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- Starting with 1.47, changes marked with SYSLINUX/PXELINUX/ISOLINUX
- apply to that specific program only; other changes apply to all of
- them.
-
- Changes in 3.07:
- * Fix chainloading (chain.c32).
- * Fix zlib build problem.
- * Use a private copy of <linux/ext2_fs.h>.
-
- Changes in 3.06:
- * Fix typo that caused the ramdisk to load in the wrong place.
-
- Changes in 3.05:
- * New API function "shuffle and boot"; allows COM32 modules to
- load or construct (almost) arbitrarily complex objects,
- e.g. a kernel and its initrd/initramfs in pieces, and have
- the API core reorganize memory for booting. (A library API
- for this function will be introduced in a later version.)
- * The initrd= option now supports multiple filenames separated
- by commas. This is mostly useful for initramfs, which can
- be composed of multiple separate cpio or cpio.gz archives.
- (Note: all files except the last one are zero-padded to a 4K
- page boundary. This should not affect initramfs.)
- * EXTLINUX: Fix API function 000Ah (get derivative-specific
- info).
- * libcom32/ethersel: Support PCI Config Mechanism #2 on
- machines still infested with that hideous old hack.
- * SYSLINUX: Fix directory-parsing bug.
-
- Changes in 3.02:
- * SYSLINUX: The "unix" installer now sets the MS-DOS
- attributes (hidden, system, readonly.)
- * COM32 library: build the .lnx (test modules for running
- under Linux) as architecture native modules, in case
- i386 devel libraries aren't installed.
- * EXTLINUX: Hack for systems which don't have BLKGETSIZE64
- defined in the standard header files.
- * Simple menu system: minor aestetic improvements, and try to
- work better over a serial console (speed, and readability on
- monochrome terminal emulators.)
- * New CONSOLE directive to control output on the video console
- (useful for dealing with some broken serial-forwarding
- BIOSes.)
- * New com32 module "ethersel" for searching for an Ethernet
- card and selecting the proper version of Etherboot.
- * EXTLINUX: Allow the user to override the detected geometry.
- Add help.
-
- Changes in 3.01:
- * EXTLINUX, SYSLINUX: Fix compile errors on some systems.
- * EXTLINUX: Default to zipdrive geometry (64 heads, 32
- sectors) if no other geometry can be detected.
-
- Changes in 3.00:
- * SYSLINUX: Support FAT32 and EDD. As an unfortunate
- consequence, LDLINUX.SYS is no longer an ordinary file; it
- is block-mapped at install time, which means it can only be
- written using the syslinux installers.
- * SYSLINUX: Reorganize the source code for the installers;
- each one of the installers (dos, win32, unix, mtools) is now
- built in its own subdirectory. In particular, "mtools" is
- the unprivileged installer which uses mtools; "unix" is the
- privileged installer which uses system calls.
- * SYSLINUX: Completely rewritten DOS installer in C.
- * ALL: "label" statement information is now stored in a
- compressed format, which means that a lot more labels are
- permitted (500-1000 in a typical configuration, but depends
- on the complexity.)
- * EXTLINUX: New derivative, which boots from an ext2/ext3
- filesystem.
- * SYSLINUX: The DOS and Win32 installers can now optionally
- write the boot sector to a file instead of the real boot
- sector. This is not supported in the Linux installers,
- however.
- * ALL: New NOESCAPE command, disables the "hold down the Shift
- key to display the prompt" behaviour.
- * New simple menu system, as an alternative to the advanced
- menu system already present. See README.menu for details.
- * PXELINUX: Filenames can now be prefixed with an IP address
- or DNS name plus :: (e.g. 192.0.2.1::filename or
- server.domain.com::filename), which downloads a file from an
- alternate TFTP server, or just a :: (e.g. ::filename), which
- suppresses the common pathname prefix. See pxelinux.doc.
- * SYSLINUX: Add an -m option to the DOS and Win32 installers
- to write an MBR and -a to mark the partition SYSLINUX is
- being installed on active.
