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