX.)
477     * PXELINUX: Make a best-effort attempt at freeing all memory
478     claimed. From the looks of it, it will fail on most PXE
479     stacks.
480    
481     Changes in 1.64:
482     * Limited support for hardware flow control when using a
483     serial port console.
484     * Support specifying the serial port I/O address explicitly.
485     * Make DOS installer hopefully behave more nicely when used on
486     recent Windows versions.
487     * Fix returning to text mode when a font has been specified.
488     * Attempt to detect missing serial port hardware and disable
489     the serial port if there is nothing there.
490    
491     Changes in 1.63:
492     * Make the ppmtolss16 program handle color conversion more
493     correctly.
494     * Clean up "make install" target, honour INSTALLROOT if it
495     exists.
496     * SYSLINUX: Fix stack-smash bug identified by Steffen
497     Winterfeldt.
498     * Hopefully fix return-to-text-mode on some graphics cards.
499     * ISOLINUX: Bug workaround for Award BIOS 4.51, and perhaps
500     other buggy BIOSes as well.
501    
502     Changes in 1.62:
503     * PXELINUX: Allow the DHCP server to override the
504     configuration file name and pathname prefix, using
505     "site-specific" DHCP options.
506     * PXELINUX: Documentation fixes.
507     * PXELINUX: Fix the "ipappend" option; the last two values
508     were reversed vs. what the kernel expected.
509     * Introduce a way to return to text mode once we are already
510     in graphics mode. This may be useful for F-key help
511     screens.
512     * Fix several bugs in the way return to text mode was handled.
513    
514     Changes in 1.61:
515     * ISOLINUX: Support full pathname searches. Max length for a
516     pathname is 255 characters. As a result, only 64 "label"
517     statements are supported in ISOLINUX.
518     * PXELINUX: Max filename length extended to 63 characters.
519    
520     Changes in 1.60:
521     * Add support for graphical splash screens.
522     * Add mode control characters, which allows you to control
523     message display output depending on output mode (text,
524     graphics, or serial port.)
525     * ISOLINUX: New program, which boots Linux from a CD-ROM
526     without using floppy emulation mode. See isolinux.doc for
527     more details.
528     * PXELINUX: Don't search for boot sector file types, since
529     they don't work anyway.
530     * SYSLINUX: Document the LOCK command for Win9x, and the error
531     dialog box for WinNT/2K.
532    
533     Changes in 1.54:
534     * PXELINUX: Fix code for finding !PXE from PXENV+. This was
535     due to a spec bug; match the most recent spec since that
536     seems to be what implementations actually do.
537     * SYSLINUX: Add some smarts to the boot sector, which
538     hopefully should reduce the number of systems which require
539     stupid mode ("syslinux -s").
540     * PXELINUX: Document further some of the pathologies with old
541     PXE stacks.
542     * When specifying a "default" command line, no longer
543     automatically appent "auto". See the "DEFAULT" command in
544     syslinux.doc for more information.
545     * PXELINUX: Clean up the allocation of local socket numbers.
546    
547     Changes in 1.53:
548     * PXELINUX: Rename pxelinux.bin to pxelinux.0, to match what
549     most PXE servers seem to expect.
550     * PXELINUX: Update the DHCP/boot server setup documentation.
551     * PXELINUX: Support new "localboot" option for "label"
552     sections.
553     * PXELINUX: More robust parsing of DHCP/boot server packets.
554     * PXELINUX: Include a small utility program "gethostip" to
555     compute hexadecimal IP addresses.
556    
557     Changes in 1.52:
558     * PXELINUX: Fix bugs introduced by new A20 code. (SYSLINUX
559     has also been changed for code consistency reasons, but I'm
560     pretty sure the changes are don't care on SYSLINUX.)
561     * Documentation updates.
562     * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend" option to generate an ip= option to
563     the kernel.
564    
565     Changes in 1.51:
566     * PXELINUX: Not all PXE stacks fill in the IP address for a
567     type 3 cached info query. Use a type 2 cached info query
568     for this information (only.)
569     * Yet another attempt at A20 coding. Now support BIOS call
570     15:2401 as well, and handle machines which always have A20
571     on separately.
572     * Support memory detection using INT 15h, AX=0E820h. BIOS
573     manufacturers have apparently gotten sloppy about keeping
574     INT 15h, AX=0E801h working properly.
575     * Don't issue <CR><LF> onto the serial port when we're doing
576     screen wraparound.
577    
578     Changes in 1.50:
579     * Yet another A20-code update. It seems some "legacy-free"
580     machines and embedded gear simply don't have a KBC to talk
581     to, and that waiting for one will wait forever. Sigh.