- * MEMDISK: Give a way to query the boot loader type while
- running MEMDISK; see memdisk/memdisk.doc and
- sample/mdiskchk.c.
- * mkdiskimage: substantially improved mkdiskimage which, among
- other things, can now be used to initialize USB keys as
- zipdrives; see README.usbkey for more information.
-
- Changes in 2.13:
- * MEMDISK: Fix command-line parsing "brown paper bag" class
- bug.
- * MEMDISK: Add "raw" mode to support the DOS boot disk from
- WinME/XP, which seems to deliberately crash the system
- when someone uses the "INT 15h mover" highmem API.
- * Make "make install" do something sane for the com32
- development environment.
- * In the spec file, create a separate -devel RPM for the com32
- development environment.
-
- Changes in 2.12:
- * Simple C library, based on klibc, for writing COM32
- programs.
- * Fix the handling of file length in loading of COM32
- programs.
- * MEMDISK: Work around a linker bug by rearranging the code to
- not use the linker for the 16-bit code.
- * SYSLINUX: If we're building on a machine without a Win32
- (mingw) compiler, just skip building syslinux.exe.
- * ISOLINUX: Support non-mkisofs mastering programs, at least
- as long as the image is single-session. For best results,
- ISOLINUX should be the only boot loader installed.
- * MEMDISK: Allow the user to specify that the simulated disk
- should be write-protected.
-
- Changes in 2.11:
- * ALL: Add an API call to get the configuration file name.
- * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in 2.10 that prevented it from working
- correctly for a lot of people.
- * SYSLINUX: In the installer, make mtools a bit less fussy.
- * Make the menu system compile with newer gcc's.
-
- Changes in 2.10:
- * MEMDISK: Handle images compressed with zip as well as with
- gzip. Some Windows-based image tools apparently generate
- these kinds of images by default. Patch by Patrick
- LoPresti.
- * Major menu improvement from Murali Ganapathy.
- * ISOLINUX: Wonderfully sick and brilliant workaround for
- severe bugs in certain Award BIOSes; from Knut Petersen.
- * SYSLINUX: Fix for the nomtools installed, from Frederic
- Pasteleurs.
- * PXELINUX: Fix handling of IP numbers in the ranges
- 100-109 and 200-209.
- * ALL: New option "allowoptions" (defaults to 1), which
- controls if options are allowed on the command line or not.
- * SYSLINUX: Support building under klibc (see the klibc
- distribution for details.)
-
- Changes in 2.09:
- * SYSLINUX: Remove residual setuid crap from
- syslinux-nomtools.
- * Handle video pages correctly when using the API functions.
- * Handle compiling on an x86-64 platform correctly.
- * Menu system from Murali Krishnan Ganapathy; see the menu
- directory for information.
- * COMBOOT: Allow COMBOOT programs to change screen text mode.
- * COMBOOT: Correct the documentation of how to detect
- SYSLINUX from COMBOOT!!!!
- * COMBOOT: Fix "get key without echo" API function.
- * SYSLINUX: Fix bug that affected the API open function.
- * ALL: Improve the E820 memory parser, to work around some
- buggy BIOSes.
-
- Changes in 2.08:
- * Add new configuration command "ontimeout" to allow timeout
- to have a different action than just pressing Enter.
- * Add new configuration command "onerror" to allow a custom
- command to be executed in case the kernel image is not found.
- * Fix bugs in the COMBOOT/COM32 command-line parsing. APPEND
- now works with COMBOOT/COM32 images.
- * PXELINUX: Poll for ARP requests while sitting at the
- prompt. This makes some boot servers a lot less unhappy.
- * PXELINUX: Actually free sockets when we get a failure
- (including file not found.) This bug would cause us to run
- out of sockets and thus "go deaf" after a while.
- * MEMDISK: Add an API to query for the existence of MEMDISK.
- * SYSLINUX: Fix loading boot sectors (.bs/.bss) from floppy
- disk.
- * .c32 is now one of the extensions searched for
- automatically.
