1 Starting with 1.47, changes marked with SYSLINUX/PXELINUX/ISOLINUX
2 apply to that specific program only; other changes apply to all of
6 * ALL: Reclaim even more low memory by observing that
7 comboot_seg == real_mode_seg is perfectly fine, and by the
8 fact that the 1000h segment managed to get unused in all
10 * PXELINUX: Attempt to negotiate full Ethernet-sized blocks
11 (1468 bytes) using the blksize option.
12 * SYSLINUX: Resurrect the old no-mtools version of the
13 installer, although as a root-only tool. Some distributors
14 have indicated that they need a small standalone installer.
15 * MEMDISK: Fix a memory offset computation error when
16 installing compressed disks which generally would cause
17 1 MB of memory to be wasted.
18 * MEMDISK: Fix installing the E820 memory map. Calling
19 INT 15h AX=0E820h with MEMDISK 2.03 loaded would give a
20 completely corrupt memory map.
23 * Actually support comment lines in the configuration file.
24 * PXELINUX: Try to resolve some problems with stack switches.
25 * PXELINUX: Handle PXE stacks with broken routing.
26 With these workarounds, the remote install PXE boot floppy
27 (rbfg.exe) from Argon Technologies should work correctly.
28 * Fix problems with Perl scripts in UTF-8 locales.
29 * You probably need NASM 0.98.34 or later to compile this
30 version. 0.98.36 is recommended.
31 * MEMDISK: Now supports gzip compressed images.
34 * SYSLINUX: Security flaws have been found in the SYSLINUX
35 installer when running setuid root. Rewrite the SYSLINUX
36 installer so it uses mtools instead. It therefore now
37 requires mtools (specifically mcopy and mattrib) to exist on
38 your system, but it will not require root privileges and
42 * MEMDISK: Fix memory sizing bug when the ramdisk crosses the
44 * MEMDISK: Add a "pause" option to stop immediately before
45 booting, to read off the messages.
46 * MEMDISK: Support disk images with DOSEMU headers.
47 * Update the mkdiskimage script to handle newer mtools
48 versions, and be able to generate disk images with DOSEMU
49 headers (controlled by the -d option).
50 * Fix the COM32 sample program.
51 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix some COMBOOT API calls.
53 * Build SYSLINUX into a small library for encapsulation into
54 other programs (however, please keep in mind this is a GPL'd
56 * SYSLINUX: Make installer work with "owner" in /etc/fstab.
57 * SYSLINUX: Fix issue with working on nonpartitioned hard disk
58 devices. THIS CONFIGURATION IS NOT RECOMMENDED.
61 * ALL: Add support for "COM32" (32-bit COMBOOT) images.
62 * ALL: Add an API for COMBOOT/COM32 images. See comboot.doc
63 for details. There is a C development environment for
64 COM32 being created; it should be ready at some point in
66 * Fix mbr.asm so that it actually works.
67 * SYSLINUX: The syslinux installer *SHOULD* now be safe to
69 * PXELINUX: Fix bug where PXELINUX would override random
70 chunks of the UNDI code segment! Thanks to Kevin Tran for
72 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug related to slashes in pathnames.
73 * ISOLINUX: Fix a bug in handling initrds over 128 MB.
74 * ALL: Make the <Ctrl-V> key print out the version; this is
76 * Add a small script, mkdiskimage, to create a DOS-formatted
77 hard disk image using mtools. This may be useful in
78 conjunction with MEMDISK.
79 * ISOLINUX: Search for a /boot/isolinux directory as well as
81 * ALL: Fix a bug related to very long configuration files.
82 * PXELINUX: Work around a NASM bug which would result in no
83 delay before reset if an error occurs.
86 * ISOLINUX: Remove code no longer used which caused hangs on
90 * ALL: NASM 0.98.32 or later is now required to build
91 SYSLINUX from sources.
92 * SYSLINUX: put back in the workaround for the BIOS floppy
93 table. This seems to be a requirement for "extended" floppy
94 formats to work correctly.
