Magellan Linux

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

Parent Directory Parent Directory | Revision Log Revision Log


Revision 1133 - (hide annotations) (download)
Thu Aug 19 09:50:43 2010 UTC (13 years, 8 months ago) by niro
File size: 59608 byte(s)
-updated to isolinux-3.86
1 niro 1133 Starting with 1.47, changes marked with SYSLINUX, PXELINUX, ISOLINUX
2     or EXTLINUX apply to that specific program only; other changes apply
3     to all derivatives.
4 niro 532
5 niro 1133 Changes in 3.86:
6     * chain.c32: fix chainloading the MBR of a hard disk (broken
7     in 3.85).
8     * mboot.c32: report the boot loader name in the information
9     structure.
10     * com32: set argv[0] in a com32 module.
11     * core: add a workaround for a bug in Xen HVM older than
12     version 3.3: disable halt on those platforms.
13     * Fix problems where certain operations in com32 modules would
14     cause the core to believe the system was idle.
15     * MEMDISK: fix MBR detection when used with a DOSEMU header or
16     an offset.
17     * MEMDISK: generate the mBFT checksum correctly.
18    
19     Changes in 3.85:
20     * gPXELINUX: updated to gPXE 1.0.0. gPXELINUX can now do NBP
21     chainloading, and does not require a second DHCP.
22     * vesamenu.c32: unbreak the default "grey hole" background.
23     * We no longer have a built-in default of "linux auto".
24     Instead, if no DEFAULT or UI statement is found, or the
25     configuration file is missing entirely, we drop to the boot:
26     prompt with an error message (if NOESCAPE is set, we stop
27     with a "boot failed" message; this is also the case for
28     PXELINUX if the configuration file is not found.)
29     * chain.c32: support chainloading Grub4DOS; patch by Gert
30     Hulselmans.
31     * New tool: sysdump.c32, can be used to produce system
32     information for debugging via tftp or ymodem (serial port).
33     * "vga=current" on the Linux command line is now supported.
34     * chain.c32: support for Windows Recovery Console, via the
35     "cmldr=" option.
36     * chain.c32: should now support loading NTLDR from different
37     type media than loaded from.
38     * chain.c32: support chainloading to a FAT/NTFS partition with
39     invalid "hidden sectors" via the "sethidden" option.
40     * memdisk: fix the mBFT ACPI table.
41     * vesamenu.c32: if the image is smaller than the screen, tile
42     it across the whole screen.
43     * mkdiskimage: -s option for producing a sparse image.
44     * vesamenu.c32: support arbitrary resolution setting (beyond
45     BIOS support) on some Intel-based video chipsets. This code
46     is a modified version of the "915resolution" tool by
47     Steve Tomljenovic; your mileage might vary.
48    
49     Changes in 3.84:
50     * SYSLINUX: make the DOS installer work for MS-DOS 7.x/8.x
51     (Win9x/ME) again.
52     * HDT: updated to version 0.3.6 (numerous changes.)
53     * mboot.c32: now supports video mode setting if requested by
54     the image.
55     * MEMDISK: Fix floppy images of PC-DOS.
56     * MEMDISK: Add support for emulation of CD-ROM images; patch
57     by Shao Miller.
58     * MEMDISK: Comply with the Win9x "safe hook" standard,
59     allowing a protected-mode driver.
60     * MEMDISK: New "mBFT" ACPI table, by analogy with the iSCSI
61     iBFT table. This allows detection from a protected-mode
62     operating system without EDD support.
63     * 32-bit version of the gfxboot loader (gfxboot.c32), so far
64     experimental. This will replace gfxboot.com in the future.
65     * vesamenu.c32: new MENU RESOLUTION directive to set a screen
66     resolution other than 640x480.
67     * chain.c32: add support for loading isolinux.bin.
68     * chain.c32: make sure to always return to text mode.
69     * eltorito.sys: DOS driver for generic CD-ROMs; by Gary Tong
70     and Bart Lagerweij.
71    
72     Changes in 3.83:
73     * PXELINUX: clear memory before handing over to a chainloaded
74     NBP. This may help avoid a bug in Windows RIS.
75     * PXELINUX: fix localboot after NBP chainloading on certain
76     BIOSes (including ASUS A8N-E, but possibly others.)
77     * chain.c32: support chainloaded bootloaders on ISOLINUX.
78     * PXELINUX: allow filenames up to 251 characters.
79     * MEMDISK: fix problems booting from USB on Thinkpads, and
80     possibly other machines or hardware combinations.
81     * isohybrid: fix the -id option.
82     * HDT: updated to version 0.3.4.
83     * MEMDISK: the stack size is now configurable, with the stack=
84     option.
85     * Simple menu: fix Ctrl-W (word erase) in command-line edit.
86     * Simple menu: fix crash on some platforms.
87     * Gfxboot: fixes to the configuration file parsing.
88     * PXELINUX: add a tool to override specific DHCP options via
89     values hardcoded in the pxelinux.0 file. These hardcoded
90     values can be either "before DHCP" (defaults if DHCP do not
91     provide values), or "after DHCP" (overrides DHCP). The tool
92     pxelinux-options can be used to set these options. This
93     feature does not apply to gpxelinux.0; when used with gPXE
94     this is better handled by modifying the embedded script.
95    
96     Changes in 3.82:
97     * isohybrid: fix the -partok logic for loading from a partition.
98     * ISOLINUX: deal with systems which return from INT 13h with
99     interrupts disabled.
100     * Do not invoke the idle handler during large file loads.
101     * Simple menu: make ONTIMEOUT work with MENU HIDDEN.
102     * PXELINUX: handle TFTP servers which have extra NULs at the
103     end of an OACK packet.
104    
105     Changes in 3.81:
106     * Shuffler: fix bug in real-mode entry. This affected a
107     number of modules, probably in relatively unimportant ways,
108     but it completely broke linux.c32.
109     * Improved performance.
110     * Attempt to halt the processor while idle. This can cause
111     bad reponsiveness when using a serial console especially for
112     automated input; if that ends up being a problem, use the
113     new "NOHALT 1" configuration command.
114     * linux.c32 now suppresses all messages if the "quiet" flag is
115     specified.
116     * isohybrid: add a variety of options, and a help message.
117     * ISOLINUX: fix booting in hybrid mode when CBIOS is used.
118     This unfortunately means that the isohybrid handoff protocol
119     has changed, so the isohybrid utility must version-match
120     isolinux.bin.
121     * Drop support for ACPI 3 extended memory flags.
122     * Menu system: don't set the autocr flag on the serial
123     console.
124     * altmbr: fix handling of logical partitions.
125     * altmbr: cap at 439 bytes so the partition select byte isn't
126     part of the file.
127    
128     Changes in 3.80:
129     * New shuffler mechanism and API.
130     * Rewritten mboot.c32 module.
131     * The syslinux_boot_linux() function has been simplified.
132     * Don't hang trying to boot a "menu quit" label from the CLI.
133     * Fix problem with boot-once "sticking" on some BIOSes.
134     * isohybrid: fix problem with images over 2 GB in size.
135     * APM poweroff module (poweroff.com) by Sebastian Herbszt.
136     * ISOLINUX: fix the handling of large directories. Bug found
137     and fixed by Steffen Winterfeldt.
138    
139     Changes in 3.75:
140     * PXELINUX: fix the "keeppxe" option, which was broken in
141     3.74.
142     * MEMDISK: correct the extraction of geometry information from
143     the MBR of a hard disk image, again broken in 3.74.
144     * extlinux(1) man page from Brian Pellin.
145     * Simple menu: MENU SAVE is now controllable on a menu-by-menu
146     or entry-by-entry basis.
147     * gPXELINUX: fix interrupt-disabling bug.
148     * HDT: fix lockup on machines with certain PCI configurations.
149    
150     Changes in 3.74:
151     * New UI directive, which allows a more natural way to specify
152     a menu system (or not.) With the UI directive specifying
153     the menu system, the DEFAULT directive can be used to select
154     the default entry inside the menus.
155     * kbdmap.c32: new module to load a new keyboard map
156     dynamically.
