VESA library: add support for reading lss16 images

[profile/ivi/syslinux.git] / NEWS

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 3.70:
        * Substantial infrastructure changes to support files whose
          length aren't known at open time (typically network
          connections.)  Please note that the semantics of some of the
          comboot APIs have changed slightly; please see doc/comboot.doc.
        * PXELINUX: We no longer require a TFTP server which supports
          the tsize option for all transfers.

Changes in 3.62:
        * Clean up garbage after "aborted." message.
        * Clean up memdump.com filenames.
        * Support SHA256 and SHA512 encrypted passwords.
        * The shuffle library now can generate chained descriptors,
          thus allowing pretty much arbitrarily complex memory maps.
        * Handle command lines up to 2047 characters, the current
          Linux kernel limit.
        * vesamenu: support systems without linear framebuffer support
          (sigh, what is this, 1993?) and 15-bit RGB modes.
        * Move the label storage (for the command-line interface) to
          high memory, removing the size limit and freeing up 64K of
          low memory.
        * Get rid of 4096-entry limit in the simple menu system.
        * New hierarchial submenu support: see MENU BEGIN, MENU END,
          MENU GOTO in doc/menu.txt.
        * MENU QUIT allows creating a menu entry for returning to the
          command line.
        * ISOLINUX: Work around bug in certain Adaptec BIOSes,
          patch by Bruce Robson.
        * pngtopnm dependency removed from samples/ directory.
        * Text documentation files (in doc/) renamed *.doc -> *.txt.

Changes in 3.61:
        * EXTLINUX: fix crash when accessing an empty file.
        * elf.c32: If a PHDR segment is present, load it.
        * Fix SHA-1 and MD5 passwords.
        * ISOLINUX: fix booting when mastered without
          mkisofs -boot-info-table (broken since 3.50, sigh...)
        * Handle BIOSes which emit multiple contiguous valid
          memory regions in the e820 map.

Changes in 3.60:
        * Support for "auxilliary data vector", a small amount of
          writable storage.  Currently only supported for EXTLINUX,
          but the infrastructure is there for the other derivatives,
          assuming a suitable storage location can be found.
        * EXTLINUX: boot-once support (--once, --clear-once, and
          --reset-adv).
        * A command is now required to the EXTLINUX installer, i.e. at
          least one of --install, --update, --once, --clear-once, or
          --reset-adv.

Changes in 3.55:
        * PXELINUX: as per RFC 5071, PXELINUX no longer requires the
          use of the magic cookie option (208) for unencapsulated
          options.  Currently it does not require it for
          vendor-encapsulated options (vendor-option-space) either,
          but that MAY be reverted in the future if it causes
          problems.
        * Documentation text files moved to a common "doc" directory;
          man pages from the Debian project added to the "man"
          directory.
        * Correct bug with self-overlapping memory areas when using
          the shuffle interface.

Changes in 3.54:
        * Add "menu separator", "menu indent", "menu disabled"
          (see README.menu).
        * vesamenu: fix handing of VESA modes with noncontiguous
          memory buffers.  In particular, Qemu/KVM sets up such a mode
          when Cirrus Logic emulation is enabled (which is the
          default.)
        * Support for calling real mode functions using far calls,
          with argument on the stack.  This was implemented to support
          the BIOS BBS specification, but subsequent experiments show
          that the at least one of the most common BIOS cores, Award,
          passes the presence check but doesn't actually implement the
          functionality.

Changes in 3.53:
        * Fix bugs related to the $PnP BIOS functionality on some
          platforms.
        * PXELINUX: Fix the "naked" version of :: (suppress prefix.)
        * elf.c32: better error messages.
        * Faster operation under Intel VT virtualization.
        * PXELINUX: Fix DHCP bootfile option.
        * mkdiskimage: Support more than 1024 cylinders.
        * (Hopefully) fix installer on non-x86 platforms.
        * Fix shuffle_and_boot_rm, used by linux.c32.
        * Fix shuffle_and_boot_pm on 386/486.
        * ISOLINUX (at least): fix bss memory overwrite hang.
        * MBR: Fix booting from logical partitions.
        * Code cleanups.