582    
583     Changes in 1.49:
584     * SYSLINUX: Implement a hack for BIOS drivers which hog significant
585     chunks of low memory during boot. (Note: PXELINUX already
586     had this modification. SYSLINUX does still require that the
587     low 512K is available; PXELINUX requires 384K. Machines
588     with a physical memory hole in the low 640K cannot boot
589     Linux no matter what.) Depending what the reason is for the
590     memory hole, a new kernel (2.4.0-test3-pre3 or later) may be
591     required.
592     * SYSLINUX: Default installer binary now compiled against
593     glibc 2.1. If this is inappropriate for your system and you
594     still want to use the offical version of SYSLINUX, please
595     follow the instructions in "distrib.doc" to rebuild the
596     installer.
597     * SYSLINUX: Linux installer program now supports -o <offset>
598     option which does a loopback mount with the
599     -o loop,offset=<> option. Useful to run SYSLINUX on an
600     individual partition of a whole-harddisk image.
601     * Include the source code to a Master Boot Record (MBR)
602     functionally equivalent to the one installed DOS except it
603     includes EBIOS support, and should be resistant to geometry
604     changes. The MBR code is public domain.
605     * PXELINUX: Fix "double p" bug: if the tftp prefix was null,
606     all filenames would get a "p" preprended, e.g.
607     "ppxelinux.cfg" and "pvmlinux".
608    
609     Changes in 1.48:
610     * PXELINUX: Workaround for PXE ROMs based on the Intel PXE PDK
611     3.0 build 071 and earlier: missing !PXE structure pointer.
612     * PXELINUX: Handle larger BOOTP/DHCP packages.
613     * PXELINUX: The command line passing was broken; fix.
614     * PXELINUX: Make COMBOOT images work.
615     * PXELINUX: Documentation on how to make booting work using
616     the PDK 3.0-derived clients, which aren't so generous as to
617     allow booting with only "PXEClient" specified.
618    
619     Changes in 1.47:
620     * PXELINUX: RFC 1123 states that a TFTP implementation MUST
621     use adaptive timeout, "at least an exponential backoff of
622     retransmission timeout is necessary." Implement a very
623     simple exponential backoff for retransmits.
624     * PXELINUX: Updated documentation, including pointer to new
625     TFTP server.
626     * PXELINUX: When sending ERROR due to bad OACK, use the proper
627     destination port number (why are TFTP port numbers so odd?)
628     * PXELINUX: If the boot dies in the middle somewhere,
629     eventually give up and reset the machine (unattended
630     operation.)
631    
632     Changes in 1.46:
633     * New program PXELINUX to do network booting using a
634     PXE-compliant (Pre-Execution Environment) network booting
635     PROM. See pxelinux.doc for details.
636    
637     Changes in 1.45:
638     * Serial console support. See syslinux.doc for details.
639    
640     Changes in 1.44:
641     * Change HIGHMEM_MAX to 38000000h to (hopefully) avoid the
642     kernel stepping on it; 3f000000h was apparently a higher
643     limit than the kernel used!
644    
645     Changes in 1.43:
646     * Add sys2ansi.pl script to display the contents of a
647     colorized SYSLINUX file.
648     * Changed the io_delay once again, after a report that the
649     old delay port causes hangs on some systems.
650    
651     Changes in 1.42:
652     * Frob the "fast A20 gate" port as well as the keyboard
653     controller; will this help systems with problems?
654     * Be even more paranoid about A20, unfortunately even this
655     seems to be not paranoid enough... what I don't understand
656     is that if there is hardware out there *this broken*, how
657     can it run Linux at all? Report an error message rather
658     than hang forever if A20 is stuck.
659     * Include some intermediate files in the distribution, plus
660     provide a "make installer" target for distributors to relink
661     the install programs only. I would prefer the syslinux boot
662     loader proper to be "binary clean" for debuggablity -- use
663     "make clean ; make installer" to rebuild the installers only.
664    
665     Changes in 1.41:
666     * Don't get confused by directories, volume labels, or VFAT
667     long names.
668     * Use INT 15h, AX=0E801h to query memory size before trying
669     INT 15h, AH=88h. This not only provides more headroom
670     between the kernel and the initrd on large-memory machines,
671     but it appears some recent BIOSes actually have started
672     returning garbage for the AH=88h (older) call.
673     * Trust high memory beyond the 15 MB mark if the user has
674     specified it, or if obtained with INT 15h, AH=0E801h (with
675     no memory holes above 1 MB.)
676    
677     Changes in 1.40:
678     * Increase A20M delay and put in a test to avoid problems on
679     certain IBM Thinkpads (thanks to Donnie Barnes of RedHat
680     for vital info on this one.)
681     * Support COMBOOT style boot command images.
682     * Support chain loading (foreign operating systems, e.g. DOS).