157     * isohybrid: workaround bug in some versions of binutils.
158     * Fix issue with the placement of the initrd on some machines.
159     * ifcpu64: fix handling of less than three arguments.
160     * Fix bug in the shuffle library when dealing with a very
161     large number of fragments.
162     * Documentation fixes by Vicente Jimenez Aguilar.
163     * gPXE updated to version 0.9.7.
164     * hdt.c32: Hardware Detection Tool, an interactive hardware
165     analyzer module by Erwan Velu.
166     * MEMDISK: enable automatic determination of the disk geometry
167     for a large floppy disk image if (and only if) it is
168     formatted with a FAT filesystem.
169     * SYSLINUX: fix the handling of .bss files on FAT12/16.
170     * Suppress the Loading ... message if "quiet" is specified on
171     the kernel command line.
172     * Fix the use of "CONSOLE 0" with menu.c32.
173     * Allow COM32 modules to be aware of all memory even in the
174     presence of a memory hole. The "linux.c32" module can be
175     used to load a kernel (or memdisk) plus large initrd on
176     such a system.
177     * MBR: produce alternate MBR variants which force the drive
178     number to hd0 (_f variants), or force the drive number to
179     hd0 if the Ctrl key is pressed (_c variants.) Furthermore,
180     add an MBR variant (altmbr*.bin) which ignores the active
181     flag and instead boots the partition number specified in the
182     byte at offset 439 decimal.
183     * Add IPAPPEND strings to com32 modules, especially needed for
184     linux.c32.
185     * New MENU SAVE directive which saves the latest menu
186     selection until the next boot. Currently only implemented for
187     EXTLINUX.
188     * gfxboot.com: *experimental* interface module to Steffen
189     Winterfeldt's "gfxboot" graphical front end
190     (http://gfxboot.sourceforge.net/). Module by Sebastian Herbszt.
191    
192     Changes in 3.73:
193     * Upgrade gPXE to release version 0.9.5.
194     * Fix a number of build errors on various platforms.
195     * Handle systems with E820 "extended attributes" per ACPI 3.
196     Someone "cleverly" decided to change the E820 spec in a
197     backwards-incompatible manner!
198     * MEMDISK: default to "safeint".
199     * Adopt the moniker "The Syslinux Project", standard proper
200     noun capitalization, to refer to the project as a whole.
201     Thus, reserve the all-caps "SYSLINUX" to refer to the FAT
202     loader.
203     * mboot.c32: add "-solaris" option to pass DHCP information to
204     the Solaris kernel; required for automatic Solaris boot
205     without using Solaris' pxeboot program.
206     * config.c32: trivial COM32 module to restart Syslinux with
207     another configuration file from the command line (equivalent
208     to the CONFIG command in the configuratin file.)
209    
210     Changes in 3.72:
211     * Include the pxechain.com module from Jeffery Hutzelman at
212     Carnegie Mellon University. This allows chaining another
213     PXE boot program while changing the DHCP packet passed to
214     it.
215     * Reorganize the Makefile system.
216     * Major PCI core cleanups and other source cleanup.
217     * gPXE code updated.
218     * Try to avoid memory-snooping attacks on passwords. Note
219     that if someone has root on the box, they generally don't
220     need to compromise the boot loader...
221     * ISOLINUX: fix crash when given a zero-length file.
222     * sdi.c32: support gzipped SDI images.
223     * ISOLINUX: support generating images which can be either
224     a CD-ROM or a hard disk (USB disk, etc.) See
225     doc/isolinux.txt for more information.
226     * Remote gdb support for COM32 modules; patch from Stefan
227     Hajnoczi.
228     * Support beeps in F-key help in the simple menu system.
229     * Tab display of labels, based on a patch from Sebastian
230     Herbszt. Can be disabled with the NOCOMPLETE configuration
231     command.
232     * "menu default" can now be specified after "menu begin", to
233     indicate that a specific submenu should be the default entry.
234    
235     Changes in 3.71:
236     * Workaround for a VESA BIOS which tries to make DOS system
237     calls(!!)
238     * Simple menu: fix navigation around disabled entries
239     (or at least try to...)
240     * EXTLINUX: proper error message when confused about mount
241     point.
242     * MEMDISK: be smarter about incompletely disabled floppies in
243     the BIOS and about being the only floppy.
244     * Optionally allow initrd to be specified on a separate line
245     rather than as part of the "append" line. This is not
246     recommended, but apparently makes life easier for some
247     tools.
248     * SYSLINUX: if no config file is present, set the current
249     directory to the root directory (Sebastian Herbszt).
250     * chain.c32: option "hide" to support hiding and unhiding of
251     primary partitions on the boot drive with DOS, Win, or OS/2
252     partition types (01, 04, 06, 07, 0b, 0c, 0e).
253     * Unbreak the KBDMAP command (broken in 3.70).
254     * EXTLINUX: fix the handling of the ADV when using CBIOS.
255     * ifcpu64.c32: simple COM32 module to select a 32- or 64-bit
256     kernel (and optionally 32-bit kernels with or without PAE.)
257     Eventually we want a scripting language for this
258     kind of stuff; a Lua module is under development.
259     * Fix parsing of the SERIAL command without a baud rate
260     specified.
261     * chain.c32: error out when try to boot an unbootable
262     partition.
263     * SYSLINUX: when building the Win32 installer, search for
264     MinGW under a large number of possible names.
265    
266     Changes in 3.70:
267     * PXELINUX: Support enhanced capabilities when running on top
268     of gPXE (http://www.etherboot.org/). In particular, support
269     URL-style syntax for filenames, and any protocol that gPXE
270     supports (except, currently, iSCSI and AoE.) This feature
271     is currently highly experimental.
272     * Substantial infrastructure changes to support files whose
273     length aren't known at open time (typically network
274     connections.) Please note that the semantics of some of the
275     comboot APIs have changed slightly; please see doc/comboot.txt.
276     * PXELINUX: We no longer require a TFTP server which supports
277     the tsize option for all transfers.
278     * PXELINUX: Integrate with the gPXE source base; unified image
279     now included as "gpxelinux.0".
280     * The source tree has been restructured; files that were
281     previously in the root have moved into the core, dos, gpxe,
282     and utils directories.
283     * "make install", "make netinstall", and "make extbootinstall"
284     have been updated massively. "make install-all" now installs
285     all three.
286     * Change default dir for auxiliary files from
287     /usr/lib/syslinux to /usr/share/syslinux.
288     * SYSLINUX: VFAT long filename support.
289     * MEMDISK: Any image less than 4096K (4 MB) is treated as a
290     floppy disk. The geometry-guessing code will recognize all
291     common extended formats, but it is still possible some very
292     exotic formats need geometry specification. Large floppies
293     and very small harddisks still need explicit specification.
294     * chain.c32: option "swap" to support swapping of BIOS drive
295     numbers. This is necessary to boot certain operating systems
296     (DOS, Windows) from a secondary drive.
297     * chain.c32: option "file=" to support loading a boot file from
298     the SYSLINUX filesystem instead of loading the boot sector
299     from the drive.
300     * chain.c32: option "seg=" to control the load location.
301     * chain.c32: option "ntldr=" as a shorthand for "seg=0x2000
302     file="; use this to load one of WinNT's loaders:
303    
304     chain.c32 hd0 1 ntldr=/MiniNT/setupldr.bin
305    
306     Note that the file needs to be in the SYSLINUX filesystem.
307     * chain.32: options "freedos=" and "msdos="/"pcdos=" as
308     shorthands for "seg=0x60 file=" and "seg=0x70 file="
309     respectively; use this to load FreeDOS's kernel.sys, MS-DOS's
310     io.sys or PC-DOS's ibmbio.sys.
311     * Change to the A20 algorithm which *MIGHT* help systems that
312     have systems which freeze when Syslinux is used with USB
313     keyboards. Note that this has been hard do verify, so I
314     would greatly appreciate feedback on it.
315     * Complex menu system: unbreak menus which has unnamed
316     submenus, like complex.c.
317     * Fix newline on the serial port for some com32 modules.