- * PXELINUX: RFBG.exe seems to randomly overwrite memory
- location 0x5700. Thus, don't use it!
- * PXELINUX: Change pathname length max from 63 to 127; change
- max vkernels from 128 to 64.
- * Support Ctrl-U -> kill entire command line input.
- * The "samples" directory contains a (barely at all tested)
- chain loading example, chain.c32, which may be used to
- chainload local floppy disks and hard disks. Use with
- "chain fdN" or "chain hdN [partition]"; N = 0 for the first
- drive of each type.
-
- Changes in 2.07:
- * MEMDISK: Workaround for BIOSes which go into a snit when
- they get a RESET command for the floppy system when there is
- no floppy in the system.
- * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend 2", which passes the hardware
- address of the boot interface to the kernel as a
- command-line option.
- * mkdiskimage: fix the generation of the end limit.
- * PXELINUX: Fix multiple bugs in chainloading of other NBPs.
- * MEMDISK: Fix bug that would occationally cause "ran out of
- input data" when using compressed disk images.
- * SYSLINUX: Updates for the win32 installer (from Lars Munch.)
- * PXELINUX: PXELINUX-specific options are now recognized both
- in a vendor-option-space (a.k.a. type 43 encapsulated) as
- well as in a site-option-space (unencapsulated.)
- * COM32: Don't crash when DS != 0.
- * COMBOOT/COM32: Make file reading work correctly. Thanks to
- Phung Chi Kien for submitting a test program.
-
- Changes in 2.06:
- * ALL: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
- boot failure, depending on the length of the kernel.
- * ISOLINUX: Fix problem that would occationally cause a
- boot failure, depending on the length of directories.
- * SYSLINUX: Win32 installer now flushes buffers.
- * ppmtolss16: Be fully compliant with the PNM spec;
- actually process comments in the header and odd
- alignments of the various parameters, as well as
- "plain" (not raw) files and PBM and PGM files.
- * PXELINUX: Lower the default MTU to 1472 in order to deal
- with systems with slightly nonstandard MTUs, and PXE
- stacks which don't defragment correctly. Unfortunately this
- is very hard to test dynamically.
-
- Changes in 2.05:
- * PXELINUX: Add a default query based on the hardware address
- of the boot device. This is in lower case hexadecimal form
- separated by dashes and including the hardware type, for
- example, the Ethernet (type 1) address 88:99:AA:BB:CC:DD
- would query the file pxelinux.cfg/01-88-99-aa-bb-cc-dd.
- * PXELINUX: Fix bug involving non-IP-based config file names.
- * SYSLINUX: New installer for WinNT-based systems, from Lars
- Munch.
- * MEMDISK: Fix handling of memory region overlap when
- decompressing. Thanks to Mikhail Kupchik for identifying
- the problem.
-
- Changes in 2.04:
- * ALL: Reclaim even more low memory by observing that
- comboot_seg == real_mode_seg is perfectly fine, and by the
- fact that the 1000h segment managed to get unused in all
- derivatives...
- * PXELINUX: Attempt to negotiate full Ethernet-sized blocks
- (1468 bytes) using the blksize option.
- * SYSLINUX: Resurrect the old no-mtools version of the
- installer, although as a root-only tool. Some distributors
- have indicated that they need a small standalone installer.
- * MEMDISK: Fix a memory offset computation error when
- installing compressed disks which generally would cause
- 1 MB of memory to be wasted.
- * MEMDISK: Fix installing the E820 memory map. Calling
- INT 15h AX=0E820h with MEMDISK 2.03 loaded would give a
- completely corrupt memory map.
- * SYSLINUX: Make libsyslinux a dynamic library, so that it can
- be updated separately from client programs. The whole idea,
- after all, is to enable alternate programs to become
- syslinux installers.
- * Include an rpm spec file in the distribution, so rpmbuild
- -ta works.
-
- Changes in 2.03:
- * Actually support comment lines in the configuration file.
- * PXELINUX: Try to resolve some problems with stack switches.