Changes in 3.52:
        * Handle capitalized F-key commands in the menu system.
        * Fix padding error when loading multiple ramdisks.
        * Workaround for VMware crashing when trying to print a
          message during early kernel boot (does not seem to work,
          consider deleting.)
        * chain.c32: add the ability to search for a specific MBR
          signature at runtime.
        * Fall back to the server identity option if the siaddr field
          in the DHCP header isn't set.  This seems to match the
          behaviour of most PXE stacks.
        * mkdiskimage: give the generated disk image an MBR signature.
        * MEMDISK: Fix failures on some BIOSes.
        * Simple menu system: new "MENU HIDDEN" option to not display
          the menu unless the user presses a key.
        * Simple menu system: support MD5-encrypted passwords (modern
          Unix standard style, with "$1$" prefixes.)
        * pcitest.c32: now functions as a full "lspci".  Thanks to
          Erwan Velu for this work.
        * MEMDISK: Make EDD actually work.
        * ISOLINUX: Fix for certain broken CD-ROM BIOSes which
          randomly corrupted register FS.
        * Simple menu system: fix memory overwrite bug that caused
          some systems to lock up or behave weirdly.
        * Fix building on 64-bit systems without a 32-bit libc installed.

Changes in 3.51:
        * EXTLINUX: Fix failure to find the configuration file.

Changes in 3.50:
        * New keywords allow the type of file to be specified in the
          configuration file.
        * It is now supported to load a different configuration file
          with the CONFIG keyword.
        * Fix API call 0x0019 (Read Disk.)
        * MENU AUTOBOOT, MENU TABMSG, MENU PASSPROMPT allows
          internationalization of menu messages.
        * A new feature, TEXT HELP, allows the administrator to set
          a multi-line help message for individual selections.
        * Fix API call 0x0012 (Cleanup, shuffle and boot.)
        * New API call "Cleanup, shuffle and boot to flat protected mode"
        * New API call "Cleanup, shuffle and boot to real mode",
          similar to API call 0x0012 but allows arbitrary register setting.
        * Introduce a library interface for loading arbitrary binary
          formats with relatively easily understood code.  See
          the elf.c32 module for an example on how to use it.
        * New module "elf.c32", to load a protected-mode ELF kernel.
        * MBR (old and new): Fix bug in CHS mode when LBA >
          65535*sectors.
        * vesamenu: fix decoding of palettized PNG images.
        * Update the Linux kernel boot protocol.
        * PXELINUX: Press Ctrl-N at the boot prompt to read out the
          network info.
        * Instead of the (non-existent) MAC, use the client identifier
          for networks like Infiniband and Firewire/1394.
        * Add a new INCLUDE command to the core syslinux parser.
        * Allow binding help text to F11 and F12.
        * F-key help now available in the simple menu system.
        * Disabled the polling for ARP during idle.  It is simply too
          slow on some (broken!) PXE stacks.
        * PXELINUX: also try to fetch the config file based on UUID.
        * SYSLINUX/EXTLINUX: New RAID mode (-r) which calls the BIOS
          to load the next device (typically the next drive) on boot
          failure.

Changes in 3.36:
        * MEMDISK: Disable EDD by default on floppy disks.  EDD can be
          enabled with the "edd" option and disabled with "noedd".
          This (hopefully) should make Ghost work again.
        * SYSLINUX: "unix" installer now uses Linux ioctls instead of
          using libfat.
        * New MBR which can boot from logical partitions.
        * SYSLINUX: Fix bug in detecting special extensions which was
          introduced in 3.35 :(
        * PXELINUX: Unbreak chainbooting FreeBSD (and possibly others.)

Changes in 3.35:
        * MEMDISK: New "safeint" mode.
        * MEMDISK: Be more compliant with the PnP BIOS spec.
        * MEMDISK: Turn on EDD support by default.
        * MEMDISK: Try to work on some machines on which it would not
          work when there was no floppy drive in the system.
        * Simple menu system: fix serial console support (broken in
          3.30).
        * SYSLINUX: Support subdirectories.  Like ISOLINUX, the
          "current directory" is the directory in which syslinux.cfg
          is found; this is searched for in the sequence
          /boot/syslinux, /syslinux, /.  As a side benefit, label names
          like "linux-2.6.18" and "linux-2.6.19" are now supported.

          To install ldlinux.sys in a subdirectory, pass the -d
          directory option to the SYSLINUX installer.

          This work was sponsored by slax.org (thanks, Tomas!)
        * New API call: read disk.
        * Invoke ONERROR on initrd load failure.

Changes in 3.31:
        * The simple menu system (menu.c32 and vesamenu.c32) now
          support loading more than one configuration file at a time,
          using MENU INCLUDE or by specifying multiple filenames.
        * The MENU COLOR statement can now control the shadowing mode.