318     * chain.c32: support "boot" as the drive specification,
319     indicating the drive from which it was booted
320     (for syslinux/extlinux).
321     * SYSLINUX/EXTLINUX: support "localboot" with the same feature
322     set as ISOLINUX.
323     * Add an experimental MBR for GPT partition tables.
324     * Use $(CC) when determining compile flags.
325     * chain.c32: fix booting from logical partitions (Sergey
326     Vlasov.)
327    
328     Changes in 3.63:
329     * Fix errors in the PCI and DMI detection modules (Erwan Velu,
330     Sebastian Herbszt).
331     * Fix host dependencies and other issues in the build system.
332     * PXELINUX: Allow class E addresses as unicast.
333     * sdi.c32: module to load Microsoft System Deployment Images.
334     For additional information, please see:
335     http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms838543.aspx
336     * EXTLINUX: Correct reading directories with deleted entries.
337     * Shuffle library: correct the handling of certain geometries
338     (an upward move with source material blocking the move); as
339     required by sdi.c32 but theoretically possible for other
340     formats as well.
341     * Add "make netinstall" to install /tftpboot.
342     * Fix some documentation files that didn't get moved/renamed.
343    
344     Changes in 3.62:
345     * Clean up garbage after "aborted." message.
346     * Clean up memdump.com filenames.
347     * Support SHA256 and SHA512 encrypted passwords.
348     * The shuffle library now can generate chained descriptors,
349     thus allowing pretty much arbitrarily complex memory maps.
350     * Handle command lines up to 2047 characters, the current
351     Linux kernel limit.
352     * vesamenu: support systems without linear framebuffer support
353     (sigh, what is this, 1993?) and 15-bit RGB modes.
354     * Move the label storage (for the command-line interface) to
355     high memory, removing the size limit and freeing up 64K of
356     low memory.
357     * Get rid of 4096-entry limit in the simple menu system.
358     * New hierarchial submenu support: see MENU BEGIN, MENU END,
359     MENU GOTO in doc/menu.txt.
360     * MENU QUIT allows creating a menu entry for returning to the
361     command line.
362     * ISOLINUX: Work around bug in certain Adaptec BIOSes,
363     patch by Bruce Robson.
364     * pngtopnm dependency removed from samples/ directory.
365     * Text documentation files (in doc/) renamed *.doc -> *.txt.
366    
367     Changes in 3.61:
368     * EXTLINUX: fix crash when accessing an empty file.
369     * elf.c32: If a PHDR segment is present, load it.
370     * Fix SHA-1 and MD5 passwords.
371     * ISOLINUX: fix booting when mastered without
372     mkisofs -boot-info-table (broken since 3.50, sigh...)
373     * Handle BIOSes which emit multiple contiguous valid
374     memory regions in the e820 map.
375    
376     Changes in 3.60:
377     * Support for "auxilliary data vector", a small amount of
378     writable storage. Currently only supported for EXTLINUX,
379     but the infrastructure is there for the other derivatives,
380     assuming a suitable storage location can be found.
381     * EXTLINUX: boot-once support (--once, --clear-once, and
382     --reset-adv).
383     * A command is now required to the EXTLINUX installer, i.e. at
384     least one of --install, --update, --once, --clear-once, or
385     --reset-adv.
386    
387     Changes in 3.55:
388     * PXELINUX: as per RFC 5071, PXELINUX no longer requires the
389     use of the magic cookie option (208) for unencapsulated
390     options. Currently it does not require it for
391     vendor-encapsulated options (vendor-option-space) either,
392     but that MAY be reverted in the future if it causes
393     problems.
394     * Documentation text files moved to a common "doc" directory;
395     man pages from the Debian project added to the "man"
396     directory.
397     * Correct bug with self-overlapping memory areas when using
398     the shuffle interface.
399    
400     Changes in 3.54:
401     * Add "menu separator", "menu indent", "menu disabled"
402     (see README.menu).
403     * vesamenu: fix handing of VESA modes with noncontiguous
404     memory buffers. In particular, Qemu/KVM sets up such a mode
405     when Cirrus Logic emulation is enabled (which is the
406     default.)
407     * Support for calling real mode functions using far calls,
408     with argument on the stack. This was implemented to support
409     the BIOS BBS specification, but subsequent experiments show
410     that the at least one of the most common BIOS cores, Award,
411     passes the presence check but doesn't actually implement the
412     functionality.
413    
414     Changes in 3.53:
415     * Fix bugs related to the $PnP BIOS functionality on some
416     platforms.
417     * PXELINUX: Fix the "naked" version of :: (suppress prefix.)
418     * elf.c32: better error messages.
419     * Faster operation under Intel VT virtualization.
420     * PXELINUX: Fix DHCP bootfile option.
421     * mkdiskimage: Support more than 1024 cylinders.
422     * (Hopefully) fix installer on non-x86 platforms.
423     * Fix shuffle_and_boot_rm, used by linux.c32.
424     * Fix shuffle_and_boot_pm on 386/486.
425     * ISOLINUX (at least): fix bss memory overwrite hang.
426     * MBR: Fix booting from logical partitions.
427     * Code cleanups.
428    
429     Changes in 3.52:
430     * Handle capitalized F-key commands in the menu system.
431     * Fix padding error when loading multiple ramdisks.
432     * Workaround for VMware crashing when trying to print a
433     message during early kernel boot (does not seem to work,
434     consider deleting.)
435     * chain.c32: add the ability to search for a specific MBR
436     signature at runtime.
437     * Fall back to the server identity option if the siaddr field
438     in the DHCP header isn't set. This seems to match the
439     behaviour of most PXE stacks.
440     * mkdiskimage: give the generated disk image an MBR signature.
441     * MEMDISK: Fix failures on some BIOSes.
442     * Simple menu system: new "MENU HIDDEN" option to not display
443     the menu unless the user presses a key.
444     * Simple menu system: support MD5-encrypted passwords (modern
445     Unix standard style, with "$1$" prefixes.)
446     * pcitest.c32: now functions as a full "lspci". Thanks to
447     Erwan Velu for this work.
448     * MEMDISK: Make EDD actually work.
449     * ISOLINUX: Fix for certain broken CD-ROM BIOSes which
450     randomly corrupted register FS.
451     * Simple menu system: fix memory overwrite bug that caused
452     some systems to lock up or behave weirdly.
453     * Fix building on 64-bit systems without a 32-bit libc installed.
454    
455     Changes in 3.51:
456     * EXTLINUX: Fix failure to find the configuration file.
457    
458     Changes in 3.50:
459     * New keywords allow the type of file to be specified in the
460     configuration file.
461     * It is now supported to load a different configuration file
462     with the CONFIG keyword.
463     * Fix API call 0x0019 (Read Disk.)
464     * MENU AUTOBOOT, MENU TABMSG, MENU PASSPROMPT allows
465     internationalization of menu messages.
466     * A new feature, TEXT HELP, allows the administrator to set
467     a multi-line help message for individual selections.
468     * Fix API call 0x0012 (Cleanup, shuffle and boot.)
469     * New API call "Cleanup, shuffle and boot to flat protected mode"
470     * New API call "Cleanup, shuffle and boot to real mode",
471     similar to API call 0x0012 but allows arbitrary register setting.
472     * Introduce a library interface for loading arbitrary binary
473     formats with relatively easily understood code. See
474     the elf.c32 module for an example on how to use it.
475     * New module "elf.c32", to load a protected-mode ELF kernel.
476     * MBR (old and new): Fix bug in CHS mode when LBA >
477     65535*sectors.
478     * vesamenu: fix decoding of palettized PNG images.
479     * Update the Linux kernel boot protocol.
480     * PXELINUX: Press Ctrl-N at the boot prompt to read out the
481     network info.
482     * Instead of the (non-existent) MAC, use the client identifier
483     for networks like Infiniband and Firewire/1394.
484     * Add a new INCLUDE command to the core syslinux parser.
485     * Allow binding help text to F11 and F12.
486     * F-key help now available in the simple menu system.
487     * Disabled the polling for ARP during idle. It is simply too
488     slow on some (broken!) PXE stacks.
489     * PXELINUX: also try to fetch the config file based on UUID.