- * PXELINUX: Handle PXE stacks with broken routing.
- With these workarounds, the remote install PXE boot floppy
- (rbfg.exe) from Argon Technologies should work correctly.
- * Fix problems with Perl scripts in UTF-8 locales.
- * You probably need NASM 0.98.34 or later to compile this
- version. 0.98.36 is recommended.
- * MEMDISK: Now supports gzip compressed images.
-
- Changes in 2.02:
- * SYSLINUX: Security flaws have been found in the SYSLINUX
- installer when running setuid root. Rewrite the SYSLINUX
- installer so it uses mtools instead. It therefore now
- requires mtools (specifically mcopy and mattrib) to exist on
- your system, but it will not require root privileges and
- SHOULD NOT be setuid.
-
- Changes in 2.01:
- * MEMDISK: Fix memory sizing bug when the ramdisk crosses the
- 16 MB boundary.
- * MEMDISK: Add a "pause" option to stop immediately before
- booting, to read off the messages.
- * MEMDISK: Support disk images with DOSEMU headers.
- * Update the mkdiskimage script to handle newer mtools
- versions, and be able to generate disk images with DOSEMU
- headers (controlled by the -d option).
- * Fix the COM32 sample program.
- * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix some COMBOOT API calls.
- * PXELINUX: Doc fix.
- * Build SYSLINUX into a small library for encapsulation into
- other programs (however, please keep in mind this is a GPL'd
- library.)
- * SYSLINUX: Make installer work with "owner" in /etc/fstab.
- * SYSLINUX: Fix issue with working on nonpartitioned hard disk
- devices. THIS CONFIGURATION IS NOT RECOMMENDED.
-
- Changes in 2.00:
- * ALL: Add support for "COM32" (32-bit COMBOOT) images.
- * ALL: Add an API for COMBOOT/COM32 images. See comboot.doc
- for details. There is a C development environment for
- COM32 being created; it should be ready at some point in
- the future.
- * Fix mbr.asm so that it actually works.
- * SYSLINUX: The syslinux installer *SHOULD* now be safe to
- run setuid root.
- * PXELINUX: Fix bug where PXELINUX would override random
- chunks of the UNDI code segment! Thanks to Kevin Tran for
- finding this bug.
- * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug related to slashes in pathnames.
- * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug in handling initrds over 128 MB.
- * ALL: Make the <Ctrl-V> key print out the version; this is
- to help debugging.
- * Add a small script, mkdiskimage, to create a DOS-formatted
- hard disk image using mtools. This may be useful in
- conjunction with MEMDISK.
- * ISOLINUX: Search for a /boot/isolinux directory as well as
- /isolinux.
- * ALL: Fix a bug related to very long configuration files.
- * PXELINUX: Work around a NASM bug which would result in no
- delay before reset if an error occurs.
-
- Changes in 1.76:
- * ISOLINUX: Remove code no longer used which caused hangs on
- some Toshiba laptops.
-
- Changes in 1.75:
- * ALL: NASM 0.98.32 or later is now required to build
- SYSLINUX from sources.
- * SYSLINUX: put back in the workaround for the BIOS floppy
- table. This seems to be a requirement for "extended" floppy
- formats to work correctly.
- * SYSLINUX: No longer warn if one is trying to boot on a 286
- or older. The above BIOS workaround no longer fits if the
- requirement to use only 8086-compatible code in the early
- boot is maintained. It made sense in 1994, but in 2002 a
- 286 or older is a museum object.
- * SYSLINUX: Use a downright bizarre, stateful algorithm to try
- to guess the maximum transfer size. I am *hoping* this will
- cut down on the number of systems for which -s is required
- to work at any acceptable speed.
- * ISOLINUX: Add a few more workarounds for various broken El
- Torito BIOSes.
- * Make sure .depend files aren't accidentally packed...
- * ALL: Fix bugs in the extension-detect code; this caused
- files like COMBOOT images and CD boot sectors to be
- mis-identified as Linux kernels and rejected.