Changes in 3.30:
        * libcom32 extended to support graphics mode and graphical console.
        * vesamenu.c32, new graphical version of the Simple
          Menu System, see README.menu.
        * New com32 modules by Erwan Velu do selection based on CPUID
          or PCI devices present.
        * RPM spec: add syslinux-tftpboot module; move syslinux by
          default to the /usr/share/syslinux directory.
        * RPM spec: extlinux is now a separate package.

Changes in 3.20:
        * EXTLINUX: New options --install (-i) and --update (-U), to
          make it clear if a boot loader should be installed or
          updated.  For now, defaults to --install for compatibility;
          a future version will require one of these options.
        * New library functions to load and place files in memory.
        * mboot.c32 bug fixes.
        * Remove 8 MB kernel size restriction.
        * Add "klibc" target for building unix/syslinux and
          extlinux/extlinux with klcc (klibc-1.4.27 or later.)
        * PXELINUX: Fail (and eventually reboot) if no configuration
          file was found.
        * COM32 module by Erwan Velu to make decisions based on DMI
          info.
        * Fix issue where going back and forth between menus a lot
          would cause a hang.
        * ISOLINUX: Fix bug which made "cd boot sectors" not work.

Changes in 3.11:
        * MEMDISK: Fix bug by which accessing the real floppy disk
          as B: in MS-DOS was broken.
        * Simple menu system: allow tweaking of the screen layout.
        * Simple menu system: better command-line editing, correctly
          handle command lines above 256 characters.
        * PXELINUX: revert memory allocation change that caused
          problems on some network cards.
        * MEMDISK: Try work around a bug on some BIOSes when no
          physical floppy disk is present in the system.
        * Enable the 16550A FIFOs, if present, when doing serial
          console.
        * New "totaltimeout" command establishes a timeout without
          regard for any user input.
        * Simple menu system: timeout behaviour now more in line with
          user expectations.
        * Simple menu system: "ontimeout" should now work correctly.

Changes in 3.10:
        * gcc 4.0.1 compilation fixes.
        * Add support for querying the PCI BIOS in libcom32
          (used by ethersel et al.)
        * Fix PCI handing (ethersel etc) on several old chipsets (and
          VMWare.)
        * Try to deal with systems with broken EBIOS.
        * New API call to do "localboot".
        * New API call to query features.
        * New API call to run kernel image, a lower-level call than
          "run command".  See comboot.doc.
        * Fix for bug in EBIOS code discovered by Arwin Vosselman.
        * NOESCAPE security fix.
        * Comments are now recognized even without a space following #.
        * Fix incorrect handling of mixes of entries with and without
          MENU PASSWD.
        * The idle API call now harmlessly returns failure if it is a
          no-op.  That way the caller can decide whether or not to
          bother invoking it again.
        * Temporarily disable the idle API call on PXELINUX, due to
          some platforms on which the idle API call seems to hang; this
          problem has not yet been debugged.
        * MEMDISK: the handling of DOSEMU-headered images was broken;
          fix it.
        * EXTLINUX: symlinks are now supported.
        * Simple menu system: N and P now work correctly as hotkeys.
        * MEMDISK: more BIOS bug workarounds.

Changes in 3.09:
        * gcc4 compilation fix.
        * <BEL> (Ctrl-G) in message files now causes a beep.
        * Reduce the command line to 511 characters; 1023 caused
          memory overflows.

Changes in 3.08:
        * SYSLINUX: Fix performance regression (-s mode always
          enabled.)
        * Add API function for idle loop.
        * libutil: Add do_idle() function for idle loop, make
          get_key() use it.
        * libutil: Add SHA-1 and base64 functions.
        * Simple menu system: add password support.
        * EXTLINUX: Sparse files now handled correctly.
        * EXTLINUX: Large directories now handled correctly.
        * ALL: At the prompt, Ctrl-X now forces text mode.
        * Fix configuration file parsing error, that could cause
          hangs.
        * Rewritten advanced menuing system from Murali Ganapathy.
        * MEMDISK: New "bigraw" mode to work around certain broken
          BIOS flash programs.
        * COM32 module to boot Multiboot systems, including Xen.  See
          com32/modules/mboot.doc.
        * Max command line changed to 1023 characters.  Note that the
          kernel proper still can only handle 255 characters without
          patching, and COM16 binaries can only handle 125 characters.

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.