490     * SYSLINUX/EXTLINUX: New RAID mode (-r) which calls the BIOS
491     to load the next device (typically the next drive) on boot
492     failure.
493    
494     Changes in 3.36:
495     * MEMDISK: Disable EDD by default on floppy disks. EDD can be
496     enabled with the "edd" option and disabled with "noedd".
497     This (hopefully) should make Ghost work again.
498     * SYSLINUX: "unix" installer now uses Linux ioctls instead of
499     using libfat.
500     * New MBR which can boot from logical partitions.
501     * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in detecting special extensions which was
502     introduced in 3.35 :(
503     * PXELINUX: Unbreak chainbooting FreeBSD (and possibly others.)
504    
505     Changes in 3.35:
506     * MEMDISK: New "safeint" mode.
507     * MEMDISK: Be more compliant with the PnP BIOS spec.
508     * MEMDISK: Turn on EDD support by default.
509     * MEMDISK: Try to work on some machines on which it would not
510     work when there was no floppy drive in the system.
511     * Simple menu system: fix serial console support (broken in
512     3.30).
513     * SYSLINUX: Support subdirectories. Like ISOLINUX, the
514     "current directory" is the directory in which syslinux.cfg
515     is found; this is searched for in the sequence
516     /boot/syslinux, /syslinux, /. As a side benefit, label names
517     like "linux-2.6.18" and "linux-2.6.19" are now supported.
518    
519     To install ldlinux.sys in a subdirectory, pass the -d
520     directory option to the SYSLINUX installer.
521    
522     This work was sponsored by slax.org (thanks, Tomas!)
523     * New API call: read disk.
524     * Invoke ONERROR on initrd load failure.
525    
526     Changes in 3.31:
527     * The simple menu system (menu.c32 and vesamenu.c32) now
528     support loading more than one configuration file at a time,
529     using MENU INCLUDE or by specifying multiple filenames.
530     * The MENU COLOR statement can now control the shadowing mode.
531    
532     Changes in 3.30:
533     * libcom32 extended to support graphics mode and graphical console.
534     * vesamenu.c32, new graphical version of the Simple
535     Menu System, see README.menu.
536     * New com32 modules by Erwan Velu do selection based on CPUID
537     or PCI devices present.
538     * RPM spec: add syslinux-tftpboot module; move syslinux by
539     default to the /usr/share/syslinux directory.
540     * RPM spec: extlinux is now a separate package.
541    
542     Changes in 3.20:
543     * EXTLINUX: New options --install (-i) and --update (-U), to
544     make it clear if a boot loader should be installed or
545     updated. For now, defaults to --install for compatibility;
546     a future version will require one of these options.
547     * New library functions to load and place files in memory.
548     * mboot.c32 bug fixes.
549     * Remove 8 MB kernel size restriction.
550     * Add "klibc" target for building unix/syslinux and
551     extlinux/extlinux with klcc (klibc-1.4.27 or later.)
552     * PXELINUX: Fail (and eventually reboot) if no configuration
553     file was found.
554     * COM32 module by Erwan Velu to make decisions based on DMI
555     info.
556     * Fix issue where going back and forth between menus a lot
557     would cause a hang.
558     * ISOLINUX: Fix bug which made "cd boot sectors" not work.
559    
560 niro 532 Changes in 3.11:
561     * MEMDISK: Fix bug by which accessing the real floppy disk
562     as B: in MS-DOS was broken.
563     * Simple menu system: allow tweaking of the screen layout.
564     * Simple menu system: better command-line editing, correctly
565     handle command lines above 256 characters.
566     * PXELINUX: revert memory allocation change that caused
567     problems on some network cards.
568     * MEMDISK: Try work around a bug on some BIOSes when no
569     physical floppy disk is present in the system.
570     * Enable the 16550A FIFOs, if present, when doing serial
571     console.
572     * New "totaltimeout" command establishes a timeout without
573     regard for any user input.
574     * Simple menu system: timeout behaviour now more in line with
575     user expectations.
576 niro 1133 * Simple menu system: "ontimeout" should now work correctly.
577 niro 532
578     Changes in 3.10:
579     * gcc 4.0.1 compilation fixes.
580     * Add support for querying the PCI BIOS in libcom32
581     (used by ethersel et al.)
582     * Fix PCI handing (ethersel etc) on several old chipsets (and
583     VMWare.)
584     * Try to deal with systems with broken EBIOS.
585     * New API call to do "localboot".
586     * New API call to query features.
587     * New API call to run kernel image, a lower-level call than
588     "run command". See comboot.doc.
589     * Fix for bug in EBIOS code discovered by Arwin Vosselman.
590     * NOESCAPE security fix.
591     * Comments are now recognized even without a space following #.
592     * Fix incorrect handling of mixes of entries with and without
593     MENU PASSWD.
594     * The idle API call now harmlessly returns failure if it is a
595     no-op. That way the caller can decide whether or not to
596     bother invoking it again.
597     * Temporarily disable the idle API call on PXELINUX, due to
598     some platforms on which the idle API call seems to hang; this
599     problem has not yet been debugged.
600     * MEMDISK: the handling of DOSEMU-headered images was broken;
601     fix it.
602     * EXTLINUX: symlinks are now supported.
603     * Simple menu system: N and P now work correctly as hotkeys.
604     * MEMDISK: more BIOS bug workarounds.
605    
606     Changes in 3.09:
607     * gcc4 compilation fix.
608     * <BEL> (Ctrl-G) in message files now causes a beep.
609     * Reduce the command line to 511 characters; 1023 caused
610     memory overflows.
611    
612     Changes in 3.08:
613     * SYSLINUX: Fix performance regression (-s mode always
614     enabled.)
615     * Add API function for idle loop.
616     * libutil: Add do_idle() function for idle loop, make
617     get_key() use it.
618     * libutil: Add SHA-1 and base64 functions.
619     * Simple menu system: add password support.
620     * EXTLINUX: Sparse files now handled correctly.
621     * EXTLINUX: Large directories now handled correctly.
622     * ALL: At the prompt, Ctrl-X now forces text mode.
623     * Fix configuration file parsing error, that could cause
624     hangs.
625     * Rewritten advanced menuing system from Murali Ganapathy.
626     * MEMDISK: New "bigraw" mode to work around certain broken
627     BIOS flash programs.
628     * COM32 module to boot Multiboot systems, including Xen. See
629     com32/modules/mboot.doc.
630     * Max command line changed to 1023 characters. Note that the
631     kernel proper still can only handle 255 characters without
632     patching, and COM16 binaries can only handle 125 characters.
633    
634     Changes in 3.07:
635     * Fix chainloading (chain.c32).
636     * Fix zlib build problem.
637     * Use a private copy of <linux/ext2_fs.h>.
638    
639     Changes in 3.06:
640     * Fix typo that caused the ramdisk to load in the wrong place.
641    
642     Changes in 3.05:
643     * New API function "shuffle and boot"; allows COM32 modules to
644     load or construct (almost) arbitrarily complex objects,
645     e.g. a kernel and its initrd/initramfs in pieces, and have
646     the API core reorganize memory for booting. (A library API
647     for this function will be introduced in a later version.)
648     * The initrd= option now supports multiple filenames separated
649     by commas. This is mostly useful for initramfs, which can
650     be composed of multiple separate cpio or cpio.gz archives.
651     (Note: all files except the last one are zero-padded to a 4K
652     page boundary. This should not affect initramfs.)
653     * EXTLINUX: Fix API function 000Ah (get derivative-specific
654     info).
655     * libcom32/ethersel: Support PCI Config Mechanism #2 on
656     machines still infested with that hideous old hack.
657     * SYSLINUX: Fix directory-parsing bug.
658    
659     Changes in 3.02:
660     * SYSLINUX: The "unix" installer now sets the MS-DOS
661     attributes (hidden, system, readonly.)
662     * COM32 library: build the .lnx (test modules for running
663     under Linux) as architecture native modules, in case
664     i386 devel libraries aren't installed.
665     * EXTLINUX: Hack for systems which don't have BLKGETSIZE64
666     defined in the standard header files.