- * ALL: Fix the return from COMBOOT.
- * ALL: Do some of the early groundwork for supporting DOS
- system calls in COMBOOT.
- * Get rid of unnecessary "near" directives, making the code
- bigger.
- * PXELINUX: Put the PXE stack back in the init state before
- invoking a chain-loaded NBP.
- * PXELINUX: Actually found the combination of calls that
- allows some (most?) PXE 2+ stacks to be unloaded from memory
- properly.
- * PXELINUX: Add "keeppxe" command-line option to disable
- the standard unloading of the PXE stack.
-
- Changes in 1.74:
- * SYSLINUX: fix bug that would cause valid kernel images to be
- labelled "invalid".
-
- Changes in 1.73:
- * Work on removing gratuitous differences between modules.
- * Break up the source in common and module-specific files.
- * PXELINUX: Allow chaining of other PXE NBPs.
- * ISOLINUX: Allow loading "CD-ROM boot sectors".
- * ALL: generalize the definition of a boot sector/NBP.
-
- Changes in 1.72:
- * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix bugs in the new core code.
-
- Changes in 1.71:
- * Fix a "brown paper bag" class bug in the new core code.
-
- Changes in 1.70:
- * Major code restructuring.
- * Relax the conventional memory limits somewhat.
- * MEMDISK: Set up the "version number string" pointer in the
- header correctly.
- * SYSLINUX: Fix, again, "the bug that won't die": the use of
- the offset parameter with the SYSLINUX installer.
- * SYSLINUX: Fix possible superblock corruption problem in the
- SYSLINUX installer.
-
- Changes in 1.67:
- * Handle bug in the location of initrd.
-
- Changes in 1.66:
- * MEMDISK: Make compile with newer versions of gcc.
-
- Changes in 1.65:
- * ISOLINUX: Support booting disk image files (to boot DOS or
- other non-Linux operating systems), *IF* the BIOS works
- correctly; unfortunately many BIOSes apparently don't.
- * Support Linux boot protocol version 2.03 (explicitly
- specify the initrd address limit.)
- * Handle small "pseudo-kernels"; images that use the Linux
- kernel boot protocols but are less than 64K in size.
- * MEMDISK: New subsystem; this is a driver which allows
- legacy OSes to boot using an in-memory simulated disk.
- See memdisk/memdisk.doc for more info.
- * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Correctly handle files larger than 65535
- blocks (32 MB for PXELINUX, 128 MB for ISOLINUX.)
- * PXELINUX: Make a best-effort attempt at freeing all memory
- claimed. From the looks of it, it will fail on most PXE
- stacks.
-
- Changes in 1.64:
- * Limited support for hardware flow control when using a
- serial port console.
- * Support specifying the serial port I/O address explicitly.
- * Make DOS installer hopefully behave more nicely when used on
- recent Windows versions.
- * Fix returning to text mode when a font has been specified.
- * Attempt to detect missing serial port hardware and disable
- the serial port if there is nothing there.
-
- Changes in 1.63:
- * Make the ppmtolss16 program handle color conversion more
- correctly.
- * Clean up "make install" target, honour INSTALLROOT if it
- exists.
- * SYSLINUX: Fix stack-smash bug identified by Steffen
- Winterfeldt.
- * Hopefully fix return-to-text-mode on some graphics cards.
- * ISOLINUX: Bug workaround for Award BIOS 4.51, and perhaps
- other buggy BIOSes as well.
-
- Changes in 1.62:
- * PXELINUX: Allow the DHCP server to override the
- configuration file name and pathname prefix, using
- "site-specific" DHCP options.
- * PXELINUX: Documentation fixes.
- * PXELINUX: Fix the "ipappend" option; the last two values
- were reversed vs. what the kernel expected.
- * Introduce a way to return to text mode once we are already
- in graphics mode. This may be useful for F-key help
- screens.
- * Fix several bugs in the way return to text mode was handled.