95 * SYSLINUX: No longer warn if one is trying to boot on a 286
96 or older. The above BIOS workaround no longer fits if the
97 requirement to use only 8086-compatible code in the early
98 boot is maintained. It made sense in 1994, but in 2002 a
99 286 or older is a museum object.
100 * SYSLINUX: Use a downright bizarre, stateful algorithm to try
101 to guess the maximum transfer size. I am *hoping* this will
102 cut down on the number of systems for which -s is required
103 to work at any acceptable speed.
104 * ISOLINUX: Add a few more workarounds for various broken El
106 * Make sure .depend files aren't accidentally packed...
107 * ALL: Fix bugs in the extension-detect code; this caused
108 files like COMBOOT images and CD boot sectors to be
109 mis-identified as Linux kernels and rejected.
110 * ALL: Fix the return from COMBOOT.
111 * ALL: Do some of the early groundwork for supporting DOS
112 system calls in COMBOOT.
113 * Get rid of unnecessary "near" directives, making the code
115 * PXELINUX: Put the PXE stack back in the init state before
116 invoking a chain-loaded NBP.
117 * PXELINUX: Actually found the combination of calls that
118 allows some (most?) PXE 2+ stacks to be unloaded from memory
120 * PXELINUX: Add "keeppxe" command-line option to disable
121 the standard unloading of the PXE stack.
124 * SYSLINUX: fix bug that would cause valid kernel images to be
128 * Work on removing gratuitous differences between modules.
129 * Break up the source in common and module-specific files.
130 * PXELINUX: Allow chaining of other PXE NBPs.
131 * ISOLINUX: Allow loading "CD-ROM boot sectors".
132 * ALL: generalize the definition of a boot sector/NBP.
135 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Fix bugs in the new core code.
138 * Fix a "brown paper bag" class bug in the new core code.
141 * Major code restructuring.
142 * Relax the conventional memory limits somewhat.
143 * MEMDISK: Set up the "version number string" pointer in the
145 * SYSLINUX: Fix, again, "the bug that won't die": the use of
146 the offset parameter with the SYSLINUX installer.
147 * SYSLINUX: Fix possible superblock corruption problem in the
151 * Handle bug in the location of initrd.
154 * MEMDISK: Make compile with newer versions of gcc.
157 * ISOLINUX: Support booting disk image files (to boot DOS or
158 other non-Linux operating systems), *IF* the BIOS works
159 correctly; unfortunately many BIOSes apparently don't.
160 * Support Linux boot protocol version 2.03 (explicitly
161 specify the initrd address limit.)
162 * Handle small "pseudo-kernels"; images that use the Linux
163 kernel boot protocols but are less than 64K in size.
164 * MEMDISK: New subsystem; this is a driver which allows
165 legacy OSes to boot using an in-memory simulated disk.
166 See memdisk/memdisk.doc for more info.
167 * PXELINUX, ISOLINUX: Correctly handle files larger than 65535
168 blocks (32 MB for PXELINUX, 128 MB for ISOLINUX.)
169 * PXELINUX: Make a best-effort attempt at freeing all memory
170 claimed. From the looks of it, it will fail on most PXE
174 * Limited support for hardware flow control when using a
176 * Support specifying the serial port I/O address explicitly.
177 * Make DOS installer hopefully behave more nicely when used on
178 recent Windows versions.
179 * Fix returning to text mode when a font has been specified.
180 * Attempt to detect missing serial port hardware and disable
181 the serial port if there is nothing there.
184 * Make the ppmtolss16 program handle color conversion more
186 * Clean up "make install" target, honour INSTALLROOT if it
188 * SYSLINUX: Fix stack-smash bug identified by Steffen
190 * Hopefully fix return-to-text-mode on some graphics cards.