667     * Simple menu system: minor aestetic improvements, and try to
668     work better over a serial console (speed, and readability on
669     monochrome terminal emulators.)
670     * New CONSOLE directive to control output on the video console
671     (useful for dealing with some broken serial-forwarding
672     BIOSes.)
673     * New com32 module "ethersel" for searching for an Ethernet
674     card and selecting the proper version of Etherboot.
675     * EXTLINUX: Allow the user to override the detected geometry.
676     Add help.
677    
678     Changes in 3.01:
679     * EXTLINUX, SYSLINUX: Fix compile errors on some systems.
680     * EXTLINUX: Default to zipdrive geometry (64 heads, 32
681     sectors) if no other geometry can be detected.
682    
683     Changes in 3.00:
684     * SYSLINUX: Support FAT32 and EDD. As an unfortunate
685     consequence, LDLINUX.SYS is no longer an ordinary file; it
686     is block-mapped at install time, which means it can only be
687     written using the syslinux installers.
688     * SYSLINUX: Reorganize the source code for the installers;
689     each one of the installers (dos, win32, unix, mtools) is now
690     built in its own subdirectory. In particular, "mtools" is
691     the unprivileged installer which uses mtools; "unix" is the
692     privileged installer which uses system calls.
693     * SYSLINUX: Completely rewritten DOS installer in C.
694     * ALL: "label" statement information is now stored in a
695     compressed format, which means that a lot more labels are
696     permitted (500-1000 in a typical configuration, but depends
697     on the complexity.)
698     * EXTLINUX: New derivative, which boots from an ext2/ext3
699     filesystem.
700     * SYSLINUX: The DOS and Win32 installers can now optionally
701     write the boot sector to a file instead of the real boot
702     sector. This is not supported in the Linux installers,
703     however.
704     * ALL: New NOESCAPE command, disables the "hold down the Shift
705     key to display the prompt" behaviour.
706     * New simple menu system, as an alternative to the advanced
707     menu system already present. See README.menu for details.
708     * PXELINUX: Filenames can now be prefixed with an IP address
709     or DNS name plus :: (e.g. 192.0.2.1::filename or
710     server.domain.com::filename), which downloads a file from an
711     alternate TFTP server, or just a :: (e.g. ::filename), which
712     suppresses the common pathname prefix. See pxelinux.doc.
713     * SYSLINUX: Add an -m option to the DOS and Win32 installers
714     to write an MBR and -a to mark the partition SYSLINUX is
715     being installed on active.
716     * MEMDISK: Give a way to query the boot loader type while
717     running MEMDISK; see memdisk/memdisk.doc and
718     sample/mdiskchk.c.
719     * mkdiskimage: substantially improved mkdiskimage which, among
720     other things, can now be used to initialize USB keys as
721     zipdrives; see README.usbkey for more information.
722    
723     Changes in 2.13:
724     * MEMDISK: Fix command-line parsing "brown paper bag" class
725     bug.
726     * MEMDISK: Add "raw" mode to support the DOS boot disk from
727     WinME/XP, which seems to deliberately crash the system
728     when someone uses the "INT 15h mover" highmem API.
729     * Make "make install" do something sane for the com32
730     development environment.
731     * In the spec file, create a separate -devel RPM for the com32
732     development environment.
733    
734     Changes in 2.12:
735     * Simple C library, based on klibc, for writing COM32
736     programs.
737     * Fix the handling of file length in loading of COM32
738     programs.
739     * MEMDISK: Work around a linker bug by rearranging the code to
740     not use the linker for the 16-bit code.
741     * SYSLINUX: If we're building on a machine without a Win32
742     (mingw) compiler, just skip building syslinux.exe.
743     * ISOLINUX: Support non-mkisofs mastering programs, at least
744     as long as the image is single-session. For best results,
745     ISOLINUX should be the only boot loader installed.
746     * MEMDISK: Allow the user to specify that the simulated disk
747     should be write-protected.
748    
749     Changes in 2.11:
750     * ALL: Add an API call to get the configuration file name.
751     * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in 2.10 that prevented it from working
752     correctly for a lot of people.
753     * SYSLINUX: In the installer, make mtools a bit less fussy.
754     * Make the menu system compile with newer gcc's.
755    
756     Changes in 2.10:
757     * MEMDISK: Handle images compressed with zip as well as with
758     gzip. Some Windows-based image tools apparently generate
759     these kinds of images by default. Patch by Patrick
760     LoPresti.
761     * Major menu improvement from Murali Ganapathy.
762     * ISOLINUX: Wonderfully sick and brilliant workaround for
763     severe bugs in certain Award BIOSes; from Knut Petersen.
764     * SYSLINUX: Fix for the nomtools installed, from Frederic
765     Pasteleurs.
766     * PXELINUX: Fix handling of IP numbers in the ranges
767     100-109 and 200-209.
768     * ALL: New option "allowoptions" (defaults to 1), which
769     controls if options are allowed on the command line or not.
770     * SYSLINUX: Support building under klibc (see the klibc
771     distribution for details.)
772    
773     Changes in 2.09:
774     * SYSLINUX: Remove residual setuid crap from
775     syslinux-nomtools.
776     * Handle video pages correctly when using the API functions.
777     * Handle compiling on an x86-64 platform correctly.
778     * Menu system from Murali Krishnan Ganapathy; see the menu
779     directory for information.
780     * COMBOOT: Allow COMBOOT programs to change screen text mode.
781     * COMBOOT: Correct the documentation of how to detect
782     SYSLINUX from COMBOOT!!!!
783     * COMBOOT: Fix "get key without echo" API function.
784     * SYSLINUX: Fix bug that affected the API open function.
785     * ALL: Improve the E820 memory parser, to work around some
786     buggy BIOSes.
787    
788     Changes in 2.08:
789     * Add new configuration command "ontimeout" to allow timeout
790     to have a different action than just pressing Enter.
791     * Add new configuration command "onerror" to allow a custom
792     command to be executed in case the kernel image is not found.
793     * Fix bugs in the COMBOOT/COM32 command-line parsing. APPEND
794     now works with COMBOOT/COM32 images.
795     * PXELINUX: Poll for ARP requests while sitting at the
796     prompt. This makes some boot servers a lot less unhappy.
797     * PXELINUX: Actually free sockets when we get a failure
798     (including file not found.) This bug would cause us to run
799     out of sockets and thus "go deaf" after a while.
800     * MEMDISK: Add an API to query for the existence of MEMDISK.
801     * SYSLINUX: Fix loading boot sectors (.bs/.bss) from floppy
802     disk.
803     * .c32 is now one of the extensions searched for
804     automatically.
805     * PXELINUX: RFBG.exe seems to randomly overwrite memory
806     location 0x5700. Thus, don't use it!
807     * PXELINUX: Change pathname length max from 63 to 127; change
808     max vkernels from 128 to 64.
809     * Support Ctrl-U -> kill entire command line input.
810     * The "samples" directory contains a (barely at all tested)
811     chain loading example, chain.c32, which may be used to
812     chainload local floppy disks and hard disks. Use with
813     "chain fdN" or "chain hdN [partition]"; N = 0 for the first
814     drive of each type.
815    
816     Changes in 2.07:
817     * MEMDISK: Workaround for BIOSes which go into a snit when
818     they get a RESET command for the floppy system when there is
819     no floppy in the system.
820     * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend 2", which passes the hardware
821     address of the boot interface to the kernel as a
822     command-line option.
823     * mkdiskimage: fix the generation of the end limit.
824     * PXELINUX: Fix multiple bugs in chainloading of other NBPs.
825     * MEMDISK: Fix bug that would occationally cause "ran out of
826     input data" when using compressed disk images.
827     * SYSLINUX: Updates for the win32 installer (from Lars Munch.)
828     * PXELINUX: PXELINUX-specific options are now recognized both
829     in a vendor-option-space (a.k.a. type 43 encapsulated) as
830     well as in a site-option-space (unencapsulated.)
831     * COM32: Don't crash when DS != 0.
832     * COMBOOT/COM32: Make file reading work correctly. Thanks to
833     Phung Chi Kien for submitting a test program.
834    
835     Changes in 2.06:
836     * ALL: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
837     boot failure, depending on the length of the kernel.
