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