-
- Changes in 1.61:
- * ISOLINUX: Support full pathname searches. Max length for a
- pathname is 255 characters. As a result, only 64 "label"
- statements are supported in ISOLINUX.
- * PXELINUX: Max filename length extended to 63 characters.
-
- Changes in 1.60:
- * Add support for graphical splash screens.
- * Add mode control characters, which allows you to control
- message display output depending on output mode (text,
- graphics, or serial port.)
- * ISOLINUX: New program, which boots Linux from a CD-ROM
- without using floppy emulation mode. See isolinux.doc for
- more details.
- * PXELINUX: Don't search for boot sector file types, since
- they don't work anyway.
- * SYSLINUX: Document the LOCK command for Win9x, and the error
- dialog box for WinNT/2K.
-
- Changes in 1.54:
- * PXELINUX: Fix code for finding !PXE from PXENV+. This was
- due to a spec bug; match the most recent spec since that
- seems to be what implementations actually do.
- * SYSLINUX: Add some smarts to the boot sector, which
- hopefully should reduce the number of systems which require
- stupid mode ("syslinux -s").
- * PXELINUX: Document further some of the pathologies with old
- PXE stacks.
- * When specifying a "default" command line, no longer
- automatically appent "auto". See the "DEFAULT" command in
- syslinux.doc for more information.
- * PXELINUX: Clean up the allocation of local socket numbers.
-
- Changes in 1.53:
- * PXELINUX: Rename pxelinux.bin to pxelinux.0, to match what
- most PXE servers seem to expect.
- * PXELINUX: Update the DHCP/boot server setup documentation.
- * PXELINUX: Support new "localboot" option for "label"
- sections.
- * PXELINUX: More robust parsing of DHCP/boot server packets.
- * PXELINUX: Include a small utility program "gethostip" to
- compute hexadecimal IP addresses.
-
- Changes in 1.52:
- * PXELINUX: Fix bugs introduced by new A20 code. (SYSLINUX
- has also been changed for code consistency reasons, but I'm
- pretty sure the changes are don't care on SYSLINUX.)
- * Documentation updates.
- * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend" option to generate an ip= option to
- the kernel.
-
- Changes in 1.51:
- * PXELINUX: Not all PXE stacks fill in the IP address for a
- type 3 cached info query. Use a type 2 cached info query
- for this information (only.)
- * Yet another attempt at A20 coding. Now support BIOS call
- 15:2401 as well, and handle machines which always have A20
- on separately.
- * Support memory detection using INT 15h, AX=0E820h. BIOS
- manufacturers have apparently gotten sloppy about keeping
- INT 15h, AX=0E801h working properly.
- * Don't issue <CR><LF> onto the serial port when we're doing
- screen wraparound.
-
- Changes in 1.50:
- * Yet another A20-code update. It seems some "legacy-free"
- machines and embedded gear simply don't have a KBC to talk
- to, and that waiting for one will wait forever. Sigh.
-
- Changes in 1.49:
- * SYSLINUX: Implement a hack for BIOS drivers which hog significant
- chunks of low memory during boot. (Note: PXELINUX already
- had this modification. SYSLINUX does still require that the
- low 512K is available; PXELINUX requires 384K. Machines
- with a physical memory hole in the low 640K cannot boot
- Linux no matter what.) Depending what the reason is for the
- memory hole, a new kernel (2.4.0-test3-pre3 or later) may be
- required.
- * SYSLINUX: Default installer binary now compiled against
- glibc 2.1. If this is inappropriate for your system and you
- still want to use the offical version of SYSLINUX, please
- follow the instructions in "distrib.doc" to rebuild the
- installer.
- * SYSLINUX: Linux installer program now supports -o <offset>
- option which does a loopback mount with the
- -o loop,offset=<> option. Useful to run SYSLINUX on an
- individual partition of a whole-harddisk image.
- * Include the source code to a Master Boot Record (MBR)
- functionally equivalent to the one installed DOS except it
- includes EBIOS support, and should be resistant to geometry
- changes. The MBR code is public domain.