838     * ISOLINUX: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
839     boot failure, depending on the length of directories.
840     * SYSLINUX: Win32 installer now flushes buffers.
841     * ppmtolss16: Be fully compliant with the PNM spec;
842     actually process comments in the header and odd
843     alignments of the various parameters, as well as
844     "plain" (not raw) files and PBM and PGM files.
845     * PXELINUX: Lower the default MTU to 1472 in order to deal
846     with systems with slightly nonstandard MTUs, and PXE
847     stacks which don't defragment correctly. Unfortunately this
848     is very hard to test dynamically.
849    
850     Changes in 2.05:
851     * PXELINUX: Add a default query based on the hardware address
852     of the boot device. This is in lower case hexadecimal form
853     separated by dashes and including the hardware type, for
854     example, the Ethernet (type 1) address 88:99:AA:BB:CC:DD
855     would query the file pxelinux.cfg/01-88-99-aa-bb-cc-dd.
856     * PXELINUX: Fix bug involving non-IP-based config file names.
857     * SYSLINUX: New installer for WinNT-based systems, from Lars
858     Munch.
859     * MEMDISK: Fix handling of memory region overlap when
860     decompressing. Thanks to Mikhail Kupchik for identifying
861     the problem.
862    
863     Changes in 2.04:
864     * ALL: Reclaim even more low memory by observing that
865     comboot_seg == real_mode_seg is perfectly fine, and by the
866     fact that the 1000h segment managed to get unused in all
867     derivatives...
868     * PXELINUX: Attempt to negotiate full Ethernet-sized blocks
869     (1468 bytes) using the blksize option.
870     * SYSLINUX: Resurrect the old no-mtools version of the
871     installer, although as a root-only tool. Some distributors
872     have indicated that they need a small standalone installer.
873     * MEMDISK: Fix a memory offset computation error when
874     installing compressed disks which generally would cause
875     1 MB of memory to be wasted.
876     * MEMDISK: Fix installing the E820 memory map. Calling
877     INT 15h AX=0E820h with MEMDISK 2.03 loaded would give a
878     completely corrupt memory map.
879     * SYSLINUX: Make libsyslinux a dynamic library, so that it can
880     be updated separately from client programs. The whole idea,
881     after all, is to enable alternate programs to become
882     syslinux installers.
883     * Include an rpm spec file in the distribution, so rpmbuild
884     -ta works.
885    
886     Changes in 2.03:
887     * Actually support comment lines in the configuration file.
888     * PXELINUX: Try to resolve some problems with stack switches.
889     * PXELINUX: Handle PXE stacks with broken routing.
890     With these workarounds, the remote install PXE boot floppy
891     (rbfg.exe) from Argon Technologies should work correctly.
892     * Fix problems with Perl scripts in UTF-8 locales.
893     * You probably need NASM 0.98.34 or later to compile this
894     version. 0.98.36 is recommended.
895     * MEMDISK: Now supports gzip compressed images.
896    
897     Changes in 2.02:
898     * SYSLINUX: Security flaws have been found in the SYSLINUX
899     installer when running setuid root. Rewrite the SYSLINUX
900     installer so it uses mtools instead. It therefore now
901     requires mtools (specifically mcopy and mattrib) to exist on
902     your system, but it will not require root privileges and
903     SHOULD NOT be setuid.
904    
905     Changes in 2.01:
906     * MEMDISK: Fix memory sizing bug when the ramdisk crosses the
907     16 MB boundary.
908     * MEMDISK: Add a "pause" option to stop immediately before
909     booting, to read off the messages.
910     * MEMDISK: Support disk images with DOSEMU headers.
911     * Update the mkdiskimage script to handle newer mtools
912     versions, and be able to generate disk images with DOSEMU
913     headers (controlled by the -d option).
914     * Fix the COM32 sample program.
915     * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix some COMBOOT API calls.
916     * PXELINUX: Doc fix.
917     * Build SYSLINUX into a small library for encapsulation into
918     other programs (however, please keep in mind this is a GPL'd
919     library.)
920     * SYSLINUX: Make installer work with "owner" in /etc/fstab.
921     * SYSLINUX: Fix issue with working on nonpartitioned hard disk
922     devices. THIS CONFIGURATION IS NOT RECOMMENDED.
923    
924     Changes in 2.00:
925     * ALL: Add support for "COM32" (32-bit COMBOOT) images.
926     * ALL: Add an API for COMBOOT/COM32 images. See comboot.doc
927     for details. There is a C development environment for
928     COM32 being created; it should be ready at some point in
929     the future.
930     * Fix mbr.asm so that it actually works.
931     * SYSLINUX: The syslinux installer *SHOULD* now be safe to
932     run setuid root.
933     * PXELINUX: Fix bug where PXELINUX would override random
934     chunks of the UNDI code segment! Thanks to Kevin Tran for
935     finding this bug.
936     * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug related to slashes in pathnames.
937     * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug in handling initrds over 128 MB.
938     * ALL: Make the <Ctrl-V> key print out the version; this is
939     to help debugging.
940     * Add a small script, mkdiskimage, to create a DOS-formatted
941     hard disk image using mtools. This may be useful in
942     conjunction with MEMDISK.
943     * ISOLINUX: Search for a /boot/isolinux directory as well as
944     /isolinux.
945     * ALL: Fix a bug related to very long configuration files.
946     * PXELINUX: Work around a NASM bug which would result in no
947     delay before reset if an error occurs.
948    
949     Changes in 1.76:
950     * ISOLINUX: Remove code no longer used which caused hangs on
951     some Toshiba laptops.
952    
953     Changes in 1.75:
954     * ALL: NASM 0.98.32 or later is now required to build
955     SYSLINUX from sources.
956     * SYSLINUX: put back in the workaround for the BIOS floppy
957     table. This seems to be a requirement for "extended" floppy
958     formats to work correctly.
959     * SYSLINUX: No longer warn if one is trying to boot on a 286
960     or older. The above BIOS workaround no longer fits if the
961     requirement to use only 8086-compatible code in the early
962     boot is maintained. It made sense in 1994, but in 2002 a
963     286 or older is a museum object.
964     * SYSLINUX: Use a downright bizarre, stateful algorithm to try
965     to guess the maximum transfer size. I am *hoping* this will
966     cut down on the number of systems for which -s is required
967     to work at any acceptable speed.
968     * ISOLINUX: Add a few more workarounds for various broken El
969     Torito BIOSes.
970     * Make sure .depend files aren't accidentally packed...
971     * ALL: Fix bugs in the extension-detect code; this caused
972     files like COMBOOT images and CD boot sectors to be
973     mis-identified as Linux kernels and rejected.
974     * ALL: Fix the return from COMBOOT.
975     * ALL: Do some of the early groundwork for supporting DOS
976     system calls in COMBOOT.
977     * Get rid of unnecessary "near" directives, making the code
978     bigger.
979     * PXELINUX: Put the PXE stack back in the init state before
980     invoking a chain-loaded NBP.
981     * PXELINUX: Actually found the combination of calls that
982     allows some (most?) PXE 2+ stacks to be unloaded from memory
983     properly.
984     * PXELINUX: Add "keeppxe" command-line option to disable
985     the standard unloading of the PXE stack.
986    
987     Changes in 1.74:
988     * SYSLINUX: fix bug that would cause valid kernel images to be
989     labelled "invalid".
990    
991     Changes in 1.73:
992     * Work on removing gratuitous differences between modules.
993     * Break up the source in common and module-specific files.
994     * PXELINUX: Allow chaining of other PXE NBPs.
995     * ISOLINUX: Allow loading "CD-ROM boot sectors".
996     * ALL: generalize the definition of a boot sector/NBP.
997    
998     Changes in 1.72:
999     * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix bugs in the new core code.
1000    
1001     Changes in 1.71:
1002     * Fix a "brown paper bag" class bug in the new core code.
1003    
1004     Changes in 1.70:
1005     * Major code restructuring.
1006     * Relax the conventional memory limits somewhat.