191 * ISOLINUX: Bug workaround for Award BIOS 4.51, and perhaps
192 other buggy BIOSes as well.
195 * PXELINUX: Allow the DHCP server to override the
196 configuration file name and pathname prefix, using
197 "site-specific" DHCP options.
198 * PXELINUX: Documentation fixes.
199 * PXELINUX: Fix the "ipappend" option; the last two values
200 were reversed vs. what the kernel expected.
201 * Introduce a way to return to text mode once we are already
202 in graphics mode. This may be useful for F-key help
204 * Fix several bugs in the way return to text mode was handled.
207 * ISOLINUX: Support full pathname searches. Max length for a
208 pathname is 255 characters. As a result, only 64 "label"
209 statements are supported in ISOLINUX.
210 * PXELINUX: Max filename length extended to 63 characters.
213 * Add support for graphical splash screens.
214 * Add mode control characters, which allows you to control
215 message display output depending on output mode (text,
216 graphics, or serial port.)
217 * ISOLINUX: New program, which boots Linux from a CD-ROM
218 without using floppy emulation mode. See isolinux.doc for
220 * PXELINUX: Don't search for boot sector file types, since
221 they don't work anyway.
222 * SYSLINUX: Document the LOCK command for Win9x, and the error
223 dialog box for WinNT/2K.
226 * PXELINUX: Fix code for finding !PXE from PXENV+. This was
227 due to a spec bug; match the most recent spec since that
228 seems to be what implementations actually do.
229 * SYSLINUX: Add some smarts to the boot sector, which
230 hopefully should reduce the number of systems which require
231 stupid mode ("syslinux -s").
232 * PXELINUX: Document further some of the pathologies with old
234 * When specifying a "default" command line, no longer
235 automatically appent "auto". See the "DEFAULT" command in
236 syslinux.doc for more information.
237 * PXELINUX: Clean up the allocation of local socket numbers.
240 * PXELINUX: Rename pxelinux.bin to pxelinux.0, to match what
241 most PXE servers seem to expect.
242 * PXELINUX: Update the DHCP/boot server setup documentation.
243 * PXELINUX: Support new "localboot" option for "label"
245 * PXELINUX: More robust parsing of DHCP/boot server packets.
246 * PXELINUX: Include a small utility program "gethostip" to
247 compute hexadecimal IP addresses.
250 * PXELINUX: Fix bugs introduced by new A20 code. (SYSLINUX
251 has also been changed for code consistency reasons, but I'm
252 pretty sure the changes are don't care on SYSLINUX.)
253 * Documentation updates.
254 * PXELINUX: Add "ipappend" option to generate an ip= option to
258 * PXELINUX: Not all PXE stacks fill in the IP address for a
259 type 3 cached info query. Use a type 2 cached info query
260 for this information (only.)
261 * Yet another attempt at A20 coding. Now support BIOS call
262 15:2401 as well, and handle machines which always have A20
264 * Support memory detection using INT 15h, AX=0E820h. BIOS
265 manufacturers have apparently gotten sloppy about keeping
266 INT 15h, AX=0E801h working properly.
267 * Don't issue <CR><LF> onto the serial port when we're doing
271 * Yet another A20-code update. It seems some "legacy-free"
272 machines and embedded gear simply don't have a KBC to talk
273 to, and that waiting for one will wait forever. Sigh.
276 * SYSLINUX: Implement a hack for BIOS drivers which hog significant
277 chunks of low memory during boot. (Note: PXELINUX already
278 had this modification. SYSLINUX does still require that the
279 low 512K is available; PXELINUX requires 384K. Machines
280 with a physical memory hole in the low 640K cannot boot
281 Linux no matter what.) Depending what the reason is for the
282 memory hole, a new kernel (2.4.0-test3-pre3 or later) may be
284 * SYSLINUX: Default installer binary now compiled against
285 glibc 2.1. If this is inappropriate for your system and you
286 still want to use the offical version of SYSLINUX, please
287 follow the instructions in "distrib.doc" to rebuild the
289 * SYSLINUX: Linux installer program now supports -o <offset>
290 option which does a loopback mount with the
291 -o loop,offset=<> option. Useful to run SYSLINUX on an
292 individual partition of a whole-harddisk image.