- * PXELINUX: Fix "double p" bug: if the tftp prefix was null,
- all filenames would get a "p" preprended, e.g.
- "ppxelinux.cfg" and "pvmlinux".
-
- Changes in 1.48:
- * PXELINUX: Workaround for PXE ROMs based on the Intel PXE PDK
- 3.0 build 071 and earlier: missing !PXE structure pointer.
- * PXELINUX: Handle larger BOOTP/DHCP packages.
- * PXELINUX: The command line passing was broken; fix.
- * PXELINUX: Make COMBOOT images work.
- * PXELINUX: Documentation on how to make booting work using
- the PDK 3.0-derived clients, which aren't so generous as to
- allow booting with only "PXEClient" specified.
-
- Changes in 1.47:
- * PXELINUX: RFC 1123 states that a TFTP implementation MUST
- use adaptive timeout, "at least an exponential backoff of
- retransmission timeout is necessary." Implement a very
- simple exponential backoff for retransmits.
- * PXELINUX: Updated documentation, including pointer to new
- TFTP server.
- * PXELINUX: When sending ERROR due to bad OACK, use the proper
- destination port number (why are TFTP port numbers so odd?)
- * PXELINUX: If the boot dies in the middle somewhere,
- eventually give up and reset the machine (unattended
- operation.)
-
- Changes in 1.46:
- * New program PXELINUX to do network booting using a
- PXE-compliant (Pre-Execution Environment) network booting
- PROM. See pxelinux.doc for details.
-
- Changes in 1.45:
- * Serial console support. See syslinux.doc for details.
-
- Changes in 1.44:
- * Change HIGHMEM_MAX to 38000000h to (hopefully) avoid the
- kernel stepping on it; 3f000000h was apparently a higher
- limit than the kernel used!
-
- Changes in 1.43:
- * Add sys2ansi.pl script to display the contents of a
- colorized SYSLINUX file.
- * Changed the io_delay once again, after a report that the
- old delay port causes hangs on some systems.
-
- Changes in 1.42:
- * Frob the "fast A20 gate" port as well as the keyboard
- controller; will this help systems with problems?
- * Be even more paranoid about A20, unfortunately even this
- seems to be not paranoid enough... what I don't understand
- is that if there is hardware out there *this broken*, how
- can it run Linux at all? Report an error message rather
- than hang forever if A20 is stuck.
- * Include some intermediate files in the distribution, plus
- provide a "make installer" target for distributors to relink
- the install programs only. I would prefer the syslinux boot
- loader proper to be "binary clean" for debuggablity -- use
- "make clean ; make installer" to rebuild the installers only.
-
- Changes in 1.41:
- * Don't get confused by directories, volume labels, or VFAT
- long names.
- * Use INT 15h, AX=0E801h to query memory size before trying
- INT 15h, AH=88h. This not only provides more headroom
- between the kernel and the initrd on large-memory machines,
- but it appears some recent BIOSes actually have started
- returning garbage for the AH=88h (older) call.
- * Trust high memory beyond the 15 MB mark if the user has
- specified it, or if obtained with INT 15h, AH=0E801h (with
- no memory holes above 1 MB.)
-
- Changes in 1.40:
- * Increase A20M delay and put in a test to avoid problems on
- certain IBM Thinkpads (thanks to Donnie Barnes of RedHat
- for vital info on this one.)
- * Support COMBOOT style boot command images.
- * Support chain loading (foreign operating systems, e.g. DOS).
- * Include a new "copybs" DOS utility to copy a boot sector to
- a file (under Linux, use "dd".)
- * Fix the DOS installer to work for disks over 32 MB.
- * SYSLINUX should now handle disks with more than 65536 tracks.
-
- Changes in 1.37:
- * Fix a bug that caused "label" statements in syslinux.cfg to
- not be handled properly.
- * Updated the documentation. Among other things, we now allow
- up to 128 "label" statements.
-
- Changes in 1.36:
- * Fix for booting old (pre-initrd) kernels.