1007     * MEMDISK: Set up the "version number string" pointer in the
1008     header correctly.
1009     * SYSLINUX: Fix, again, "the bug that won't die": the use of
1010     the offset parameter with the SYSLINUX installer.
1011     * SYSLINUX: Fix possible superblock corruption problem in the
1012     SYSLINUX installer.
1013    
1014     Changes in 1.67:
1015     * Handle bug in the location of initrd.
1016    
1017     Changes in 1.66:
1018     * MEMDISK: Make compile with newer versions of gcc.
1019    
1020     Changes in 1.65:
1021     * ISOLINUX: Support booting disk image files (to boot DOS or
1022     other non-Linux operating systems), *IF* the BIOS works
1023     correctly; unfortunately many BIOSes apparently don't.
1024     * Support Linux boot protocol version 2.03 (explicitly
1025     specify the initrd address limit.)
1026     * Handle small "pseudo-kernels"; images that use the Linux
1027     kernel boot protocols but are less than 64K in size.
1028     * MEMDISK: New subsystem; this is a driver which allows
1029     legacy OSes to boot using an in-memory simulated disk.
1030     See memdisk/memdisk.doc for more info.
1031     * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Correctly handle files larger than 65535
1032     blocks (32 MB for PXELINUX, 128 MB for ISOLINUX.)
1033     * PXELINUX: Make a best-effort attempt at freeing all memory
1034     claimed. From the looks of it, it will fail on most PXE
1035     stacks.
1036    
1037     Changes in 1.64:
1038     * Limited support for hardware flow control when using a
1039     serial port console.
1040     * Support specifying the serial port I/O address explicitly.
1041     * Make DOS installer hopefully behave more nicely when used on
1042     recent Windows versions.
1043     * Fix returning to text mode when a font has been specified.
1044     * Attempt to detect missing serial port hardware and disable
1045     the serial port if there is nothing there.
1046    
1047     Changes in 1.63:
1048     * Make the ppmtolss16 program handle color conversion more
1049     correctly.
1050     * Clean up "make install" target, honour INSTALLROOT if it
1051     exists.
1052     * SYSLINUX: Fix stack-smash bug identified by Steffen
1053     Winterfeldt.
1054     * Hopefully fix return-to-text-mode on some graphics cards.
1055     * ISOLINUX: Bug workaround for Award BIOS 4.51, and perhaps
1056     other buggy BIOSes as well.
1057    
1058     Changes in 1.62:
1059     * PXELINUX: Allow the DHCP server to override the
1060     configuration file name and pathname prefix, using
1061     "site-specific" DHCP options.
1062     * PXELINUX: Documentation fixes.
1063     * PXELINUX: Fix the "ipappend" option; the last two values
1064     were reversed vs. what the kernel expected.
1065     * Introduce a way to return to text mode once we are already
1066     in graphics mode. This may be useful for F-key help
1067     screens.
1068     * Fix several bugs in the way return to text mode was handled.
1069    
1070     Changes in 1.61:
1071     * ISOLINUX: Support full pathname searches. Max length for a
1072     pathname is 255 characters. As a result, only 64 "label"
1073     statements are supported in ISOLINUX.
1074     * PXELINUX: Max filename length extended to 63 characters.
1075    
1076     Changes in 1.60:
1077     * Add support for graphical splash screens.
1078     * Add mode control characters, which allows you to control
1079     message display output depending on output mode (text,
1080     graphics, or serial port.)
1081     * ISOLINUX: New program, which boots Linux from a CD-ROM
1082     without using floppy emulation mode. See isolinux.doc for
1083     more details.
1084     * PXELINUX: Don't search for boot sector file types, since
1085     they don't work anyway.
1086     * SYSLINUX: Document the LOCK command for Win9x, and the error
1087     dialog box for WinNT/2K.
1088    
1089     Changes in 1.54:
1090     * PXELINUX: Fix code for finding !PXE from PXENV+. This was
1091     due to a spec bug; match the most recent spec since that
1092     seems to be what implementations actually do.
1093     * SYSLINUX: Add some smarts to the boot sector, which
1094 niro 1133 hopefully should reduce the number of systems which require
1095 niro 532 stupid mode ("syslinux -s").
1096     * PXELINUX: Document further some of the pathologies with old
1097     PXE stacks.
1098     * When specifying a "default" command line, no longer
1099     automatically appent "auto". See the "DEFAULT" command in
1100     syslinux.doc for more information.
1101     * PXELINUX: Clean up the allocation of local socket numbers.
1102    
1103     Changes in 1.53:
1104     * PXELINUX: Rename pxelinux.bin to pxelinux.0, to match what
1105     most PXE servers seem to expect.
1106     * PXELINUX: Update the DHCP/boot server setup documentation.
1107     * PXELINUX: Support new "localboot" option for "label"
1108     sections.
1109     * PXELINUX: More robust parsing of DHCP/boot server packets.
1110     * PXELINUX: Include a small utility program "gethostip" to
1111     compute hexadecimal IP addresses.
1112    
1113     Changes in 1.52:
1114     * PXELINUX: Fix bugs introduced by new A20 code. (SYSLINUX
1115     has also been changed for code consistency reasons, but I'm
1116     pretty sure the changes are don't care on SYSLINUX.)
1117     * Documentation updates.
1118     * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend" option to generate an ip= option to
1119     the kernel.
1120    
1121     Changes in 1.51:
1122     * PXELINUX: Not all PXE stacks fill in the IP address for a
1123     type 3 cached info query. Use a type 2 cached info query
1124     for this information (only.)
1125     * Yet another attempt at A20 coding. Now support BIOS call
1126     15:2401 as well, and handle machines which always have A20
1127     on separately.
1128     * Support memory detection using INT 15h, AX=0E820h. BIOS
1129     manufacturers have apparently gotten sloppy about keeping
1130     INT 15h, AX=0E801h working properly.
1131     * Don't issue <CR><LF> onto the serial port when we're doing
1132     screen wraparound.
1133    
1134     Changes in 1.50:
1135     * Yet another A20-code update. It seems some "legacy-free"
1136     machines and embedded gear simply don't have a KBC to talk
1137     to, and that waiting for one will wait forever. Sigh.
1138    
1139     Changes in 1.49:
1140     * SYSLINUX: Implement a hack for BIOS drivers which hog significant
1141     chunks of low memory during boot. (Note: PXELINUX already
1142     had this modification. SYSLINUX does still require that the
1143     low 512K is available; PXELINUX requires 384K. Machines
1144     with a physical memory hole in the low 640K cannot boot
1145     Linux no matter what.) Depending what the reason is for the
1146     memory hole, a new kernel (2.4.0-test3-pre3 or later) may be
1147     required.
1148     * SYSLINUX: Default installer binary now compiled against
1149     glibc 2.1. If this is inappropriate for your system and you
1150     still want to use the offical version of SYSLINUX, please
1151     follow the instructions in "distrib.doc" to rebuild the
1152     installer.
1153     * SYSLINUX: Linux installer program now supports -o <offset>
1154     option which does a loopback mount with the
1155     -o loop,offset=<> option. Useful to run SYSLINUX on an
1156     individual partition of a whole-harddisk image.
1157     * Include the source code to a Master Boot Record (MBR)
1158     functionally equivalent to the one installed DOS except it
1159     includes EBIOS support, and should be resistant to geometry
1160     changes. The MBR code is public domain.
1161     * PXELINUX: Fix "double p" bug: if the tftp prefix was null,
1162     all filenames would get a "p" preprended, e.g.
1163     "ppxelinux.cfg" and "pvmlinux".
1164    
1165     Changes in 1.48:
1166     * PXELINUX: Workaround for PXE ROMs based on the Intel PXE PDK
1167     3.0 build 071 and earlier: missing !PXE structure pointer.
1168     * PXELINUX: Handle larger BOOTP/DHCP packages.
1169     * PXELINUX: The command line passing was broken; fix.
1170     * PXELINUX: Make COMBOOT images work.
1171     * PXELINUX: Documentation on how to make booting work using
1172     the PDK 3.0-derived clients, which aren't so generous as to
1173     allow booting with only "PXEClient" specified.