683     * Include a new "copybs" DOS utility to copy a boot sector to
684     a file (under Linux, use "dd".)
685     * Fix the DOS installer to work for disks over 32 MB.
686     * SYSLINUX should now handle disks with more than 65536 tracks.
687    
688     Changes in 1.37:
689     * Fix a bug that caused "label" statements in syslinux.cfg to
690     not be handled properly.
691     * Updated the documentation. Among other things, we now allow
692     up to 128 "label" statements.
693    
694     Changes in 1.36:
695     * Fix for booting old (pre-initrd) kernels.
696     * It seems at least some versions of OS/2 doesn't set up all
697     the fields in the superblock correctly. Account for that.
698     * Fix bug that caused boot failure when using the mem= option.
699    
700     Changes in 1.35:
701     * Loading from partitions now should work properly. (Actually
702     tested, this time. You should even be able to dd a floppy
703     to a partition and boot from it.)
704     * Removed large workaround code for an alleged ancient BIOS
705     bug I have never actually seen. The -s option should work
706     on those machines, anyway.
707     * Support for simple keyboard remappings, same as used by
708     LILO (once again to support localization.) The program
709     keytab-lilo.pl from the LILO distribution included to
710     generate such maps.
711     * Added a "safe, slow and stupid" (-s) option to the
712     installers. This option will lobotomize the boot sector to
713     hopefully work on even very buggy BIOSes.
714    
715     Changes in 1.34:
716     * Ability to load a VGA font on bootup (for localized Linux
717     distributions.)
718    
719     Changes in 1.33:
720     * Bug fix in the Linux installer.
721     * Added a workaround for a bug in certain AMI/Intel BIOSes
722     when booting from CD-ROM.
723     * Documentation changes.
724    
725     Changes in 1.32:
726     * FAT16 filesystems are now supported.
727    
728     Changes in 1.31:
729     * Now compiles under Linux, using NASM, rather than using
730     Turbo Assembler under DOS. See http://www.cryogen.com/Nasm
731     for information about NASM.
732     * Linux-hosted SYSLINUX installer, as well as a
733     rewritten DOS installer (now is written in assembler, so we
734     don't need Turbo C.)
735    
736     Changes in 1.30:
737     * Added support for loading bzImage and initrd loading, and made
738     SYSLINUX new-setup-code aware (SYSLINUX 1.30 id=0x31).
739     * Added LILO-style kernel labels; see the LABEL and IMPLICIT
740     keywords in README file.
741     * Added support for colorization of intro and help screens.
742     * The vga= option is now handled correctly.
743     * Massive rewrite of large chunks of the code in order to
744     support the first two new features.
745    
746     Changes in 1.20:
747     * Added simple online help at the "boot:" prompt.
748     * Removed 2880K image as I no longer have access to such a
749     floppy drive. (Donations accepted!!)
750     * Decided to distribute the source in a subdirectory rather
751     than in a nested zipfile.
752    
753     Changes in 1.11:
754     * Removed a sanity check which would cause booting to fail on
755     Phoenix BIOS version 4.03. Apparently this BIOS is buggy.
756    
757     Changes in 1.10:
758     * Added configuration file SYSLINUX.CFG. This file contains all
759     configurable options, and can be edited from any OS which can
760     access an MS-DOS filesystem; there is no longer a need to run
761     SYSLINUX.EXE except to write the boot sector.
762     * Default command line now given by "default" line in config
763     file.
764     * LINUXMSG.TXT and BOOTMSG.TXT hard-coded file names replaced by
765     "display" and "prompt" lines in config file.
766     * LILO-style option appending now supported ("append" line in
767     config file).
768     * Prompt timeout is now supported ("timeout" line in config
769     file). The timeout is cancelled when anything is typed on the
770     command line.
771     * Pressing <ESC> or <Ctrl-C> at the Loading... stage now aborts
772     the kernel loading in progress and returns the user to the
773     boot: prompt.
774     * The installer now automatically sets the READONLY flag on
775     LDLINUX.SYS.
776     * Added 2880K disk image.
777    
778     Changes in 1.03:
779     * Fixed bug that would prevent booting from double-density
780     floppies and other DOS filesystems with multiple sectors per
781     cluster.
782     * Added 720K disk image.
783     * Changed default kernel name on disk images to LINUX.
784    
785     Changes in 1.02:
786     * Fixed bug that would garble the command line on recent kernels
787     with more than 4 sectors of setup code (this wasn't really a
788     *bug*; rather, a kernel change broke the code. Unfortunately
789     the Linux boot interface is still sorely undocumented).
790     * Added BOOTMSG.TXT file support (message file which does not
791     force display of the boot prompt).
792    
793     Changes in 1.01:
794     * Fixed bug on some (most?) 386 BIOSes would require two boot
795     attempts.