- * It seems at least some versions of OS/2 doesn't set up all
- the fields in the superblock correctly. Account for that.
- * Fix bug that caused boot failure when using the mem= option.
-
- Changes in 1.35:
- * Loading from partitions now should work properly. (Actually
- tested, this time. You should even be able to dd a floppy
- to a partition and boot from it.)
- * Removed large workaround code for an alleged ancient BIOS
- bug I have never actually seen. The -s option should work
- on those machines, anyway.
- * Support for simple keyboard remappings, same as used by
- LILO (once again to support localization.) The program
- keytab-lilo.pl from the LILO distribution included to
- generate such maps.
- * Added a "safe, slow and stupid" (-s) option to the
- installers. This option will lobotomize the boot sector to
- hopefully work on even very buggy BIOSes.
-
- Changes in 1.34:
- * Ability to load a VGA font on bootup (for localized Linux
- distributions.)
-
- Changes in 1.33:
- * Bug fix in the Linux installer.
- * Added a workaround for a bug in certain AMI/Intel BIOSes
- when booting from CD-ROM.
- * Documentation changes.
-
- Changes in 1.32:
- * FAT16 filesystems are now supported.
-
- Changes in 1.31:
- * Now compiles under Linux, using NASM, rather than using
- Turbo Assembler under DOS. See http://www.cryogen.com/Nasm
- for information about NASM.
- * Linux-hosted SYSLINUX installer, as well as a
- rewritten DOS installer (now is written in assembler, so we
- don't need Turbo C.)
-
- Changes in 1.30:
- * Added support for loading bzImage and initrd loading, and made
- SYSLINUX new-setup-code aware (SYSLINUX 1.30 id=0x31).
- * Added LILO-style kernel labels; see the LABEL and IMPLICIT
- keywords in README file.
- * Added support for colorization of intro and help screens.
- * The vga= option is now handled correctly.
- * Massive rewrite of large chunks of the code in order to
- support the first two new features.
-
- Changes in 1.20:
- * Added simple online help at the "boot:" prompt.
- * Removed 2880K image as I no longer have access to such a
- floppy drive. (Donations accepted!!)
- * Decided to distribute the source in a subdirectory rather
- than in a nested zipfile.
-
- Changes in 1.11:
- * Removed a sanity check which would cause booting to fail on
- Phoenix BIOS version 4.03. Apparently this BIOS is buggy.
-
- Changes in 1.10:
- * Added configuration file SYSLINUX.CFG. This file contains all
- configurable options, and can be edited from any OS which can
- access an MS-DOS filesystem; there is no longer a need to run
- SYSLINUX.EXE except to write the boot sector.
- * Default command line now given by "default" line in config
- file.
- * LINUXMSG.TXT and BOOTMSG.TXT hard-coded file names replaced by
- "display" and "prompt" lines in config file.
- * LILO-style option appending now supported ("append" line in
- config file).
- * Prompt timeout is now supported ("timeout" line in config
- file). The timeout is cancelled when anything is typed on the
- command line.
- * Pressing <ESC> or <Ctrl-C> at the Loading... stage now aborts
- the kernel loading in progress and returns the user to the
- boot: prompt.
- * The installer now automatically sets the READONLY flag on
- LDLINUX.SYS.
- * Added 2880K disk image.
-
- Changes in 1.03:
- * Fixed bug that would prevent booting from double-density
- floppies and other DOS filesystems with multiple sectors per
- cluster.
- * Added 720K disk image.
- * Changed default kernel name on disk images to LINUX.
-
- Changes in 1.02:
- * Fixed bug that would garble the command line on recent kernels
- with more than 4 sectors of setup code (this wasn't really a
- *bug*; rather, a kernel change broke the code. Unfortunately
- the Linux boot interface is still sorely undocumented).
- * Added BOOTMSG.TXT file support (message file which does not
- force display of the boot prompt).
-
- Changes in 1.01:
- * Fixed bug on some (most?) 386 BIOSes would require two boot
- attempts.
-