293 * Include the source code to a Master Boot Record (MBR)
294 functionally equivalent to the one installed DOS except it
295 includes EBIOS support, and should be resistant to geometry
296 changes. The MBR code is public domain.
297 * PXELINUX: Fix "double p" bug: if the tftp prefix was null,
298 all filenames would get a "p" preprended, e.g.
299 "ppxelinux.cfg" and "pvmlinux".
302 * PXELINUX: Workaround for PXE ROMs based on the Intel PXE PDK
303 3.0 build 071 and earlier: missing !PXE structure pointer.
304 * PXELINUX: Handle larger BOOTP/DHCP packages.
305 * PXELINUX: The command line passing was broken; fix.
306 * PXELINUX: Make COMBOOT images work.
307 * PXELINUX: Documentation on how to make booting work using
308 the PDK 3.0-derived clients, which aren't so generous as to
309 allow booting with only "PXEClient" specified.
312 * PXELINUX: RFC 1123 states that a TFTP implementation MUST
313 use adaptive timeout, "at least an exponential backoff of
314 retransmission timeout is necessary." Implement a very
315 simple exponential backoff for retransmits.
316 * PXELINUX: Updated documentation, including pointer to new
318 * PXELINUX: When sending ERROR due to bad OACK, use the proper
319 destination port number (why are TFTP port numbers so odd?)
320 * PXELINUX: If the boot dies in the middle somewhere,
321 eventually give up and reset the machine (unattended
325 * New program PXELINUX to do network booting using a
326 PXE-compliant (Pre-Execution Environment) network booting
327 PROM. See pxelinux.doc for details.
330 * Serial console support. See syslinux.doc for details.
333 * Change HIGHMEM_MAX to 38000000h to (hopefully) avoid the
334 kernel stepping on it; 3f000000h was apparently a higher
335 limit than the kernel used!
338 * Add sys2ansi.pl script to display the contents of a
339 colorized SYSLINUX file.
340 * Changed the io_delay once again, after a report that the
341 old delay port causes hangs on some systems.
344 * Frob the "fast A20 gate" port as well as the keyboard
345 controller; will this help systems with problems?
346 * Be even more paranoid about A20, unfortunately even this
347 seems to be not paranoid enough... what I don't understand
348 is that if there is hardware out there *this broken*, how
349 can it run Linux at all? Report an error message rather
350 than hang forever if A20 is stuck.
351 * Include some intermediate files in the distribution, plus
352 provide a "make installer" target for distributors to relink
353 the install programs only. I would prefer the syslinux boot
354 loader proper to be "binary clean" for debuggablity -- use
355 "make clean ; make installer" to rebuild the installers only.
358 * Don't get confused by directories, volume labels, or VFAT
360 * Use INT 15h, AX=0E801h to query memory size before trying
361 INT 15h, AH=88h. This not only provides more headroom
362 between the kernel and the initrd on large-memory machines,
363 but it appears some recent BIOSes actually have started
364 returning garbage for the AH=88h (older) call.
365 * Trust high memory beyond the 15 MB mark if the user has
366 specified it, or if obtained with INT 15h, AH=0E801h (with
367 no memory holes above 1 MB.)
370 * Increase A20M delay and put in a test to avoid problems on
371 certain IBM Thinkpads (thanks to Donnie Barnes of RedHat
372 for vital info on this one.)
373 * Support COMBOOT style boot command images.
374 * Support chain loading (foreign operating systems, e.g. DOS).
375 * Include a new "copybs" DOS utility to copy a boot sector to
376 a file (under Linux, use "dd".)
377 * Fix the DOS installer to work for disks over 32 MB.