1174    
1175     Changes in 1.47:
1176     * PXELINUX: RFC 1123 states that a TFTP implementation MUST
1177     use adaptive timeout, "at least an exponential backoff of
1178     retransmission timeout is necessary." Implement a very
1179     simple exponential backoff for retransmits.
1180     * PXELINUX: Updated documentation, including pointer to new
1181     TFTP server.
1182     * PXELINUX: When sending ERROR due to bad OACK, use the proper
1183     destination port number (why are TFTP port numbers so odd?)
1184     * PXELINUX: If the boot dies in the middle somewhere,
1185     eventually give up and reset the machine (unattended
1186     operation.)
1187    
1188     Changes in 1.46:
1189     * New program PXELINUX to do network booting using a
1190     PXE-compliant (Pre-Execution Environment) network booting
1191     PROM. See pxelinux.doc for details.
1192    
1193     Changes in 1.45:
1194     * Serial console support. See syslinux.doc for details.
1195    
1196     Changes in 1.44:
1197     * Change HIGHMEM_MAX to 38000000h to (hopefully) avoid the
1198     kernel stepping on it; 3f000000h was apparently a higher
1199     limit than the kernel used!
1200    
1201     Changes in 1.43:
1202     * Add sys2ansi.pl script to display the contents of a
1203     colorized SYSLINUX file.
1204     * Changed the io_delay once again, after a report that the
1205     old delay port causes hangs on some systems.
1206    
1207     Changes in 1.42:
1208     * Frob the "fast A20 gate" port as well as the keyboard
1209     controller; will this help systems with problems?
1210     * Be even more paranoid about A20, unfortunately even this
1211     seems to be not paranoid enough... what I don't understand
1212     is that if there is hardware out there *this broken*, how
1213     can it run Linux at all? Report an error message rather
1214     than hang forever if A20 is stuck.
1215     * Include some intermediate files in the distribution, plus
1216     provide a "make installer" target for distributors to relink
1217     the install programs only. I would prefer the syslinux boot
1218     loader proper to be "binary clean" for debuggablity -- use
1219     "make clean ; make installer" to rebuild the installers only.
1220    
1221     Changes in 1.41:
1222     * Don't get confused by directories, volume labels, or VFAT
1223     long names.
1224     * Use INT 15h, AX=0E801h to query memory size before trying
1225     INT 15h, AH=88h. This not only provides more headroom
1226     between the kernel and the initrd on large-memory machines,
1227     but it appears some recent BIOSes actually have started
1228     returning garbage for the AH=88h (older) call.
1229     * Trust high memory beyond the 15 MB mark if the user has
1230     specified it, or if obtained with INT 15h, AH=0E801h (with
1231     no memory holes above 1 MB.)
1232    
1233     Changes in 1.40:
1234     * Increase A20M delay and put in a test to avoid problems on
1235     certain IBM Thinkpads (thanks to Donnie Barnes of RedHat
1236     for vital info on this one.)
1237     * Support COMBOOT style boot command images.
1238     * Support chain loading (foreign operating systems, e.g. DOS).
1239     * Include a new "copybs" DOS utility to copy a boot sector to
1240     a file (under Linux, use "dd".)
1241     * Fix the DOS installer to work for disks over 32 MB.
1242     * SYSLINUX should now handle disks with more than 65536 tracks.
1243    
1244     Changes in 1.37:
1245     * Fix a bug that caused "label" statements in syslinux.cfg to
1246     not be handled properly.
1247     * Updated the documentation. Among other things, we now allow
1248     up to 128 "label" statements.
1249    
1250     Changes in 1.36:
1251     * Fix for booting old (pre-initrd) kernels.
1252     * It seems at least some versions of OS/2 doesn't set up all
1253     the fields in the superblock correctly. Account for that.
1254     * Fix bug that caused boot failure when using the mem= option.
1255    
1256     Changes in 1.35:
1257     * Loading from partitions now should work properly. (Actually
1258     tested, this time. You should even be able to dd a floppy
1259     to a partition and boot from it.)
1260     * Removed large workaround code for an alleged ancient BIOS
1261     bug I have never actually seen. The -s option should work
1262     on those machines, anyway.
1263     * Support for simple keyboard remappings, same as used by
1264     LILO (once again to support localization.) The program
1265     keytab-lilo.pl from the LILO distribution included to
1266     generate such maps.
1267     * Added a "safe, slow and stupid" (-s) option to the
1268     installers. This option will lobotomize the boot sector to
1269     hopefully work on even very buggy BIOSes.
1270 niro 1133
1271 niro 532 Changes in 1.34:
1272     * Ability to load a VGA font on bootup (for localized Linux
1273 niro 1133 distributions.)
1274 niro 532
1275     Changes in 1.33:
1276     * Bug fix in the Linux installer.
1277     * Added a workaround for a bug in certain AMI/Intel BIOSes
1278     when booting from CD-ROM.
1279     * Documentation changes.
1280    
1281     Changes in 1.32:
1282     * FAT16 filesystems are now supported.
1283    
1284     Changes in 1.31:
1285     * Now compiles under Linux, using NASM, rather than using
1286     Turbo Assembler under DOS. See http://www.cryogen.com/Nasm
1287     for information about NASM.
1288     * Linux-hosted SYSLINUX installer, as well as a
1289     rewritten DOS installer (now is written in assembler, so we
1290     don't need Turbo C.)
1291    
1292     Changes in 1.30:
1293     * Added support for loading bzImage and initrd loading, and made
1294     SYSLINUX new-setup-code aware (SYSLINUX 1.30 id=0x31).
1295     * Added LILO-style kernel labels; see the LABEL and IMPLICIT
1296     keywords in README file.
1297     * Added support for colorization of intro and help screens.
1298     * The vga= option is now handled correctly.
1299     * Massive rewrite of large chunks of the code in order to
1300     support the first two new features.
1301    
1302     Changes in 1.20:
1303     * Added simple online help at the "boot:" prompt.
1304     * Removed 2880K image as I no longer have access to such a
1305     floppy drive. (Donations accepted!!)
1306     * Decided to distribute the source in a subdirectory rather
1307     than in a nested zipfile.
1308    
1309     Changes in 1.11:
1310     * Removed a sanity check which would cause booting to fail on
1311     Phoenix BIOS version 4.03. Apparently this BIOS is buggy.
1312    
1313     Changes in 1.10:
1314     * Added configuration file SYSLINUX.CFG. This file contains all
1315     configurable options, and can be edited from any OS which can
1316     access an MS-DOS filesystem; there is no longer a need to run
1317     SYSLINUX.EXE except to write the boot sector.
1318     * Default command line now given by "default" line in config
1319     file.
1320     * LINUXMSG.TXT and BOOTMSG.TXT hard-coded file names replaced by
1321     "display" and "prompt" lines in config file.
1322     * LILO-style option appending now supported ("append" line in
1323     config file).
1324     * Prompt timeout is now supported ("timeout" line in config
1325     file). The timeout is cancelled when anything is typed on the
1326     command line.
1327     * Pressing <ESC> or <Ctrl-C> at the Loading... stage now aborts
1328     the kernel loading in progress and returns the user to the
1329     boot: prompt.
1330     * The installer now automatically sets the READONLY flag on
1331     LDLINUX.SYS.
1332     * Added 2880K disk image.
1333    
1334     Changes in 1.03:
1335     * Fixed bug that would prevent booting from double-density
1336     floppies and other DOS filesystems with multiple sectors per
1337     cluster.
1338     * Added 720K disk image.
1339     * Changed default kernel name on disk images to LINUX.
1340    
1341     Changes in 1.02:
1342     * Fixed bug that would garble the command line on recent kernels
1343     with more than 4 sectors of setup code (this wasn't really a
1344     *bug*; rather, a kernel change broke the code. Unfortunately
1345     the Linux boot interface is still sorely undocumented).
1346     * Added BOOTMSG.TXT file support (message file which does not
1347     force display of the boot prompt).
1348    
1349     Changes in 1.01:
1350     * Fixed bug on some (most?) 386 BIOSes would require two boot
1351     attempts.