378 * SYSLINUX should now handle disks with more than 65536 tracks.
381 * Fix a bug that caused "label" statements in syslinux.cfg to
382 not be handled properly.
383 * Updated the documentation. Among other things, we now allow
384 up to 128 "label" statements.
387 * Fix for booting old (pre-initrd) kernels.
388 * It seems at least some versions of OS/2 doesn't set up all
389 the fields in the superblock correctly. Account for that.
390 * Fix bug that caused boot failure when using the mem= option.
393 * Loading from partitions now should work properly. (Actually
394 tested, this time. You should even be able to dd a floppy
395 to a partition and boot from it.)
396 * Removed large workaround code for an alleged ancient BIOS
397 bug I have never actually seen. The -s option should work
398 on those machines, anyway.
399 * Support for simple keyboard remappings, same as used by
400 LILO (once again to support localization.) The program
401 keytab-lilo.pl from the LILO distribution included to
403 * Added a "safe, slow and stupid" (-s) option to the
404 installers. This option will lobotomize the boot sector to
405 hopefully work on even very buggy BIOSes.
408 * Ability to load a VGA font on bootup (for localized Linux
412 * Bug fix in the Linux installer.
413 * Added a workaround for a bug in certain AMI/Intel BIOSes
414 when booting from CD-ROM.
415 * Documentation changes.
418 * FAT16 filesystems are now supported.
421 * Now compiles under Linux, using NASM, rather than using
422 Turbo Assembler under DOS. See http://www.cryogen.com/Nasm
423 for information about NASM.
424 * Linux-hosted SYSLINUX installer, as well as a
425 rewritten DOS installer (now is written in assembler, so we
429 * Added support for loading bzImage and initrd loading, and made
430 SYSLINUX new-setup-code aware (SYSLINUX 1.30 id=0x31).
431 * Added LILO-style kernel labels; see the LABEL and IMPLICIT
432 keywords in README file.
433 * Added support for colorization of intro and help screens.
434 * The vga= option is now handled correctly.
435 * Massive rewrite of large chunks of the code in order to
436 support the first two new features.
439 * Added simple online help at the "boot:" prompt.
440 * Removed 2880K image as I no longer have access to such a
441 floppy drive. (Donations accepted!!)
442 * Decided to distribute the source in a subdirectory rather
443 than in a nested zipfile.
446 * Removed a sanity check which would cause booting to fail on
447 Phoenix BIOS version 4.03. Apparently this BIOS is buggy.
450 * Added configuration file SYSLINUX.CFG. This file contains all
451 configurable options, and can be edited from any OS which can
452 access an MS-DOS filesystem; there is no longer a need to run
453 SYSLINUX.EXE except to write the boot sector.
454 * Default command line now given by "default" line in config
456 * LINUXMSG.TXT and BOOTMSG.TXT hard-coded file names replaced by
457 "display" and "prompt" lines in config file.
458 * LILO-style option appending now supported ("append" line in
460 * Prompt timeout is now supported ("timeout" line in config
461 file). The timeout is cancelled when anything is typed on the
463 * Pressing <ESC> or <Ctrl-C> at the Loading... stage now aborts
464 the kernel loading in progress and returns the user to the
466 * The installer now automatically sets the READONLY flag on
468 * Added 2880K disk image.
471 * Fixed bug that would prevent booting from double-density
472 floppies and other DOS filesystems with multiple sectors per
474 * Added 720K disk image.
475 * Changed default kernel name on disk images to LINUX.
478 * Fixed bug that would garble the command line on recent kernels
479 with more than 4 sectors of setup code (this wasn't really a
480 *bug*; rather, a kernel change broke the code. Unfortunately
481 the Linux boot interface is still sorely undocumented).
482 * Added BOOTMSG.TXT file support (message file which does not
483 force display of the boot prompt).
486 * Fixed bug on some (most?) 386 BIOSes would require two boot